How prevalent is radical feminism’s misandry problem?

I’m not a card-carrying feminist, but more of the accidental feminist variety.  I’d reluctantly gone to two women’s lib meetings when I was at CU, and thought: meh; how very revolutionary to burn yer bras.  The accidental part concerns the fact that I labored in many traditionally ‘male only’ venues: construction crews, learned carpentry, worked ‘maintenance’ for the City of Cortez to make enough money to go to massage therapy school, later built a house with Mr. wd, learned to lay river rock,  cold-chisel paving stones, and all that.  I got my first construction job after being pinched in bum by some asshat where I was waiting tables in Breckenridge, CO; I said fukkit, threw my apron on the bar, and got the hell outta there.

Luckily, Mr. wd is also by way of an accidental feminist, and taught me a few more tricks of the trade when we built our house, and was hired by a number of lesbian couples to build their houses, and most especially to teach them and their female friends how to build: plumb, square, measure, cut, and fasten.  When I found a vintage T-shirt with the logo above in our local thrift store a decade ago, he had a hella lot of fun wearing it.

But more seriously, when I read the following exposé, it nearly blew the top of my head off.  I’m not on Facebook, so I can’t peek in to any of the following on Julian Vigo’s page even if I knew which one of the dozen were hers.  But I do trust that all of the conversations actually happened.  What I’d like to know is if readers have any idea how ubiquitous this ‘radical feminist misandry’ has become.  Unless I miss my guess, it pre-dated the #MeToo movement having gone full-tilt McCarthy wild, but…easily my guess may be wrong.

From ‘The Spawn: Feminism’s Misandry Problem’, Julian Vigo, counterpunch, March 30, 2018

“According to Greek myth, the King of the Titans, Cronus (Latin: Saturnus), heard a prophecy that one of his children would overthrow him.  In response to this prophecy, Cronus, father to the gods Demeter, Hestia, Hera, Hades and Poseidon by Rhea, devoured his children as soon as they were born to prevent his loss of power.  Zeus narrowly escaped this fate as Zeus’ mother fed Cronus a rock dressed in baby clothes which Cronus assumed was his.”

“Through artistic representation, the myth of Cronus has come to be understood as a conflict between youth and old age in addition to those with power who fear losing it to the younger generations.

This story of Cronus is what came to mind this past week when I found myself set upon by dozens of so-called “radical feminists.”  I am obliged to put this term in quotation marks to refer to these women since this brand of radical feminism seems to have been hijacked by individuals who are very much out of touch with what feminism is about (eg. women), much less anything related to the tenets of radical feminism.   By all accounts from what I have witnessed this past week, what these women believe to be feminism is merely a vindictive table-turning of history, dare I say a buffet of those women who are in any way tainted by their proximity to the male body—especially those women who have not spawned Satan’s seed: the male child.”

The author writes that the beginning of this high-octane contretemps occurred when she’d been considering going to a feminist even this summer, and given that she’s a single parent with two small children, she’d written to the organizers asking if she could bring them along, especially as it wasn’t local, so would involve more than a single day.

“This is the exchange I posted on my Facebook wall:
 ‘I just received this as an email for a “feminist” event:

“It is a female-only space so we do not allow male children.”

My response: “You have just written the most fucked up email I have ever received in my life. Happy not to attend. Wow!!!”

From this post I received comments like, “Why is that fucked up?” where I was expected to explain to an adult female who considers herself a feminist why barring a two-year old because he is male might present a moral problem for any group which not only calls itself “feminist” but which seeks to liberate all females from sex-based oppression whereby the mothers of these children are necessarily excluded.  The irony in posing such a question made my head reel, but no sooner could I realize the incongruence of this assertion did another woman write, “I actually don’t understand, either. I’m not being snarky. I really don’t see why it’s wrong to have female-only spaces.”  I had to underscore many times in these conversations that my objection had to do with being asked not to bring a two-year-old male to a feminist event, not the fact that, as per many social events, children in general were not welcome. My disagreement had nothing to do with “female-only spaces,” but dealt with the more serious matter of excluding small male bodies because of some deeply prejudiced views of males from birth.

Vigo writes that she proceeded to inform these women that she’d had to quit various Facebook groups in the past because some feminists had actually promoted the abortion of male fetuses to counter the injustices of historical femicide and misogyny.  Apparently she wrote that barring male children from the event was analogous to that sort of eugenicsism, and protested the ‘demonization’ of male bodies as a political strategy, and good on her!

“I even, somewhat ironically, invoked the term “feminazi” demonstrating how a word so often misused by men’s rights activists, actually makes sense in this specific context of willing and orchestrating away males as a class, all under the guise of “safe spaces.”  Certainly, “female-only spaces” is the lie these “feminists” tell themselves to commit to an essentialism of male guilt through birth.

Some women chimed in stating that small boys under five should be acceptable to bring, but such sentiments were rarely allowed to remain unchallenged with others angrily writing about male babies “tak[e] the attention from their mothers,” that female babies “deserve to have female-only spaces,” that “[w]omen have the right to not want penis-having people of any age, in a group or gathering,” and one woman even maintained that young boys “absorb misogyny.”  It is as if these women emerged from medieval alchemy whereby the site of evil, the male as misogyny par excellence, is the contagion and not the social and political structures into which we are all inculcated.” [snip]

“And then things went off the rails.  And when I say “off the rails” I mean Cronos eating all of his children in one spoonful off the rails.

Here are a few disgusting (and bogus in the extreme) examples she narrated:

‘5 year olds, and even toddlers rape’; ‘a 2-year-old my feminist friend was baby-sitting grabbed at our breasts with a creepy smile on his face, as in sexist-creepy objectification of women’.

Now a rational person might conclude that a two-year-old had been imagining breasts as a source of nourishment, not sexual conquest/objectification, but how very Freudian Oedipal Complex of them, speaking of Patriarchs…

As Vigo had tried to dialogue with the various misandrists, while noting that feminism about (institutionalized, I’d say) structuralism, not individuals, she was subjected to accusations of ‘patriarchy 2.0, such as ‘the mothers of males exulting in their privilege’; ‘the world is being destroyed by males, and we’re running out of time!’; and her being an example of ‘the cult of motherhood worship’; and as for being ‘hand-maidens for patriarchy sympathizing with their natural attachment ‘to our male offspring which clouded our ability to “sympathize” with women who wanted no “penis-bodied” individuals in their midst’; and my paraphrasing of a UK feminist she’d met with in , bringing her chirren along: ‘you must have been raped to have birthed these spawns of the devil’.

“Apparently there is a whole mini-cult of these “feminists” who pop about the Internet to inform women that all males are tyrannical, to include boys.  A few such feminists have actually written a book about how males are “inherently dangerous” with a chapter entitled, “Boys Oppress All Females.”  The authors of this text promote the belief that males are naturally oppressive, noting that giving birth does not mean that a female is not “bringing another rapist into the world” and ”that no matter what you do, if you have a boy, he will likely terrorize and assault girls and, later, adult women and Lesbians, and likely will be a rapist.” This text is comedy gold!”

Ack!  So Judas Priest, I say let’s go full-tilt King Herod on them, let the gods sort it out later.

The irony of demanding a space free of wee penises where “women could freely love women” wasn’t lost on her.  She did spend many further paragraphs noting the solidarity she’d received from like-minded women after the hideous kerfuffle.  As in: feminism is a political theory, not a revenge action against males.  She finishes with:

“This off-label brand of radical feminism has driven away women because of its very internalized hatred of men—women who are polluted by their physical proximity to males, reproduction, and their male children. Such political narratives fracture any sense of solidarity and ultimately prevent any type of revolutionary action.  We’ve seen this story before–and it isn’t a political narrative. It’s a religion.”

(cross-posted from café babylon)

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strollingone's picture

of the Salem witches.

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wendy davis's picture

@strollingone

in the court of public opinion, i tend to agree. as in: 'if you float, you're not a witch/rapist/molester'. i dunno how many convicted by the washington post have asked for their day/s in court, but (actor) geoffrey rush is the sole one that wsws has reported doing so.

but as i'd said, i dunno that this male-hating, spawn of satan, ugliness hadn't pre-dated #meToo. sorry to be so long; we're having wifi problems.

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strollingone's picture

@wendy davis
First one, then the other. Hopefully, enough of us will get perspective on this stuff this time around so that it can become an upward spiral rather than a closed circle. In both cases, humans were unjustly accused and deprived of reputation, liberty, and livelihood in the court of public opinion with only the thinnest veil of legal trappings. In both cases, the court that tried them was so poisoned by ideological fervor that it was not possible to be heard in rebuttal to the charges made…almost all of which were anecdotal and some of which were twenty years old. In both cases, the accusations were occasioned not by an interest in Truth, or Justice, or the American Way, but much more out of envy, spite, and political pandering.

As humans, we are all aware of our own proclivity for embellishing memories and for replacing the ones that do not quite illustrate our point for those which do so. We are all aware of instances where a person reasoned that even though the story they were telling did not actually happen to them, it is well known that it has happened to others who are too frightened to speak out so it is their duty to speak out for them. If we know these things about ourselves should we assume that others are not doing it as well? And especially during a time of intense emotional flux? The residue of the Salem witch hunt has festered in the American psyche for 325 years. It is good and right and healthy that it be expelled, but should that action be just another round in a never-ending saga?

Yes, white males are responsible for the rape and plunder of our planet, our principles, and our people. They would have it no other way. Is the appropriate response merely more of the same? Or is it something else entirely? Something, perhaps, that females are directly plugged into. If there is only a modicum of truth in what is said between females regarding the pitiful ease with which males can be manipulated, then how long should it take them to stop all bombing, all starvation, all war? I believe that there is much truth in those observations and that when the women finally get around to it, it shouldn’t take more than a week. The white males have had their way and now they are turning out the lights. Please don’t wait too long.

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wendy davis's picture

@strollingone

and justice, nor ‘democracy for all’, but that’s a whole ‘nother conversation. but the political pandering was epic, especially as the democrat papers of record bringing it all...had nothing but that and russia gate by mueller, and of course: trump exposés with anonymous quotes as well.

i hear you on embellishments and fabrications, but as i remember it, according to wsws many, if not most of the accusations had been anonymous. yes, they may have been channeling what their friends had said about mr. X, Y, or Z, easily. i remember that after the pink pussyhat march on deecee (and other cities) women, including two of my in-laws saying that they’d felt ‘so empowered!’ when i’d asked how...they’d had no follow-up, so i dunno.

i’d like to think that there might be some upward spiral to all this eventually, and it may be by way or a never-ending saga. yeah, white males have made a mess o’ things, but if we’re speaking of elected leaders, including around the globe, plenty of the female ones have proven much the same. now i’ve taken a hella lot of smacks over the years due to my fairly fervent hope that ordinary third-world indigenous, especially women, would see us out of the current devolutionary morass. but the lights are about to go out on this empire, maybe all over the world, and as ajamu baraka had intoned, the next iteration of the ‘farce on washington’ may already be baked in.

thanks for bringing the analogy to the salem witch trials, and for such a considered comment.

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TheOtherMaven's picture

@wendy davis

Several of them were men, including an ordained minister(!)

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.

Strife Delivery's picture

@strollingone

Yes, white males are responsible for the rape and plunder of our planet, our principles, and our people. They would have it no other way.

Yeah, I'm going to be blunt here. This comment can just fuck off. Seriously.

What a disgusting, evil, and toxic thing to say.

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strollingone's picture

@Strife Delivery @Strife Delivery
and saying so must reflect as much. And unnecessary as well. Which part do you deny?

A.) we do not live in a world of hurt, a world where the vast majority are deliberately caused to live in hunger, deprivation, and pain; or

B.) White males were not in charge of everything that got us here...you must identify with them as you have one on your avatar.

My comment steadfastly refuses to fuck off and respectfully requests a response to the above question.

It's 2018. Do you know who your country is bombing?

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Strife Delivery's picture

@strollingone Yeah this is a heaping pile of garbage and some pseudo-psychoanalysis.

Which part do you deny?

A.) we do not live in a world of hurt, a world where the vast majority are deliberately caused to live in hunger, deprivation, and pain; or

B.) White males were not in charge of everything that got us here...you must identify with them as you have one on your avatar.

My comment steadfastly refuses to fuck off and respectfully requests a response to the above question.

It's 2018. Do you know who your country is bombing?

A) Not denying this. Welcome to capitalism.

B) Denying this one. In fact this one is horrendous pseudo-intellectual garbage through and through.

I must identify with white males because I have one as my avatar? Wow, that's fucking pathetic. So... If I had an avatar of MLK I identify as a black man? If I had one of Yoko Ono that means I identify as a Japanese woman? Or better yet, if I had one of Garfield I must identify as a lasagna-loving cat. A person's avatar does not have to have anything to do with the physical features of that person or what they identify with.

To you, everything wrong that has culminated to this point is due to white men. What a wonderfully racial-and-sexual deterministic viewpoint. It is simply due to the evil nature of white men themselves that has brought us here today. You're nothing more than a vile racist spewing hate at someone simply because of their skin color.

I guess when Imperialist Japan went on the warpath throughout Southeast Asia, raping, torturing, and killing people it must mean that the Japanese people at their very core must be awful people.

I guess when black Barack Obama destroyed Libya, causing the Libyan people to be sold into slavery by other said POC, that must be because at a genetic level that black people are bad right?

I guess when Saudia Arabia tortures and slaughters people in their country, it must be because those brown men are just bad, right?

Unlike you, I don't condemn someone simply because of their skin color. Unlike you, I don't look at a group of people and find that the link between them that caused them to do X action was because of their skin color. And unlike you, I don't place people in a hierarchy based on their skin color.

Of course, someone can play the same game as you. I imagine just looking around your own home that the vast majority of all inventions that exist around you were created by white men. The physics of electricity of DC and AC, modern medicine, the combustion engine, mathematics, biology, chemistry, and on and on and on. But I don't play that game. I don't take odd pride that white men made them. I never met them. I have no relation to them except that they have a dick and they are white. They are human inventions that pushed humanity forward. But, if you want to place advancements of humanity under categories such as by race and/or gender, well go for it too.

What exactly about white men that lead us to this point?

Climate change? Not at all exclusive to white men but of course you'll throw that at them. China seems to have no problem polluting and destroying the environment. Imperialist Japan wanted oil to fuel their Empire. You don't see the Middle East ceasing all oil production to stop the CO2 emissions.

Imperialism/War? There are very few, if any, groups of individuals on this planet who have not waged war on another group of individuals. Imperial Japan, Mongolians, Persians, Timurids, Aztecs, various Native American tribes, Europe, Romans, Egypt, etc. So by no means a unique feature of the human race here. Many of these wars were for resources such as land, so regarding plundering again not at all unique to white men. Even look in the modern world. Didn't see Colin Powell objecting to the Iraq war; in fact he went along and supported the lies. Come on, he was black. Barack Obama went from 2 wars to 7. How come he didn't stop them. He wasn't white. Oh wait, he is half white so I guess the white half must have forced him to do it right? You see the Saudis supporting terrorism around the Middle East and around the world.

Economics/Capitalism: Again, not a unique feature of white men. Number 2 on the economy scale is China, who seem to have no problem utilizing a state-capitalist system.

Cruelty and evil aren't exclusive to any singular group of individuals. People can impose their rule through power, technology, and or numbers. Japan did this cruising through Southeast Asia. Egypt did this against the Jewish people. China did this to their own people.

You could flip the races of the people around the world, giving them the advantages that each group had and the end result would follow similar trajectories. But I doubt that fits the narrative you are going for.

It's 2018. Do you know who your country is bombing?

This has nothing to do with the point at hand. America is bombing and conducting warfare on a lot of nations. This didn't change under Obama. In fact, he increased the devastation. It definitely would not have changed under Hillary.

My comment steadfastly refuses to fuck off and respectfully requests a response to the above question.

No, there is nothing respectful here. Condemning an individual simply because of their race is something I do not condone. I will not show respect to someone who has such racist viewpoints. I will leave it at that.

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edg's picture

Maybe after the US and Russia nuke humankind into extinction, fish will evolve and take up bicycling.

Great essay. Thanks for writing it.

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wendy davis's picture

@edg

thanks, i needed the laugh. and welcome.

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I like Strollingone's comment - lots.

Mostly, "me, too" is the revenge of the Salem witches.

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

wendy davis's picture

@dkmich

vigo had written:

"So, from my original Facebook post—what I thought was the complete “out there” of feminist politics—was merely the Marco Rubio to these feminists’ Donald Trump, with this latter group exercising, in perfect congruence to the trope of “legitimized” racism towards Mexicans, the emotionally-charged branding of young male children as potential rapists."

mind-boggling claims of 'anatomy is destiny', isn't it? yeah, kill zem all!

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then you can't have an age limit.

It's not surprising, but it is a stupid waste of time and energy.

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wendy davis's picture

@gjohnsit

the total misandrists among them must reckon it's energy well-spent and some of them didn't limit their toxic take to toddlers' penises, but any of them in their midst.

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It seems there has a strain of misandry through out the feminist movement for a long time. Here is an article written in 2011:

Misandry and Hypocrisy: transcript of speech for International Women's Day.
Tuesday, 11 March 2008
http://pennyred.blogspot.com/2008/03/misandry-and-hypocrisy-transcript-o...

I have an outrageous confession to make: I like men. ...

Now, I would call myself a radical feminist, where radical implies getting to the root of the problem, picking through historical trends and working towards deep, systemic change to end gender oppression once and for all.
...
Men are not the problem. Patriarchal capitalism is the problem.

But really toddler rapists? This posits a world of absolute genetic determinism. This is the type of stuff that validates racist perspectives on inheritance of intelligence and physical traits.

There is a mirror movement among men that I discovered browsing youtube: "Men Going Their Own Way" or MGTOW. These men also think in genetically deterministic ways about woman--women were made by evolution to be gold diggers and adulterers. And they too seem to advocate a physical separation of men and women--well, at least for them personally. I remember one video where a MGTOW guy was giving his fellow travelers tutorial on how to speak to women to avoid their wily ways.

Interesting, but these MGTOW guys are celebrating #meetoo not for exposing sexual harassment but because they see it as causing men to withdraw from women for fear of false sexual accusations and exploitive entanglements.

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wendy davis's picture

@MrWebster

that robotic sex dolls are the way to go. well, buy one in every color, i guess!

thanks for the laurie penny piece. oddly enough, i think it was the very soft-spoken jonathan cook (who writes from jerusalem on I/P goings on) had responded to her on twitter. i couldn't find it again, so it may not have been he, but i finally remembered her verbiage, fwiw. and maybe he and i had been reading her wrong, but see how you take it, okay mr. webster?

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mhagle's picture

Thanks for the essay.

Negative energy. True feminism is about building and healing.

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Marilyn

"Make dirt, not war." eyo

@mhagle
In the late 70s, early 80s.

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On to Biden since 1973

@doh1304 NYC, late 60's, 70's. When Andy Warhol was shot it almost seemed a natural next step in modern feminism.

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wendy davis's picture

@Snode

'next logical step', etc., please?

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@wendy davis a lot of pretty radical feminist thinking going and when this happened, from Wikipedia.

"On June 3, 1968, radical feminist writer Valerie Solanas shot Warhol and Mario Amaya, art critic and curator, at Warhol's studio.[38] Before the shooting, Solanas had been a marginal figure in the Factory scene. She authored in 1967 the S.C.U.M. Manifesto,[39] a separatist feminist tract that advocated the elimination of men; and appeared in the 1968 Warhol film I, a Man."

and I remember it being written about (prob the Village Voice, mostly) as semi serious, do away with the cause of all the worlds problems. Solanas was pretty well known at the time because of her views, but she was also well educated.

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wendy davis's picture

@Snode

it's all new to me. SCUM manifesto, arrrgh.

"SCUM Manifesto by Valerie Solanas Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and destroy the male sex."

and my stars, there's even a film version. er...two, i guess.

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@wendy davis NYC was a pretty heady place back then. Everything was up for grabs. I don't understand how women forget their impact, from taking over every job that needed doing in WW2 to the radical political movements of the 60's. It seemed like half the Weather Undergound was made up of women, doing everything from organizing to making bombs.

Maybe that's not a good example.

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wendy davis's picture

@Snode

now 'women' over time haven't been monolithic of course, but strollingonperhaps in jest, while noting how malleable (was that the word?) men are, before lights out, the #meToo women could end war, hunger, and the woes of the world. but as far as world leaders, most of the worst women serve in the capitalist halls of power, smile.

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earthling1's picture

@doh1304
I noticed a distinct change in the way men were portrayed, as bungling, stupid, bull in a china shop, daft, butt of every joke. Mostly sitcoms with female leads, of which Rosanne Barr comes immediately to mind.
I could not stand her show for that reason.
I have not seen her new show but imagine more of the same.

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Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

thanatokephaloides's picture

@mhagle

Never encountered a group like this in person.

You are blessed! And may you so remain! I've encountered such as this to my face. Yuck.

Negative energy. True feminism is about building and healing.

And building and healing are not what the "safe space" bullshit is about. The "safe space" bullshit is all about a bunch of Injustice Collectors not wanting their narcissistic fee-fees hurt. In the cases being discussed in this Essay, the Injustice Collectors are attempting to masquerade as feminists. Over on Daily Kos, they masquerade as progressives. But it's false in both cases and for the same reasons. Like all other narcissists, the only cause they really beLIEve in is themselves.

Bad

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

wendy davis's picture

@mhagle

one is almost forced to try to imagine what might have happened to them in their lives to cause such reactionary male loathing and perceived abject victimhood.

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so I don't know if I have anything valid to say, but anything that divides us, weakens us.

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mhagle's picture

@Snode

It divides us, and it is a distraction from the important matters.

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Marilyn

"Make dirt, not war." eyo

thanatokephaloides's picture

@Snode

"anything that divides us, weakens us."

That's the bottom line right there. And it's valid regardless of the plumbing of the one telling it.

Smile

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

wendy davis's picture

@Snode

and mhagle, as to my mind that accepted 'truism' doesn't ring quite so applicable in this case. and yes, i thought it was an important enough issue to write up. i'll mull it over for a bit (in my slow-brain way), okay?

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mhagle's picture

@wendy davis

Go to the light, go to love, go to truth. Bring everyone around you to light, love, and truth.

Sounds sappy, but my wish for the outer rim feminists is that they would find light, love, and truth . . . in their deepest beings.

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Marilyn

"Make dirt, not war." eyo

wendy davis's picture

@mhagle

but it's like throwing out good energy for them into the noosphere, or collective unconscious. or a prayer to god, if one's a believer. and that's a fine idea.

the thing i'm finding hard to find the words for is: i don't see there IS a collective 'we' to divide. there isn't even a 'we the people' constitutional collective, maybe never was. but as to dividing feminists, i believe that's a Big Deal, although a café commenter said he's met this rubbish in RL in florida, and mentioned 'first and second wave feminism'. not knowing the dif, i do kinda remember 'lipstick feminism', but those waves might be in the eye of the beholder. and why i'd chosen to feature this.

i do know that julian vigo may be trans, and argues the nomenclature on twitter, but not much of it is that familiar to me. but some of it reminded me of the little homily we learned as kiddies:

'he drew a circle that shut me out
heretic rebel a thing to flout

but love and i had the wit to win...
we drew a circle that took him in'

(or close to that)

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@wendy davis @ of my commenting. I understand the right of any individual (and group) to live life as they wish, barring those that exist to do harm to others, to draw boundaries, build walls and separate if they want. I also know I will never completely understand this subject you are writing about, just because it is different from my experience. Then I get subjective. I lost friends to cults when I was younger, and this kind of reminds me of that time, the narrowness and rejection that defines how a life shall be lived. But that's really just my conceit showing.

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@Snode

valid to contribute. Being male doesn’t disqualify you from this or any topic. That’s a DailyKos ploy. If one is white and/or male, you have no opinions on women or PoC worth being heard, but PoC and women get to endlessly tell everyone what they think of white people and males.

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

@dkmich I'm learning my limits of understanding things that fundamental. Some things I can only imagine imperfectly.

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TheOtherMaven's picture

The danger lies in letting the movement be identified with, or worse yet, become, the Lunatic Fringe.

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.

wendy davis's picture

@TheOtherMaven

and may be in the end a large part of why i'd chosen to shine a light into their darkness (by way of j. vigo, of course).

when i'd been pinging about uncle zigmund's oedipal complex, i'd almost noted that it was he who'd also written a lot about 'hysteria' (from the latin or greek for uterus) as again in 'anatomy is destiny', but i did a lot of reading about the 'condition' and discovered that while he'd made his own orgasm machines in aid of the 'condition', he'd also used talk therapy and hypnosis to alleviate it (smile). his disciple carl jung later, in objection, had posited 'the electra complex'. oh, those greek playwrights!

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strollingone's picture

@wendy davis

It does a grave disservice to both men to refer to Jung as Freud's "disciple". When Jung started out there was only one school of psychiatry in the world and so everyone went there. When Jung disavowed Freud's approach as, at best, incomplete, Freud disowned him and skirmished with him at various times over the years. Not long after that Freud's other star pupil, Adler, also left Freud's school. There are very few similarities in their approaches to psychoanalysis though Jung recognized Freud's achievements at every opportunity. Freud's central theory espoused the "pleasure principle", Adler pushed the "power principle", while Jung posited the "collective unconscious" and a balance between that and the ego that he explained a s a process of "individuation". (Incidentally, "freud" means "joy", "adler" means "eagle", and Jung means "young"...ah, those Germans!)

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wendy davis's picture

@strollingone

i' just remembered it that way, although the wiki on jung has noted other earlier influences on jung. and oh my yes, also archetypes and symbols; we use to have a beautiful book showing examples and providing commentary.

but jung was swiss, freud austrian, as was wilhelm reich who'd gotten himself in a peck of trouble with his theories and practices, lol. mainly i knew him from his series on bioenergetic exercises. his acolyte cum instructor ruthie alons as i remember is (likely incorrectly) was a bit of a bully w/ students when i did some seminars. she whacked me hard on the ass, lol. 'get it up there!'

but thank you for the correction, and for mentioning adler, i know zero about him. but i did a number of jungian dream classes, as i used to be a very vivid dreamer.

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mimi's picture

just kill their fathers who made them. Sicko. I never have heard about something like it and hope these women don't exist and it's a hoax.

I would think of penis-free spaces as pretty boring. But then, YMMV.

Sigh. What's wrong with you women?

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wendy davis's picture

@mimi

doesn't one? zo...would uncle zigmund posit they were traumatized by their fathers and this is all revenge on them? or that they were ignored by their fathers in favor of their brothers?

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mimi's picture

@wendy davis
were treated by their parents or employers or teachers unequally compared to their brothers. Many of those could handle it without negating all maleness there is in the world. So, to me it's a little bizarre. That kind of revenge looks self-destructive to me. But it's not an issue I can talk about. I haven't had experiences that would lead me to such reactions, which doesn't mean they don't exist for others.

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wendy davis's picture

@mimi

faux-freuding them, really. the degree to which any of us were toxically parented and/or grandparented matters, of course, but the degree to which we worked to resolve the issues also matters. what's left unresolved, unexamined often festers and poisons us from within, coloring all we see outside ourselves...or something.

as strollingone mentioned above, one of the processes some jungian shrinks use is to guide clients to 'individuation' or the discovery of an 'authentic self' maybe...unencumbered by
the fish chowder of wounding past experiences that brewed our unconscious minds. subconscious? ah, see, i forget all of this.

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mimi's picture

@wendy davis

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I suspect the women you are referencing are not. That's really sad.

"Toleration is the greatest gift of the mind; it requires the same effort of the brain that it takes to balance oneself on a bicycle." Helen Keller

Thanks for the essay WD. I'm hoping that these folks are a teeny part of those that consider themselves feminists.

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wendy davis's picture

@peachcreek

and ain't that graphic gorgeous? i'd always seen it as a sassy declaration of female empowerment, but i reckon the mind is in the beholder, no? and it likely caused some discomfort for some men. i will say that there do seem to be all sorts of brands of feminism, at least from the education i've gotten online since i wrote a diary at the café asking questions about the #meToo movement.

one (i supposed i'd have to say now erstwhile) friend emailed me in absolute rage agreeing w/ an op-ed that pointed out some of the (cough) inconsistencies, much in the same vein as margaret atwood had. 'goddam millenials', she'd fumed, as in our friend who'd brought the piece. so yeah, maybe gender identification matters, as well. lots of rows over lesbian/trans/arguments over 'cis', etc. feminism.

and of course even NATO joined the movement via (ha and ha) angelina jolie and jens stoltenberg on the guardian and on nato on twitter. did you know that war is far worse for women?

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longtalldrink's picture

When I first read no male children, I thought they meant that only adult minded men were allowed...then I read...no, NO males were allowed.
Then I remembered the old tree houses where the sign always said "no gurls allowed" Then I remembered that there IS a term called "old boys club". Then I remembered that we are ALL human beings, and women have always shown men how to become more civilized because "behind every great man, is an exhausted woman" or something like that. And then I remembered that mother's are men's first teachers...so they should be allowed to bring male children (the grown ones also) to events with strong women so that maybe, they can learn something.

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Well done is better than well said-Ben Franklin

wendy davis's picture

thanks for the awesome discussion. sweet dreams if you can (i can't lately and may not even be learnin' from them), but tonight's sign-off lullaby, the great annie lennox:

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeMFqkcPYcg]

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