HRS

I’m afraid your morality fable about the lonely, rejected, radical factory-feminist adheres much too faithfully to backlash film and literature caricature to be believable.

Don’t tell me … let me guess. I suppose the poor, spurned bitch went out one night and made a soup out of her ex-lover’s family’s bunny and then went home to apply for a grant from a right-wing think-tank to write a book about how feminism has failed women.

BOAZ_David

‘… You could describe feminists as a social swear word, based on missed opportunity, absense of love, unfulfilled dreams, sense of rejection...and all this has been turned into a rage and hate of the things it desperately wanted.’

Sorry to disappoint you, mate, but the boot’s on the other foot. Feminists are reviled by both male and female conservatives because it is they (feminists) who are doing the rejecting; not the other way round. Feminists reject the long-established pattern of power distribution of men over women – and to conservatives this is a rejection of the very glue that they perceive holds society together. This falls under much the same area of social psychology that drives the fear and loathing held by conservatives for trade unionists, environmentalists, human-rights activists and liberal-minded parenting and teaching methods – each of which challenges one or more of the pillars of the dominator social system (rich over poor, men over women, adults over children and humans over nature).

R0bert

I haven’t been back to this forum for a few days, so a rather belated reply…

I take your point about how the home is considered the woman’s domain, and that this could be a reason why women may feature more prominently as perpetrators of violence in the home (especially against children) than in the wider community. That is a good point and does kind of validate my belief (and that of much feminist rhetoric) that gender violence committed by a small portion of men in the wider society is an expression of power distribution rather than an innate male tendency towards violence or misogyny.

On another point, I read some of Patricia Pearson’s book many years ago – but didn’t finish it. Although she makes very valid arguments about women’s capacity for violence being at odds with society’s sentimentalising of women as ladylike and helpless, she falls into the false trap of doing that very nineties thing of creating a fictitious feminist mafia that is supposedly committed to keeping all this from the public.

Also, similar to Christina Hoff Sommers, Pearson has had the ‘feminist’ label attached to her, despite being decidedly unfeminist in her viewpoints. All the feminists I’ve known are in the business of challenging gender stereotypes, not maintaining them. This is why, as a feminist, I fully believe that men should be in a position to seek help and protection against domestic violence, without fear of being disbelieved, despised or laughed at.

You might be interested in a book called ‘The Chalice and the Blade’ by Riane Eisler – who makes some sound archaeological arguments about how the institutionalisation of violence has evolved over the last 6000 years. She is the best example I’ve encountered of a feminist writer who can make a sound condemnation of gender-based violence without either demonising men or sentimentalising women.

MLK, talk about reading from a brochure. I bet your bedroom is just littered with feminist propaganda and bits of the manifesto outlining how women deserve to rule by right. I'm all for equality but, if you want to rule, you are going to have to earn the privilege and accept the responsibility as an individual. Not as a victim class with a head full of socialist theory pulled from the communist dust bin.

MLK
I can understand the feminist perspective. The oppression of women in this country is just so great.

There is the situation where a man could call a women “luv”, where a man could actually put “dear” at the start of a letter, or a husband could even put his arm around his wife, call her “luv” and attempt to give her a kiss.

I can understand why only 0.6% of abused women have an actual physical injury, but the oppression and abuse of women in this country is just so great

HRS

Never belonged to a womens group.

Robert

Nonsense.

MLK, welcome back. As you can see you were missed :)

I'll try and get hold of a copy of ‘The Chalice and the Blade’.

I did a hunt around some time ago and didn't find anything serious rebutting the claim regarding Pearson being a feminist writer but I take your point.

I'm not convinced that "feminist mafia that is supposedly committed to keeping all this from the public" is fictitious. There has been a fairly concerted attempt by some to misrepresent the data (even if they thought they have just cause).

Reading articles by researchers who have been involved in testing the genderisation of DV provides plenty of examples of clear cut intimidation and threats to try and silence a number of those researchers. Maurie Straus has written a very interesting piece on that topic but I can't locate it at the moment.

I don't think the tactics are represenative of most feminists and I suspect that very few feminists actually realise that the rates of physical violence are very similar. The lie has become so pervasive that most assume any claims to the contrary are woman hating lies.

"This is why, as a feminist, I fully believe that men should be in a position to seek help and protection against domestic violence, without fear of being disbelieved, despised or laughed at." - spot on.

R0bert