Wendy McElroy: "A conscientious objector in the Gender War"

...despite the discrimination by law enforcement, the judicial system, the education system, the medical system, the media, government programs (the list goes on), this is all irrelevant because in the US constitution, they used the word 'man' to mean 'people'?

Am I getting this right?????

If I can read their minds on this one I think the thinking goes like this:

Use of the word "man" is a symptom and evidence of the corruption inherent in having men define the rules. Therefore wherever men have defined rules there is an inherent anti-female bias, including in supposed benefits defined by men such as freedom.

*shiver*

Whenever feminists do grab the helm, men cry out: We have become second-class citizens! We are legally disadvantaged in the workplace by affirmative action, ignored as victims of domestic violence in the home, discriminated against in funding for health care, oppressed by family courts that favor a mother's claim to custody ... the list scrolls on.

But protesting men miss the point. Until the "utopian" day when the institutions of society have been reconstructed, gender feminists claim no equality is possible. It is men against us; men win only if women lose, and vice versa. That's the class conflict known as the Gender War.

No offense, the article is otherwise well written; but I don't think that protesting men have missed the point at all. It is supportive women (and men) that have missed it.

that it IS well-written.
That's the dangerous part. Even complete bullshit sounds legit when coming from an eloquent source.

I find it astouding that she could even say "...the list scrolls on" and then switch gears and claim (or claim that gender feminists claim) that it is some trivial point.

Instead, she should be recognizing that men have ceded a tremendous amount of their own rights for the benefit of women, and this fact directly contradicts the notion of a 'patriachal society'.
Scientists have a word for that...its called ad hoc. The evidence is forced to conform to the hypothesis. However, we all know that feminism cannot stand the test of true science.

Using phrases like "men cry out" and "miss the point", McElroy is raising the image of "angry white male" without sticking her neck out and saying so. Not only is it pre-emptive refutation by denigration, its cowardly at that.

But, fuck, why I am bothering preaching to the choir!

It is quite possible to recognize that gender feminists will brook no trout or truck no brook (to mangle metaphors with greater dignity and gravitas than the subject matter warrants) until their gender Utopia arrives, and for men (or women) to protest injustice against them, whether the protest "originates within the putative system of gender repression" or not. There is such a thing as a pragmatic response.

And the position that no critique from outside the oppressive system of gender repression is possible, as the gender feminists admit that the utopia hasn't arrived, undermines their ability to make any critique at all, or to plan for some hoped-for Utopia. Such plans are necessarily meaningless, since they originate within the oppressive system that denies the possibility that they can be articulated.

The whole business of who is entitled to register injustice ignores the human moral instinct, and its evolution. Chimpanzees know when they are being cheated. But no one denies them this inborn sense on account of some Chimpanzee patriarchal social organization.

Now who among us is missing the self-refuting point that no critique is possible?

Christopher Hitchens:Wendy McElroy::heavyweight:lightweight.

On a second reading I came to a slightly different interpretation.

She (and ifeminists?) are "protesting women". Unlike "protesting men" that have protested becoming second class citizens, she (and ifeminists?) understand the true issue inherent in "gender feminism". A deeply rooted, and false premise of men vs women.

I know that ifeminists are supposed to be helpful to men's issues; but it's not hard to read the above into what was written... and with that interpretation, Wendy seems really hypocritical.

The iFeminist Boutique has to stake some of the moral high ground. Claiming a singular clarity of vision might do the trick for those shopping for feminist wares.

Think of web sites like iFeminism.com as if they were boutiques: small, off-beat, out-of-the-way specialty houses, catering to collectors and hobbyists.

If McElroy were more charismatic, say like Steve Jobs, iFeminism could be as popular as the iPod or the iPhone.

Right? Now that the institutionalized sexism pendulum has swung too far over to the women’s side us guys should just stop caring? Protesting systemic inequalities and creating awareness to the issues makes us all too much like feminists? Its safer and less irritating to the right wing if we all just become individuals? We are free when are ignorant and silent? Uh Huh?

Free to be demonized and abused by the system. Just look at Taron James influence on Paternity fraud cases. If they don't know we don't like it, they will keep right on doing it especially when they benefit from it.

I like to stay away from "Women are___" "Men are___" arguments on either side of the fence but there are real inequalities and real areas where men are being negatively effected by the system, real double standards and biases. We don't need to lie and demonize women like feminists have done to remain credible, but its a fact people need to be active in order to effect change.

Christopher Hitchens:Wendy McElroy::heavyweight:lightweight

Why OpEd, are you a C++ guy? :)

Take her seriously if you want to lose your soul.

This woman is a shill.

A feminist vampire. A sexist parasite.

But I love her writing!

And her logic.

Look up "succubus" in the dictionary --

you'll see Wendy's photo.

This is a proportion.

A is to B as C is to D

A:B::C:D

A/B = C/D

The moniker OpEd has other significance (though I don't deny that I might know a few programming languages).

OpEd,

I never enjoyed a good math teacher, so I took to ethnography rather than number crunching.

Counting things is truly foreign to my basic sensibilities.

I prefer narratives. Stories.

(Though I am fond of the Amazonian Kanomamo's numerical system -- it consists entirely of three concepts -- "one, two, and MORE than two.") Minimalist math?

"Programming" in my native lingo means propaganda.

It's good that we can communicate here in this virtual neighborhood.

It's digital right?

Maybe I'm not understanding something. She seems more interested in analysis, or looking at the whole thing from a theoretical perspective. Like it is some kind of mental exercise. If she were a man, she might have a different view of what "the point" is. But it is the first two words of the article that bother me most:

"Future feminists" ..eee-gad! it is to the point where they are admitting they want to perpetuate their existence!
-ax

(OpEd) -- "If McElroy were more charismatic, say like Steve Jobs, iFeminism could be as popular as the iPod or the iPhone."

Yes.

Version 1.0 ONLY.

She says JUST ENOUGH nice things about men so that her inherent bias and feminist dogma does not get noticed. She's a fraud like the ALL of the women that believe in women's suffrage.

Some men from another MRA site I used to frequent have reported having their comments banned when they don't agree with the general feminist ideology. Their claims are that Elroy constantly attacks and bans ANYONE whom does not agree with the female hierarchy.

*E-Group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/No_Feminazis/
*Site and Blog: http://www.freewebs.com/nofeminazis/index.htm
*"the most outrageous aspect is the total and i mean TOTAL silence from women. hell, they could care less. makes me sick." ~ donnieboy57

I don't know about those reports from other guys; but from what I'm able to gather, she just bans people who attack someone, or post something she considers obscene. I think it is more the case, that she respects the MRA movement, in fact even agrees with most of its premises; it's just that she, as do most others, expect men to "play by the rules" and be nice guys while they are fighting back against injustice; whereas she does not seem to recall that the early feminists did not exactly get their way by inviting people over for tea. In other words, feminists who have succeeded in their fight, and women in general, expect MRA's to be meek, and PC to some extent (in the sense of how they go about championing their cause).
This is all the more surprising, in that she considers herself to be an anarchist.
-ax

"it's just that she, as do most others, expect men to "play by the rules" and be nice guys while they are fighting back against injustice; whereas she does not seem to recall that the early feminists did not exactly get their way by inviting people over for tea."

If McElroy were to drop the chivalry requirement for men's activists, then iFeminism would be less distinguished--it might barely skirt moderate men's armchair activism (forgive the oxymoron), if it weren't punctuated with the occasional nod of contempt to her choir.

Wendy's final sentence -- "And, as individuals, we all share the same political interest: freedom."

That is so absurd.

Feminists have absolutely no interest in men's freedom or liberty.

They have spent 40 years legislating tyrannical restrictions that apply to men only; promoting informal social codes ("workplace harassment," "emotional abuse", "patriarchal oppression," etc.) -- all of which have one and only one objective:

diminish men's freedom. Disempower men by whatever means necessary.

Wendy acknowledges that feminism is a zero-sum game in which women win only if men lose.

Then, she cops out with the "why can't we all just get along" silly final sentence.

Note to Wendy -- No. We don't all share the same political interest. Why? Because your version of freedom would extinguish mine.

"Wendy acknowledges that feminism is a zero-sum game in which _women win only if men lose_"

Is there a particular document she says something implying that? I don't go to her site that much.
-ax