Feminists have transformed America, Canada, and the West by pursuing a particularistic agenda that is destructive to collective values, institutions, and other segments of the population. They have done so (1) by rejecting the liberal democratic model of society in favor of a neo-Marxist identity class model, (2) by rejecting motherhood, (3) by avoiding marriage and opposing the two-parent family, (4) by condemning boys and men as evil, and (5) by undermining civilizational values of achievement and merit.
1. The feminist identity class model of society
From the 1960s on, feminists have rejected the liberal democratic model of society in which free individuals voluntarily associate to form families, firms, and charities. In place of the liberal democratic model, feminists have claimed a neo-Marxist identity class-based model, in which a ruling class, “the patriarchy,” consisting of males, oppresses, exploits, and abuses innocent female victims who make up the lower class. Feminists thus took up propagandizing, organizing, and mobilizing females to advance class conflict by attacking males and attempting to unseat and replace them. Feminists obscured their supremacist goals by falsely claiming liberal values, such as equality.
Members of other segments of the population that felt that they had a grievance were quick to adopt the identity class model of society. LGBTQ homosexuals and transsexuals railed against the heterosexuals and heteronormality that they felt victimized them, and mobilized to fight for equal and then special privileges. Race activists framed society as having “systematic, institutional racism,” with a superordinate racist white class always and everywhere victimizing the subordinate class of people of color. Muslims claimed to be victims of Islamophobia by Christians and Jews, and to be suppressed by the dominant non-Muslims. Transsexuals cried transphobia against every reservation about their program. The disabled claimed that they were discriminated against by the abled. Those with grievances claimed to be members of “marginalized communities,” and claimed new and special privileges, so that “the last would become first.”
With the rejection of the liberal democratic model of society, identity politics became the dominant reference for advocacy and action. Individual citizens were reduced to their census category, and class conflict became the rule of the day: females against males, people of color against whites, LGBTQ against heterosexuals, Muslims against Christians and Jews, and transsexuals against most everyone. Through the magic of intersectionism, some could claim multiple victim status, and thus greater virtue: black females over white females and black men; black female lesbians over black female heterosexuals; transsexual black females over biological black females; disabled transsexual black females over non-disabled; and so on. Reverse sexism, reverse racism, and favoritism to alleged “marginalized populations” became official policy in educational institutions, business, and government. Far from doing away with sexism, racism, sexuality discrimination, religious discrimination, etc., these are now celebrated, as long as the “correct” populations are advantaged.
2. The feminist rejection of motherhood
Motherhood was rejected by feminists on two grounds: one was that it is biological, and feminists wished to suppress the biological nature of females; the second was that it was a traditional role, and thus part of the patriarchal suppression of women. Feminists emphasized that having children inhibited entry and success in the workforce, which alone provided independent income for women, so that they would not be dependent financially on men, and thus could be free of men. This is why the second wave of feminism was not launched until the birth control pill became widely available in the early 1960s. And this is the rationale that raised abortion, the killing of children in the womb, to be the highest feminist value. Over the past decades, an average per year of a million children in the womb were killed. And now feminists are lobbying for third-trimester abortions and infanticide.
One of the consequences of the devaluation children is that American, Canadian, and European populations are shrinking and dying, with only immigrants, legal and illegal, adding to the population. Stable maintenance of population requires a 2.1 birthrate per female, but developed countries, all with strong feminist movements, fall far below that: North America 1.7, The European Union 1.6, Central Europe, 1.5, OECD countries 1.7, Australia and New Zealand 1.8, Korea 1.1, Japan 1.4.
Feminism is not the only factor in the precipitous decline of the birthrate in developed countries. Urbanization and prosperity both contribute to a lower birthrate due to the greater cost of having children and loss of economic contribution by children. And feminism is stronger in some societies than in others, while other factors, such as threats of war, might be inhibiting factors. But when women adopt an anti-child ideology, that will have a significant influence and lead to a decline in the birthrate.
3. Feminist rejection of marriage and the two-parent family
The feminist preference has always been that females not consort with “the enemy,” with males. College and university feminists urged females, whatever their personal inclination, take up with other females, in what has sometimes been called “political lesbianism,” in order to support female solidarity. Even when females consort with males, and, through the contribution of males, become pregnant, males are block from having any rights in disposition and destiny of the child they have helped to produce. It is an unnegotiable demand of feminists have fathers have no rights in their children, and that only females have rights in and decision over what happens to that child.
This empowerment of females and disempowerment of males carries over even into marriage. If a marriage with children fails, in almost every case, fathers are required to provide financial support, often at onerous levels, while having no further rights in the children. Feminist groups and feminist lawyers have imposed their wills on family courts, giving females all rights and males only punishments. Multiple attempts to make joint custody the common standard, because it is well documented and known that joint custody is by far best for the children, have been consistently blocked by feminist groups, such as the National Organization of Women, the League of Women Voters, Breastfeeding Coalition, National Council of Jewish Women, and UniteWomen FL., and feminist lawyers.
Under the influence of feminism, women increasing have children on their own, outside of marriage, although it is well understood that the children in single-parent families are highly at risk for academic failure, early pregnancy, and incarceration, compared to children of two-parent families. Fully 40% of American children are born out of wedlock: 17% among Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders; 29% among non-Hispanic whites; 53% among Hispanics; 66% among Native Americans; and 73% among non-Hispanic blacks. Now living up to the highest ideals of feminism, women have rejected marriage and abandoned the two-parent family, whatever the cost to the children. What better demonstration could there be that feminists care more for female independence and marginalizing men than for the welfare of children?
4. Feminists condemn half of the population as evil and “toxic”
Surely older feminists will remember negative stereotypes of females: females are weak, while men are strong; females are emotional, while men control their emotions; females are irrational, while men are rational; females are part of nature, determined by biology, while men construct themselves as part of culture. You would have thought that feminists, rejecting these negative stereotypes of females, and proclaiming that their goal is gender equality, would abstain from producing reverse stereotypes demeaning men. But of course feminists have done the opposite: publicized negative stereotypes that vilify men as oppressors of innocent females: rude, brutal and violent, or, to use the favorite feminist term, “toxic.” Feminists have advanced these stereotypes through counterfactual narratives such as that we live in a “rape culture.” The narrative continues by demanding that men become more like women. How is it that feminists have become proud of being anti-male sexists?
Does this feminist anti-male stereotyping really affect men and society generally? Let us consider some of the impacts of feminist anti-male sexism. Universities have been captured by feminists, not only among the faculty teaching staff, but also among the administration. There is a bias favoring the admission and hiring of females, and as a result, females account for 60% of undergraduate students, and there is great pressure to transform science into a female and feminist field. Many male students do not feel welcome in today’s universities and colleges. But it does not end there, for as colleges and universities go, so goes the school system. Feminist education faculties are explicit in their feminist anti-male orientation. The result is that the public school system is filled with feminists who favor female students and marginalize male students, resulting in an academic “gender gap.” If boys are allowed to gain anything out of their schooling, it is that “masculinity is toxic” and that “females rule.”
Was not one of the reasons that we rebelled against anti-female stereotypes because a society in which half of the population is marginalized is much weaker, less creative, and less humane than a society that values all of its citizens? But feminists, notwithstanding their dissimulation about “equality,” wish to advance the interests of females at the expense of males, and thus favor a sexist society which favors females. This does not bring about an enriched society, but one in which the old sexist ugliness is reproduced, but in inverted form.
5. Feminists undermine the ideals of achievement and merit
In the liberal democratic vision that saw society as free individuals, the basis for selection and reward was meant to be achievement, merit, and potential. In other words, people were to be judged according to their capacities and ability to do the job for which they were selected. The identity class model of society sees individuals as members of sex, race, sexual, and ethnic categories rather than as individuals, and as either “oppressors” or “victims” of class hierarchy. Identity activists claim that achievement, merit, and potential are white supremacist and male advocacy ideas, and thus invalid.
According to its advocates, “social justice” is defined, not as individuals getting their due, but as “representation,” that is membership, according to the percentage of the general population. That is, social justice exists only when 50% of participants or members are females, 13% African Americans, 16% Hispanics, with representation by LGBTQ++, the poor, the disabled, the mentally ill, the homeless, the uneducated, Muslims, etc. There is of course no objection to representation of “marginalized communities” greater than their share of the general population. The 60% or more females in our colleges or universities have resulted in not a peep from the generally vocal and shrill feminists who dominate higher education.
An example of the brave new “social justice” is the appointment of females as 50% of the ministers of his cabinet by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, a self-proclaimed male feminist (of which there are now many). The problem, if one is concerned about talent and competence, is that these 50% of ministers were selected from 25% of the Liberal caucus, while the other 50% of ministers were chosen from 75% of the caucus. As it is likely that capability was spread throughout the caucus, selecting ministers on the basis of sex from a small portion of the caucus meant selecting weaker ministers than would be drawn from the entire caucus. So, merit was thrown out so that identity politics could become national politics in Canada.
Generally speaking, in all jobs and funding selection today, females are favored over males for being “oppressed victims” and a “marginalized community.” Of course, identity politics operates beyond gender, with racial, sexuality, ethnicity, and disability being used to favor members of “victim” categories of people and disfavor members of “oppressor” categories. Schools, universities, businesses, and government today use quotas, explicit or implicit, to favor members of “marginalized communities,” undervaluing achievement, merit, and potential in order to advance “diversity and inclusion.” By liberal democratic standards, this is demeaning to those raised without merit, and an injustice to those excluded by disregarding their merit. It is also a race to mediocrity, which we can ill afford.
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