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 Introduction to the page
 'Top jobs'
 Feminism and the material conditions of life
 'Celebrating'
 Obstacles
 The art of car maintenance: an inquiry into values
 Feminism and the biological conditions of life
 Green ideology and feminist ideology
 Babies and bathwater
 Mary Wollstonecraft, the famousest feminist
 Women and bullfighting, 'sexism' and cruelty
 Feminism and animals: the contracting circle
 Bonds: famine, families, Sophie Scholl, mining
 Feminism, the Taliban, the shooting of schoolgirls
 Women in traditional Moslem societies
 The patriarchy thesis and some powerful women
 Slavery and serfdom
 Women in Nazi Germany
 Feminism and the death penalty
 Why are there no national feminist magazines?
 Trash and trivia
 Gretchen Rubin and The Happiness Project
 More inconvenient facts
 Kingsley Amis
 Claiming superiority the easy way
 The sphere of 'strict facts'
 'Gendercide'
 Academic publishing
 Feminist and non-feminist chronology
 Feminism and dressing up
 Wittgenstein and the monotonous diet of feminism
 Feminist divisions and in-fighting
 Troubled relationships


See also,  the page

 Cambridge University: excellence, mediocrity, stupidity

which has profiles of feminists at or associated with Cambridge University: Professor Susan McClary, Professor Sandra Harding, Professor Rae Langton, Dr Lauren Wilcox, Dr Priyamvada Gopal, Dr Lorna Finlayson, Dr Rachel Bower.

Introduction

 I oppose most forms of 'political correctness but I don't support all the views of opponents of political correctness, or most of their views, such as views which appear on the site 'Conservative Woman.' 'Conservative Woman' often publishes articles and comments by pro-Christian writers. My page on Christian religion makes it clear that I oppose Christianity. Christianity contains doctrines which are indefensible, and more grotesque than anything believed by feminists, except for the most radical feminists. My page on the Culture Industry has a section on 'Conservative Woman.'

'Top jobs' 

The plight of women seeking 'top jobs' often arouses  an incandescent fury, in feminist circles, which is rarely directed at gross deprivation and  extreme suffering. Instead, women's 'under-representation' in 'top jobs' is taken to be  gross deprivation and extreme suffering.  It's reasonable, I think, to examine these top jobs very carefully. Some of my examples here are to do with issues I examine on other pages.

 I put the case against supermarkets on my page Supermarkets, but I also put the case against some small shops. To feminists such as Triona Kennedy, it seems, putting more women into senior positions in Wal-Mart, and Tesco  in this country, counts for more - far, far more - than any examination of the retail power of Wal-Mart and Tesco.  What these feminists are doing is supporting uncritically the power of these massive companies and doing nothing to encourage a healthier system, one in which the man or woman who wants to start a business and has the skills and energy to do that doesn't face extreme or even insuperable difficulties. In general, far too many feminists show an uncritical acceptance of existing patterns of power. The only thing that counts is ensuring that women can become part of these patterns of power, in large numbers. So, independent bookshops can go to the wall, but this will hardly matter to the feminists who want more women in senior positions in the Tesco supermarket chain, which sells books.

 Triona Kennedy wants more women in 'top positions' in the BBC. Any concern for any other issue is lacking, such as dumbing-down and the bias of the BBC. My page The Culture Industry gives some brief observations on the media, including the BBC (which, unlike some media organizations, does produce outstanding programmes as well as dross).

 Getting more women into senior positions in engineering is generally regarded as less important than getting more women into senior positions in the media. There are feminists who support  women who want to enter engineering. It's Green Party policy for boards of companies to be made up of 40% women and this would include engineering companies, of course, but the Green Party has next to no interest in engineering or the importance of engineering. Feminists want women to have 'top jobs' in engineering  but far more often than not no interest in engineering or the importance of engineering. to  who want women to be on the boards of engineering companies Any recognition of the importance of engineering, any interest in engineering are almost completely lacking.

 A preoccupation with 'top jobs' in established companies and institutions is characteristic of feminism, and a neglect of the long and arduous route to setting up a new company, by, for example, invention, innovation and risk-taking. Once someone has worked 70 hour weeks or 80 hour weeks for a very long time, with no guarantee of success, once someone has risked bankruptcy or been made bankrupt and recovered from bankruptcy, after more unrelenting work, once someone finds that, against all the odds, they have a successful business, or a very successful business,  perhaps in the manufacture of lathes or milling machinery or welding equipment, providing jobs for people interested in lathes or milling machinery or welding equipment,  then feminism will at long last take an interest - why are women under represented in this company?

Lathes and milling machinery and welding equipment, of course, and countless other products of light engineering and  heavy engineering are needed to ensure the supply of safe drinking water, the supply of medical equipment, all those thinks needed for everyday necessities, everyday comfort, the relief of suffering in humanitarian emergencies.

A very different issue. Women have been making steady or even faintly spectacular gains in the Church of England. In 2010, more women were ordained than men - 290 compared with 273.  This is only a significant development for people who believe that the Church of England is a significant institution. If feminist Anglicans believe that they are making a vital contribution to the world-wide community of feminists, they are thinking in naive Anglican terms. There's no such thing as a community of feminists but a disparate group riven by deep divisions. It's certain that the contribution of Anglican feminists, even radical Anglican feminists, won't be gratefully received by radical feminists, who are likely to view the Church of England as a complete irrelevance.

Feminism and the material conditions of life

See also my page Industry.

Anyone using the language of oppression  should have the insight, the knowledge and the honesty to distinguish degrees of oppression, so different in intensity that they belong to  different worlds: the 'oppression' a women's studies professor with tenure in the United States claims to be suffering, for example, or the 'oppression' of Professor Susan James at a British university, and the back-breaking work of women in Scottish coal mines in the eighteenth century, carrying on their backs massive loads from the coal face to the mine-shaft, carrying the massive loads up ladders to the pithead again and again, day after day.

Robert Bald wrote, in a 'General View of the Coal-Trade of Scotland,' 'it is no uncommon thing to see them, when ascending the pit, weeping most bitterly, from the excessive severity of the labour.' And he writes of a woman, 'groaning under an excessive weight of coals, trembling in every nerve, and almost unable to keep her knees from sinking under her. On coming up, she said in a most plaintive and melancholy voice: "O Sir, this is sore, sore work. I wish to God that the first woman who tried to bear coals had broke her back, and none would have tried it again." ' (Quoted in Anthony Burton's 'The Miners.' All the unattributed quotations in this section come from this compelling, deeply humane, outstanding book.)

Historical study is one of the best defences against parochialism.

In Britain, women hauled coal on their backs only in Scotland and the practice was banned in the Glasgow region by the end of the eighteenth century. In other parts of Britain, men, women and children generally hauled coal in waggons.

 '... between 1841 and 1843, the Reports of the Royal Commission on the Employment of Children in Mines appeared ... It was the illustrations, more even than the words, the interviews, and descriptions, that made an immense impact. Here were portrayed men and women and small children living the life of beasts: a teenage girl struggling on all fours harnessed to a waggon of coal that she was pulling along a narrow seam; little children clinging to a rope as they were lowered down a shaft by an old woman whose rags told of her poverty: boys chained to heavy corves, with only a single candle to light the dark roadways ... In one mine, near Chesterfield, boys had to pull corves weighing at least 1/2 ton and sometimes as heavy as 1 ton, for 60 yards along a roadway that was only 2 feet high ... The boys who worked as hauliers might work as many as fourteen hours a day, from six in the morning to eight at night, and on top of that they would have an often lengthy journey to and from work. (See my poem Mines in the poetry section 'Child Labour.') The pages of the Royal Commission Reports are full of accounts of children returning home too tired to eat, who fell asleep as soon as they sat at table an had to be carried to bed. Some were not even able to walk the distance to their homes, and parents would find them asleep by the roadside.'

Children as young as four, five or six would not have been able to do the back-breaking work of hauling coal, of course. There were various ways to be killed by working in the coal mines - drowning, crushing, or the much slower clogging up of the lungs with coal dust -but the leading cause of death was explosions resulting from the explosive gases of the mines. They accounted for about 90 per cent of deaths.

 'Continuing explosions soon convinced colliery managers that the only solution was to ventilate the the whole pit, so the galleries and roads were turned into a vast labyrinth, along the whole length of which the air was coursed by using a system of trapdoors to keep the air current in its right path.' The system was only effective if the doors were kept shut, except when a waggon was passing through. The youngest children opened and closed these ventilation doors, hour after hour, in deepest darkness.

 Extracts from the 1842 Report:

 'We find in regard to COAL MINES

 1. That instances occur in which children are taken into these mines to work as early as four years of age ...
3. That in several districts female children begin to work in these mines at the same early ages as the males.
8. [Of operating the trapdoors] That although this employment scarcely deserves the name of labour, yet, as the children engaged in it are commonly excluded from light and are always without companions, it would, were it not for the passing and repassing of the coal carriages, amount to solitary confinement of the worst order.

 Susan James writes that 'Feminism is grounded on the belief that women are oppressed or disadvantaged by comparison with men' but here we have suffering in common, the suffering of men and women together, boys and girls together - like the suffering of American slaves, the suffering of Jews in the Warsaw ghetto or Jews walking towards the gas-chambers at Auschwitz or Treblinka. Sometimes men suffer disproportionately, sometimes women, but a very great deal of human suffering - oppression, disadvantage - is like this, inflicted no more on women than on men.

This common suffering of men and women in the mines of this country was ended by The Mines Act of 1842, which prohibited the employment underground of girls and women (and boys under 10 years old). After this time, girls and women were exempted from the dangers and back-breaking work deep underground. After this time, gender equality was replaced by gender inequality. Only males faced the backbreaking work and the dangers. Feminists don't in general acknowledge at all any of the significant ways in which women have been exempted from particular hardships and dangers and men not at all.

There are two poems of mine on child labour on the page Poems in Large Page Design:  

Abuses in British workplaces were addressed far too slowly, but at least they were addressed, one by one. Patriarchy didn't show the quietism, the moral apathy, the selective compassion, the lack of interest in practicalities and legislation of innumerable contemporary feminists - failings which Martha Nussbaum addresses in the case of American feminists. So many of these feminists ignore massive abuses against women, not just massive abuses against men. Patriarchy got things done, it achieved, in the area of humanitarian legislation, just as it overcame the barriers of wide rivers, hills and mountains by building massive bridges, constructing massive tunnels, without which travel and transportation of the necessities of life would have been difficult or impossible, constructed thousands of miles of railway line, developed all the techniques of converting iron ore into iron and steel for the achievement of these and many other things. Any feminist travelling by rail in this country to attend a meeting at which 'patriarchy' is denounced is benefitting from such engineering triumphs as these.

  These are a few examples of British legislation (from Key dates in Working Conditions.) Patriarchy, whatever the accusations levelled against it, wasn't selective, it didn't ignore in this legislation the harsh and dangerous working conditions of girls and women, in fact in many cases it exempted girls and women from harsh and dangerous working conditions which continued for males.

1802 Health and Morals of Apprentices Act limited the work of children in textile mills to 12 hours per day; prohibited night work; required minimum standards of accommodation; some elementary education to be provided; factories to be periodically lime washed; and infectious diseases attended to and reported. The act attempted to enforce on all employers the conditions provided by the more humane mill-owners.

1819 Cotton Mills and Factories Act prohibited children under the age of nine years from working in cotton mills, and restricted those over the age of nine to a 12 hour day. Enforcement was in the hands of local magistrates. The act owed much to the efforts of Robert Owen.

1844 Labour in Factories Act amended the regulations concerning factory inspectors and certifying surgeons; for the first time machinery was required to be guarded; the age at which children may be employed was reduced from nine to eight years; and the maximum hours of work for children and women was prescribed.

  1847 Hours of Labour of Young Persons and Females in Factories Act, the Ten Hours Act, reduced the permitted maximum hours of work for women and children to 10
hours per day and 58 hours in any one week.

1850 Coal Mines Inspection Act introduced the appointment of inspectors of coal mines and set out their powers and duties.

1862 John Simon in his fourth annual report to the Privy Council drew attention to the ill effects of much factory work and concluded that "to be able to redress that wrong is perhaps among the greatest opportunities for good which human institutions can afford".

1868 First report of the Royal Commission on the Employment of Children, Young Persons and Women in Agriculture published.

1872 Metalliferous Mines Regulation Act prohibited the employment in the mines of all girls, women and boys under the age of 12 years; introduced powers to appoint inspectors of mines; and set out rules regarding ventilation, blasting and machinery.

1874 Factory Act raised the minimum working age to nine; limited the working day for women and young people to 10 hours in the textile industry, to be between 6 am and 6 pm; and reduced the working week to 56½ hours.

1880 Employers Liability Act extended the law regarding injuries to employees.

1883 Factory and Workshop Act set standards for all white lead factories.

1886 Shop Hours Regulation Act attempted to regulate the hours of work of children and young persons in shops; the hours of work were not to exceed 74 per week, including meal times.

1891 Factory and Workshop Act consolidated and extended safety and sanitary regulations; transferred enforcement in regard to some workshops from the factory inspectors to the local authorities; raised the minimum age for employment in factories to 11 years; prohibited the owner of a factory from knowingly employing a woman within four weeks of giving birth; and introduced some measures to control conditions of “outworkers”.

1893 Women factory inspectors introduced.

1895 Factory and Workshop Act amended and extended previous acts regarding sanitary provisions, safety, employment of children, holidays and accidents; and made certain industrial diseases (lead, phosphorus, arsenic and anthrax) notifiable for the first time.

1897 Workmen’s Compensation Act established the principle that persons injured at work should be compensated.1898 Thomas M Legge (later Sir, 1863-1932), appointed as the first medical inspector of factories.

 Is it true that the few feminists of that age only paid attention to the suffering of the girls and women and had no further interest in conditions in the coal mines once the 1842 Act had been passed? No, it wouldn't be true. It's true to say that most feminists showed no interest in conditions in the mines before the passing of the Act. The suffering of girls and women was invisible to them. They belonged to a section of society which had no interest in such things, except for the 'immorality' of girls and boys working together, half-naked. Nor could they imagine all the other intensely difficult, dirty or dangerous trades. 'There were many occupations as likely to end in fatality - the grinders in Sheffield or Redditch could look forward to no longer life than the miners before they succumbed to chest disease; the lead-glazers of the Potteries needed to spend little time at their trade before the symptoms of poisoning appeared.'

When women were working in the mines, 'At the end of a shift the family had the walk home to the cottage. They were still in their pit clothes and pit dirt, soaked with water, covered in mud and, in winter, their clothes all but froze stiff as they walked. Once home, there was no brightness, only the deserted house. The babies had to be collected and fed first before life could return slowly to the house.' Once the system of horse-drawn corves was adopted, women in all the Scottish mines stayed at home. The men and boys worked in the mine and at the end of a shift 'they were still in their pit clothes and pit dirt, soaked with water, covered in mud and, in winter, their clothes all but froze still as they walked' but once they reached the house 'the men and boys returned to a warm fire and a hot meal instead of cold and desolation.' How would radical feminists interpret the 'sexual politics' of this? The 'sexism' of women as home-makers rather than working, the 'sexism' of women not admitted to the working world of men?

Susan James ignores the overwhelming importance of innovation in science and technology which has reduced so much human suffering. Feminists who claim that many of these innovations were due to women should provide the necessary evidence.

Some of the suffering in the mines was eventually lessened by developments in bulk-handling, innovations which of course needed innovators - people who actually produced innovations and actually reduced suffering, not people who might have produced innovations but were prevented by 'prejudice' or 'stereotyping.' An early innovation was introduced by John Curr, who described a system of 'corves' in 1797: four-wheeled vehicles running on iron rails or plates. 'One horse, he reckoned, could shift as much as 150 tons a day along a 250-yard roadway. This was very evidently a much more efficient and economical method of moving coal.' Often, though, there was insufficient height for a horse, and man-hauling continued.

 Successive innovations, using increasingly sophisticated advances in engineering based upon increasingly sophisticated advances in Physics and Chemistry, made coal-mining less and less arduous. By the time that George Orwell visited coal-mines in the twentieth century, the work was still desperately hard, impossible for the majority of non-miners to imagine let alone to carry out, but not as degradingly hard as work in an eighteenth century mine. Alongside innovations in bulk-handling which reduced and eventually eliminated the back-breaking work of hauling coal (and freed pit-ponies from a grim life spent entirely or almost entirely underground) there were innovations at the coal-face, such as the technology of compressed air, which reduced and eventually eliminated the back-breaking work of extracting coal at the coal-face with hand-pick and crowbar, although these innovations were much more difficult to implement. Well into the twentieth century, hacking at coal was back-breaking work even when the miner could stand. It was even harder when the seam was narrower and he had to kneel. It was hardest when the seam was very narrow and he had to lie down, contorted. The work was harder, more unpleasant still if this was a 'wet' pit, one in which water was a constant problem.

 In the mines, 'after-damp,' the explosive gas which was a mixture of air and methane, was the cause of many catastrophic mine accidents. Naked flames needed for illumination could ignite the gas very easily. 'The Davy lamp wasn't 'the perfect solution to the problem,' but it was revolutionary in its benefits even so. 'The Davy lamp, because it was invented by the leading chemist of the day, is something of a landmark in the relations between science and technology, as also in the use of technology to serve humanitarian rather than purely economic purposes.' (T K Derry and Trevor I Williams, 'A Short History of Technology.')

 The light from the Davy lamp was not very bright. A better solution to the problem of lighting mines (and the problem of lighting rooms so that feminists could compose their tracts against patriarchy during the hours of darkness) was only found with a spectacular, and spectacularly complex, series of innovations, acts of genius, such as those which made electricity generation practicable. Michael Faraday's demonstration of electromagnetic induction, which was announced to the Royal Society in 1831, was a fundamental first-step. When electric current could be generated, the conversion of electric energy into light energy required further intensely difficult and protracted work. Extracts from the Wikipedia article on incandescent lighting. This supplementary section in italics can be omitted if wished, but it is an instructive case history in the patient, demanding step-by-step overcoming of difficulties:

'The incandescent light bulb, incandescent lamp or incandescent light globe is a source of electric light that works by incandescence (a general term for heat-driven light emissions, which includes the simple case of black body radiation). An electric current passes through a thin filament, heating it to a temperature that produces light. The enclosing glass bulb contains either a vacuum or an inert gas to prevent oxidation of the hot filament. Incandescent bulbs are also sometimes called electric lamps, a term also applied to the original arc lamps.

'In addressing the question "Who invented the incandescent lamp?" historians Robert Friedel and Paul Israel list 22 inventors of incandescent lamps prior to Joseph Wilson Swan and Thomas Edison. They conclude that Edison's version was able to outstrip the others because of a combination of three factors: an effective incandescent material, a higher vacuum than others were able to achieve (by use of the Sprengel pump) and a high resistance lamp that made power distribution from a centralized source economically viable. Another historian, Thomas Hughes, has attributed Edison's success to the fact that he invented an entire, integrated system of electric lighting.

'In 1802, Humphry Davy had what was then the most powerful electrical battery in the world at the Royal Institution of Great Britain. In that year, he created the first incandescent light by passing the current through a thin strip of platinum, chosen because the metal had an extremely high melting point. It was not bright enough nor did it last long enough to be practical, but it was the precedent behind the efforts of scores of experimenters over the next 75 years. In 1809, Davy also created the first arc lamp by making a small but blinding electrical connection between two carbon charcoal rods connected to a 2000-cell battery; it was demonstrated to the Royal Institution in 1810.

'Over the first three-quarters of the 19th century many experimenters worked with various combinations of platinum or iridium wires, carbon rods, and evacuated or semi-evacuated enclosures. Many of these devices were demonstrated and some were patented.

'In 1841, Frederick de Moleyns of England was granted the first patent for an incandescent lamp, with a design using platinum wires contained within a vacuum bulb.

'Joseph Wilson Swan (1828-1914) was a British physicist and chemist. In 1850, he began working with carbonized paper filaments in an evacuated glass bulb. By 1860 he was able to demonstrate a working device but the lack of a good vacuum and an adequate supply of electricity resulted in a short lifetime for the bulb and an inefficient source of light. By the mid-1870s better pumps became available, and Swan returned to his experiments.

'With the help of Charles Stearn, an expert on vacuum pumps, in 1878 Swan developed a method of processing that avoided the early bulb blackening. This received a British Patent No 8 in 1880. On 18 December 1878 a lamp using a slender carbon rod was shown at a meeting of the Newcastle Chemical Society, and Swan gave a working demonstration at their meeting on 17 January 1879. It was also shown to 700 who attended a meeting of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle on 3 February 1879. These lamps used a carbon rod from an arc lamp rather than a slender filament. Thus they had low resistance and required very large conductors to supply the necessary current, so they were not commercially practical, although they did furnish a demonstration of the possibilities of incandescent lighting with relatively high vacuum, a carbon conductor, and platinum lead-in wires. Besides requiring too much current for a central station electric system to be practical, they had a very short lifetime. Swan turned his attention to producing a better carbon filament and the means of attaching its ends. He devised a method of treating cotton to produce 'parchmentised thread' and obtained British Patent 4933 in 1880. From this year he began installing light bulbs in homes and landmarks in England. His house was the first in the world to be lit by a lightbulb and so the first house in the world to be lit by Hydro Electric power. In the early 1880s he had started his company.

'Thomas Edison began serious research into developing a practical incandescent lamp in 1878. Edison filed his first patent application for "Improvement In Electric Lights" on October 14, 1878 After many experiments with platinum and other metal filaments, Edison returned to a carbon filament. The first successful test was on October 22, 1879, and lasted 13.5 hours. Edison continued to improve this design and by Nov 4, 1879, filed for a U.S. patent for an electric lamp using "a carbon filament or strip coiled and connected ... to platinum contact wires." Although the patent described several ways of creating the carbon filament including using "cotton and linen thread, wood splints, papers coiled in various ways," it was not until several months after the patent was granted that Edison and his team discovered that a carbonized bamboo filament could last over 1200 hours.

'Hiram S. Maxim started a lightbulb company in 1878 to exploit his patents and those of William Sawyer. His United States Electric Lighting Company was the second company, after Edison, to sell practical incandescent electric lamps. They made their first commercial installation of incandescent lamps at the Mercantile Safe Deposit Company in New York City in the fall of 1880, about six months after the Edison incandescent lamps had been installed on the steamer Columbia. In October 1880, Maxim patented a method of coating carbon filaments with hydrocarbons to extend their life. Lewis Latimer, his employee at the time, developed an improved method of heat-treating them which reduced breakage and allowed them to be molded into novel shapes, such as the characteristic "M" shape of Maxim filaments. On January 17, 1882, Latimer received a patent for the "Process of Manufacturing Carbons," an improved method for the production of light bulb filaments which was purchased by the United States Electric Light Company. Latimer patented other improvements such as a better way of attaching filaments to their wire supports.

'In Britain, the Edison and Swan companies merged into the Edison and Swan United Electric Company (later known as Ediswan, which was ultimately incorporated into Thorn Lighting Ltd). Edison was initially against this combination, but after Swan sued him and won, Edison was eventually forced to cooperate, and the merger was made. Eventually, Edison acquired all of Swan's interest in the company. Swan sold his United States patent rights to the Brush Electric Company in June 1882. Swan later wrote that Edison had a greater claim to the light than he did, in order to protect Edison's patents from claims against them in the United States[citation needed]. In 1881, the Savoy Theatre became the first public building in the world to be lit entirely by electric lights. [26]

'By 1964, improvements in efficiency and production of incandescent lamps had reduced the cost of providing a given quantity of light by a factor of thirty, compared with the cost at introduction of Edison's lighting system.'

 The claim that none of the 'humanitarian blessings' of feminism have come anywhere near to equalling the humanitarian blessings of modern contraception isn't an original one. Effective contraception depends on the innovations of scientists and technologists, including the chemical engineers and production engineers who make it possible to manufacture on a large scale.

In nature, there are many progeny but only a few survive. Animals living in the wild are still subject to these harsh Malthusian laws of nature, and so were human societies for so many millennia. As a matter of strict fact, the scientists and technologists who dramatically reduced infant mortality and dramatically reduced the risks of a woman dying in childbirth have almost all been men.

 The material conditions of life, such as water supply and sewage, are almost entirely ignored by feminists. The most significant cause of ill-health and premature death by far has always been failure in supplying water and disposing of sewage, a simple problem with a very complex solution: such as the development by organic chemists of techniques in molecular architecture, a precondition for manufacturing modern pipework, without which modern water supply and sewage systems aren't feasible, more generally advances in iron and steel manufacturing, the manufacture of components for hydraulic drills, petrol and diesel engines, needed for laying the pipes and and maintaining the pipes.

  Water, although not an element, is elemental, a basic requirement of life, but providing this basic requirement isn't at all simple. Water illustrates the complexity of reality. It can carry disease organisms, such as those that cause cholera. The cholera-causing organisms are just as much part of nature as plants and trees, but it's vital to control nature by eradicating them from drinking water. Any notion that 'nature' is feminine, control over nature masculine, to be opposed by feminists, is obviously ridiculous.

 The separation of water for drinking and water for disposal of faeces poses immense practical problems. Gratitude is the only proper response for the work of the engineers who designed dams, for those who built the dams and made the bricks and the materials for the pipes which led the water from the dams, for the foundries and other factories which manufactured the taps, the pumps, for the mathematical and scientific innovators who developed the techniques in calculus, fluid mechanics and the other techniques needed for supplying water efficiently.

Radical feminists have made spectacular use of generalization, as in 'all men are useless' or 'all men are rapists, or potentially rapists.' John Snow is a man who led a blameless life and a man whose contribution to human welfare was surely greater than that of any radical feminist. He was one of the founders of epidemiology. He identified the source of a cholera outbreak in 1854, without the use of any advanced scientific ideas. There was a miasma or 'bad air' theory of cholera: the disease entered the body through the mouth. He disputed this. He investigated the cholera outbreak of 1854 in Soho, London and plotted cholera cases on a map. He identified a water pump in a particular street as the source of the disease. As soon as he had the handle of the pump removed, cases of cholera began to decline. He also used more advanced science. He was a pioneer in the use of anaesthetics and made anaesthetics safer and more effective. But control of life-threatening diseases such as cholera and control of pain by means of anaesthetics aren't high in the priorities of most radical feminists, who would far sooner attack men, any men, such as John Snow.

Earthquakes show that control over nature is sometimes impossible. Patriarchy has developed a method of delaying the crushing effects of a building collapsing so that the occupants have enough time to escape to safety - the technological / humanitarian innovation of metal ties connecting together walls and roof. When victims are trapped under rubble, then of course technological techniques are the only effective ones - the use of heavy lifting equipment, made up of a very large number of separate components, ultimately derived from metal ores, crude oil and other raw materials, which demand techniques of very great complexity, even the screw-threads of the fixings. The precise engineering essential for manufacturing these components wasn't inevitable or easily gained. It was due to the achievements of such particular men - again, representatives of 'patriarchy' - such as Joseph Whitworth, who by 1856 'was regularly using in his workshops a machine capable of measuring to one-millionth part of an inch.' ('A Short History of Technology.') Without the work of Joseph Whitworth and many other innovators, earthquake victims would have to be rescued by bare hands and the simplest of tools. Precision engineering and scientific and technological advances in general, again, almost unimaginably complex, are needed, of course, to transport food and other relief supplies to earthquake zones by air, road or sea. In the absence of these, human labour and pack animals will give aid to only a tiny fraction of those in need.

 Feminists not only fail to acknowledge the work of scientists and technologists working at a high intellectual level, they fail to acknowledge the work of men doing far more humble work. George Orwell, in 'Marrakech:' 'All people who work with their hands are partly invisible, and the more important the work they do, the less visible they are.'

 Unless the sick are to be looked after in simple shelters or in the open, the work of roofers and scaffolders and other manual workers in building hospitals is so important that they deserve heartfelt appreciation - and proper pay and working conditions - but the work of roofers and scaffolders is almost invisible, their work taken for granted. The average roofer or scaffolder lacks refinements and many would fail any tests for political correctness, but few people in possession of those advantages would choose to do physically demanding work at a height in almost all weathers.

 The industrial revolution was harsh, as harsh as the pre-industrial age, but a necessary prelude to this age of comfort and comfortable assumptions and illusions.

 The harshness of the industrial age, like the comfort of this age, wasn't, of course, shared by everyone. The harshness was experienced by people who really are all but invisible today, all but forgotten, such as the navvies.

 'Men of Iron,' the superb book by Sally Dugan, is mainly concerned with the audacious work of the engineers Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Robert Stephenson (she also does justice to the genius of their fathers, Marc Brunel and George Stephenson).

 She writes of the navvies' work, 'Maiming or mutilation came with the job, and navvies were lucky if they escaped with nothing more than the loss of a limb. They worked using picks and shovels, crowbars and wheelbarrows, and their bare hands; the only other aid they had was the occasional blast of gunpowder. Some were blinded by explosions; others were buried in rock falls. All led a life of hard, grinding physical toil, tramping from one construction site to another in search of work. Their reputation for violence and drunkenness made them a frequent focus for missionaries and temperance society members, as well as turning them into the bogeymen of folk myth.' Elizabeth Garnett was the secretary of the Navvy Mission Society and might have been expected to give a harsh verdict on their uncouthness and worse. Far from it. 'Men of Iron' quotes her words: 'Certainly no men in all the world so improve their country as Navvies do England. Their work will last for ages, and if the world remains so long, people will come hundreds of years hence to look at it and wonder at what they have done.'

There are many people who like their reality smoothed out, comfortable, free of unsettling paradoxes and contradictions. How could such people, sometimes drunken and violent people, generally, to a feminist, sexist people, no doubt, have done so much to reduce human suffering, and far, far more, in general, than the genteel and the anti-sexist? The human suffering they reduced was not their own, but the suffering of the wider population, including the suffering of their critics, in far more comfortable circumstances.

 The phrase 'control over nature' offers so much scope to radical feminist interpretation - nature viewed as female, control as male, 'control over nature' as male supremacy and exploitation, to be opposed by radical feminism, as in the 'thought' of Carolyn Merchant.  A little thought shows that this amounts to complete distortion. In this section, as in most of the others, anti-feminists will be familiar with the arguments I use, but not, probably, with all the illustrative examples and the evidence.

Nature offers no easy way of heating rooms or heating water, or constructing rooms or effective shelters against the forces of nature, such as wind, rain and snow. Radical feminists, in societies where the control over nature is at a high level, get up in the morning in modern buildings or older buildings with modern conveniences. Putting on the electric kettle for a first cup of tea or coffee in a centrally heated room after a warm shower has advantages over waking up on a winter morning in a simple shelter constructed of natural materials with only natural fuel, such as branches or logs (cut with a stone-age axe) no obvious or easy way of lighting them, and no convenient source of water, in the absence of technological achievement (if rainwater is collected, in what kind of container? Not one made of PVC, polyvinylchloride) other than the water in streams and rivers probably polluted by human waste, and nowhere to wash away dirt from body and clothes, whatever natural clothes may be available, except for the icy water of those same streams and rivers.

Control over nature, which has given the benefits taken for granted by feminists and others, has required immense human effort and creativity of a very high order, the creativity which for once isn't misnamed - in organic chemistry, physical chemistry, heavy electrical engineering, quantum theory, seemingly remote fields such as the mathematical calculus and linear algebra, and many other fields. It's a matter of strict fact that the contribution of men to all of these has been overwhelmingly important.

For a long period of time, it was coal in this and other countries which offered the only practicable way in most cases to heat homes and heat water and cook food, to carry out innumerable other jobs, such as relieving agricultural workers of a significant part of the back-breaking work on the land by means of steam-driven machinery, pumping water, and of course transporting goods and people on the railways and over the oceans. In 'On the Road to Wigan Pier,' George Orwell wrote, in connection with society's indebtedness to miners at that time, 'all of us really owe the comparative decency of our lives to poor drudges underground, blackened to the eyes, with their throats full of coal dust, driving their shovels forward ...'

 Mining - for lead, copper and other metals as well as for coal - gives illuminating insights into feminism. It illustrates the intersection of humanitarian history and technological history. It illustrates the fact that most human suffering has been caused by nature, not by men, and that the achievement of men in overcoming the harshness of nature is incalculable. The world isn't nearly so dependent on coal mining now, but it's still dependent on technology. Modifying what George Orwell wrote to take account of changed conditions, 'You and I and the radical feminists who write about 'phallocentric' society and 'patriarchal society' and the defects of men really owe the comparative decency of our lives to a large extent to the scientists and technologists, far more often than not representatives of 'phallocentric and patriarchal' society, far more often than not men, who made the innovations which lessened the impact on human life of nature's harshness, and to the labourers who did the hard, often dangerous and dirty work needed to implement their ideas.'

'Celebrating'

 We're encouraged to 'celebrate' so many things now other than the traditional objects of celebration such as Christmas, weddings and birthdays. 'Celebrating' now often means showing respect for, and more than that, admiring. The great achievements of the pre-industrial age in wood and stone, the great achievements of the industrial age in stone, iron, steel and all the new materials which were created during the industrial age - these and other achievements should give rise to awe as well as respect and admiration.

 Anyone looking at rocky outcrops and quarries can understand that the rock was shaped by cutting and incorporated into buildings and bridges, although the tools used and the explosives now used involve less straightforward transformations. The intricate fan-vaulting of King's College Chapel, Cambridge, was achieved by precise cutting and the lifting into position of heavy loads, but no prosaic account can possibly do justice to the sublime achievement, which gives the appearance of effortlessness despite the enormous difficulties, overcome with enormous effort, the quarrying and transporting and lifting of stone.

 The massive stone blocks which make up the aqueducts which carrying canals over valleys, the railway bridges and road bridges, the massive stone blocks which are used in harbours and ports - how many travellers notice them and 'celebrate' the extraordinary achievement by which these blocks were placed one above another with such precision, sometimes submerged, starting from the sea-bed?

Anyone looking at rocks, fields, the natural or semi-natural world, and then looking at iron or steel should understand that the process by which the ores were converted into iron and steel was a massive human achievement. The uses of iron and steel represent an achievement which couldn't possibly be adequately 'celebrated.'

 How to 'celebrate' the Forth Railway Bridge, which was completed in 1890, the first major bridge made of steel? A recital of some statistics is a tribute, too, to the achievement of the men who played a part in its construction, and for some at the cost of their lives. Although there were boats under each cantilever for rescue, 57 men were killed during construction.

 The bridge is 2.5 km (1.5 miles) long. The spans of the girders are gigantic - 521m (1710 feet). The ties and struts of the bridge are the setting for enormous, balanced forces - tension in the ties and compression in the tubes. Each of the cantilevers, 110 m (361 feet) high is supported on massive granite piers. Granite is a particularly hard rock and the difficulties in cutting and shaping it are extreme. 54 160 tonnes of steel were used, and 4 200 tonnes of rivets. Steel plates were shaped using a 2 000 tonne hydraulic press. The bridge was constructed simultaneously on both sides of the three massive main piers. 'The precision of the assembly, using hydraulic cranes and riveting machines, was such that, when the work from the two sides was to be joined up, it required only hastily improvised fires of wood-shavings and waste to expand it by 1/4 in. for the final bolts to be inserted.' (T K Derry and Trevor I Williams, 'A Short History of Technology.'

 Rail travellers, including feminists, headed for Northern Scotland still use this bridge - but its achievement, like other great bridges, goes far, far beyond usefulness.

Obstacles

 Here, I directly compare 'patriarchy's' attitude to obstacles and that of feminists. Above, in connection with the 'patriarchy' of the first industrial age, I show that patriarchy 'got things done, it achieved, in the area of humanitarian legislation,' just as it overcame, but far more dramatically, natural obstacles.

 In a speech at Newcastle, the great engineer Robert Stephenson said, 'It seems to me but as yesterday that I was engaged as an assistant in laying out the Stockton and Darlington Railway. Since then, the Liverpool & Manchester and a hundred other great works have sprung into existence. As I look back upon these stupendous undertakings, accomplished in so short a time, it seems as if we have realized in our generation the fabled powers of the magician's wand. Hills have been cut down and valleys filled up; and when these simple expedients have not sufficed high and magnificent viaducts have been raised and, if mountains stood in the way, tunnels of unexampled magnitude have pierced them through, bearing their triumphant attestation to the indomitable energy of the nation and the unrivalled skill of our artisans.'

 At the time he spoke, the railway age had been in existence for only twenty years. By then there were 6 084 miles of railway in Great Britain. The achievement is directly relevant to our own age and its concern for sustainability and climate change. Once railway lines have been electrified - another achievement of patriarchy - trains can use, of course, electric current produced by any means, including renewable sources. The cutting down of hills and the filling up of valleys was carried out for one purpose only - to achieve a level foundation. Without it, the railway line could not have been used at all. This was not patriarchal despoliation of nature.

 Robert Stephenson's did far more than assist in laying out the Stockton and Darlington Railway. He built (with the assistance of navvies, of course) the first main railway line to serve London, the London and Birmingham railway. It was completed in 1838 and Thomas Roscoe described it as 'unquestionably the greatest public work ever executed, either in ancient or modern times.' He built the great High Level Bridge, opened in 1849, which links Newcastle-upon-Tyne with Gateshead. He built the Royal Border Bridge, carrying the North Eastern Railway across the River Tweed. This formed the last permanent link in the continuous line of East Coast Railway between London and Edinburgh. His tubular railway bridge by Conway castle was completed in 1848. Each of the wrought-iron tubes weighs more than 1000 tonnes. Robert Stephenson had taken his railway along the coast of North Wales. To take the railway into the island of Anglesey and then to the port of Holyhead, where ships left for Dublin, it was necessary to bridge the natural obstacle of the Menai strait. He did this with his Britannia Bridge, completed in 1850. This was a major advance in engineering. Earlier girders had not exceeded 35 feet but the main spans of this bridge were much longer, 460 feet.

 The Cambridge Biographical Encyclopedia, edited by David Crystal, 'celebrates' Robert Stephenson's achievements in 11 lines, and the engineering achievements of Isambard Kingdom Brunel in 12 lines, whereas their contemporary Horace Bushnell, 'Congregational minister and theologian,' who published Christian nurture in 1847 is given 15 lines.

'Railway mileage in Great Britain reached its peak with 20 443 route-miles of which a total length of about 310 miles was in 1 085 tunnels (excluding the London Underground). The longest was the Severn Tunnel (4 miles 628 yards) and in addition there were eleven tunnels over two miles long and a further forty-five over one mile long. Bridges totalled 62 244 ...' (Charles E Lee, 'Railways,' in 'The Archaeology of the Industrial Revolution,' edited by Brian Bracegirdle.)

 The obstacles overcome by the civil engineer John Metcalf were first of all severe personal ones. 'One of the few civilian road builders of ability active in the eighteen century was the remarkable Yorkshireman, 'Blind Jack of Knaresborough ... born in 1717 and blinded by smallpox at the age of six. Despite this disability he grew up strong and active ... Metcalf's road making career began in 1765, when he succeeded in winning a contract to construct three miles of the new turnpike from Harrogate to Boroughbridge. So superior was his stretch of road that fresh work came pouring in. Altogether he built about 180 miles of road, mostly in Yorkshire and Lancashire but also extending into Derbyshire.' (Anthony Ridley, 'Other Means of Communication,' in 'The Archaeology of the Industrial Revolution.') He built bridges too to carry his roads over rivers.

 Many or most radical feminists claim that 'gender' is socially constructed, they would claim that women have just as much interest as men in technical matters and are just as good as men at solving technical problems, the major technical problems of civil and mechanical engineering and the much smaller technical problems involved in working on car engines, that it's only patriarchal oppression and patriarchal stereotyping which could explain women's seeming lack of interest in technical matters, compared with men.

 Feminists should have realized that the recital of these 'facts' was no substitute for actual achievement, for overcoming obstacles. The obstacles were not so very great, after all. By now, feminists should have organized in every town and city women-only garages, for example, proof that women were not at all dependent on men for servicing cars, for carrying out minor and major repairs on cars. This would not have involved the difficulty of developing the techniques and designing and manufacturing the tools and heavy equipment and the specialist chemical products needed to do the work, the obstacles to be overcome would have amounted to only a tiny fraction of the obstacles overcome by patriarchy, but it would have earned them respect. As it is, feminist talk is cheap, available in vast quantities. It talks about obstacles and how enormous the obstacles are, but the triumphant overcoming of obstacles isn't much in evidence.

The art of car maintenance: an inquiry into Values

(The title of the section: see Robert Pirsig's book 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: an Inquiry into Values.')

Feminist attacks on 'gender stereotyping' include attacks on the alleged 'sexist' attitude that generally, women have less interest in mechanical matters than men. To claim that this attitude has no basis in reality is easy. Making every attempt to ensure that the reality corresponds with the claim is far more difficult. Feminists who own a car or some other vehicle can further their arguments by simply doing mechanical work on their car. My education included absolutely no mechanical components. For a long time I had hardly any  interest in anything mechanical. When I became a car owner, I began to service and repair the car myself, from straightforward jobs such as changing the oil and the oil filter to major mechanical work on the engine, carried out without a garage, the engine parts by necessity put on the pavement. Now that cars are much more complex, major mechanical work is more problematic, but changing the oil and oil filter is still straightforward. So are many other jobs. Any feminist who undertakes these jobs - with proper safety precautions, such as the use of axle stands to support the vehicle -  has made a greater contribution to reducing 'gender stereotyping' than a feminist who leaves all work on a car to men, surely.

If feminists are serious about countering the objection that feminists talk - and write - as a substitute for action in many ways, they will want to set up a national network of women's garages. If they claim that they're deterred by the 'sexism' of  suppliers of automotive tools and equipment, then tey could consider setting up a national network of suppliers.  This is far, far easier than making all the scientific and technological advances - in metallurgy, organic chemistry, electronics and so many other fields - which underlie the manufacture of  automotive tools and equipment.

Instead of complaining endlessly about the deficiencies of male-dominated garages, as they see it, it would be far better if feminists could have their vehicles serviced and repaired by all-women teams of mechanics, for work they can't carry out themselves.  It will require a high degree of organization, financial risk, the learning of a wide range of skills, but innumerable men have overcome these obstacles, gone ahead and opened up garages. Why not women? This is a far, far simpler matter than  Garages, unlike many branches of employment, are still open to independent people, even if there are many national chains. Feminists should stress the importance of independent women mechanics as well as national companies with a women's workforce in combatting 'gender stereotyping.'

Replacing a cylinder head gasket, however, offers none of the superficial pleasure of reciting 'men are useless' or 'car mechanics are sexist.'

 So far, the feminist record is very, very poor, as an internet search with the search term "women's garage" will quickly show. Two feminists in this city - Sheffield - were associated with a couple of short-lived women's garages a long time ago: Karen Griffiths and Rosalind Wollen. Rosalind Wollen has been associated with 'non-traditional" trades for women, Both deserve some credit for their efforts, but feminist inaction in non-traditional trades, motor mechanics and other fields is scandalous. An outline of an intervew with Karen Griffiths is available at 'Feminist archive north,' feministarchivenorth [dot] org [uk] and leaves a dispiriting impression of the garage project: a project abandoned, although the reasons aren't given.  Her feminist activism seem to have been disillusioning, on the evidence that she decided to concentrate on her personal life: 'Comments on how political action took over her life, and how now she wants to focus more on herself.'

 Any woman climber who spent most of her time attacking the 'sexism' of the climbing world instead of grappling with the hard realities of rock, snow and ice, the risks of injury or death from rock-fall or avalanche, could be accused of being a dilettante. There are many, many women climbers who have faced the realities, and often died in the attempt. The realities of mechanical work at least involve only a negligible risk of death and injury.

 Without discussing here the merits and faults of the many branches of feminist theory - theory due to women, such as Judith Butler, and theory due to men such as Derrida which has been incorporated to some extent into feminism and used by feminists - one disadvantage, for intellectual honesty, is the utility of theory, particularly arcane and impenetrable theory in arcane and impenetrable language in offering a refuge from such dilemmas and challenges. Theory blunts their impact.

 There are many, many feminists, of course, with an intense interest in literature, but feminists without the least interest in literature can still practise a form of 'literary criticism,' including  criticism of literary critics, to their own satisfaction and the satisfaction of many feminists: the art of feminist mechanical  criticism: 'mechanical' here to be sharply distinguished from the technological mechanical I discuss later. The mechanical critic notes that the author of a piece of writing is a man, and notes further that this man has an inadequate view of gender. Perhaps he uses 'he' when he should use 's/he' or 'she.'  This is an effortless way to establish superior insights, values and worth. Someone who attempts literary criticism without the least interest in literature I describe as an 'external critic,' practising 'external criticism.'

Feminists who have an intense interest in, an appreciation for, cultural and intellectual achievement outside feminism (and there are many of them) will recognize that feminist objections aren't final in matters of undeniable achievement. There are feminists, although not radical feminists,  who would recognize that  feminism is far from being the key to everything, the summum bonum, always the most important of considerations.

No feminist view of the ancient Greeks which concentrates on the extreme subordination of women at the time and ignores Greek achievement in architecture, sculpture, tragedy, comedy, philosophy, the writing of history and other fields can possibly be taken seriously. Feminists who think otherwise are welcome to present their views.

There are feminists who would refuse to consider that Mozart's opera 'The Magic Flute' has any merit at all, given the misogynistic views in some places (the libretto was mainly  written by Emanuel Schikaneder, but Mozart did choose to use it).  Many feminists would have more sense.

External criticism is rife in feminist discussions of technology. Feminists without the least interest in machine tools, iron and steel rolling mills, shipbuilding or any of the techniques and materials of technology have simply to point out examples of 'sexism' in technology to establish instant superiority over the  people who have.

 'Sex in the head' is an interesting, even enthralling, aspect of sexuality, but sex without human bodies, without material expression, is limited. The social relationships of sexual partners, the sources of bias and distortion in sexual partners have importance, but not to the exclusion of the body itself. 'Technology in the head' is no substitute for grappling with the recalcitrant and harsh world of matter.

 A great deal of my discussion in the page on Rilke and Kafka (two writers from the German-speaking community in Prague) concerns the 'bodied' and the disembodied, the corporeal and the incorporeal, the recalcitrance of matter and the often illusory power of the mind. I think it has great relevance to some weaknesses of feminism, as I see them. An extract:

 'Rilke has 'surface profundity' and very often not much more than that. Now, more than ever, denial of {restriction} is the source of endless illusion and disillusionment. People are unable to acknowledge  harshness, unable to recognize the {restriction} on their freedom of action, the {restriction} on their   happiness. They have 'extravagant expectations' (the title of the book by Paul Hollander.) Rilke's denial of checks, frustrations, obstacles, harshness, undermines so much of his poetic work. His sustained exploration of inwardness is undeniably impressive, but is insufficient compensation for the emphasis on the disembodied life, his neglect of the embodied life ...

 'By contrast, {restriction} is central to Kafka. In 'The Trial,' Joseph K.'s freedom of action is progressively restricted, in 'The Castle,' K. faces insuperable difficulties in reaching the castle.'

Feminism and the biological conditions of life

See also, on my page 'Veganism: against,' material on the vegan feminist academic Dr Lisa Kemmerer and smallpox.

Any society which neglects the material conditions of life faces destruction. It's usual for feminists to neglect these material conditions of life. Any society which neglects the biological conditions of life faces destruction.

Some radical feminists haven't hesitated to support policies which would end human life on earth - if it weren't for artificial techniques developed by patriarchy.

 Charlotte L Graham gives a brief account of a survey of feminist 'theory,' in a piece published under the auspices of the University of Oregon.

 'In Rosemarie Putnam Tong's survey of feminist theory, Feminist Thought: A More Comprehensive Introduction, she uses chapter two to describe the perspective of radical feminism.'

 She distinguishes radical-libertarian feminists from radical-cultural feminists.

 'When it comes to reproduction and mothering, radical-libertarian feminists see reproduction as women's main weakness. They are against biological motherhood and the sooner all reproduction can be done artificially the better. They see no biological imperative for reproduction [!] and propose the possibility that motherhood is a misplaced attempt to fullfill ego needs. In direct opposition to this, radical-cultural feminists see reproduction as a woman's main sourse [sic] of power (this is why men are always trying to control it) and advocate natural procreation. It is the institution of motherhood as controlled by men that is bad, not motherhood itself. If women could be mothers on their own terms, everything would be great.'

 The 'radical-libertarian feminists' are shameless in their promotion of artificial techniques which, as a matter of strict fact, were developed overwhelmingly by men and which rely on scientific and technological advances made predominantly by men. Sally Miller Gearhart advocated use of a different artificial technique, 'ovular merging,' in her 1982  manifesto `The Future–If There Is One–Is Female.' The technique can be used to produce only female offspring. She doesn't, though, wish to eliminate men entirely. Instead, 'The proportion of men must be reduced to and maintained at approximately 10 percent of the human race.' This will obviously require a mass influx of women into non-traditional jobs. Some feminists may well find themselves working in almost all weathers at a height, or trapped underground in mining accidents. (If mining is banned, then feminists and the rest of the population will have to manage without copper, iron ore, and the rest, and manage without copper pipes, copper wiring, stainless steel, and the rest. The list will be a very long one.)

 'Tong ends chapter two with a critique of radical feminism. This theory of women is shown to be ensnared by rigid roles and stereotypes which ignore the flaws of women.' 

 Those feminists with no opposition to motherhood, those feminists who can find fulfilment in motherhood, who nevertheless criticize medical interventions in childhood (they may regard nature itself in maternal terms) have some explaining to do - or explaining away. Childbirth without medical intervention tends to be intensely dangerous. Mother nature, disappointingly arranged things so that many mothers were no better off than mayflies, and died soon after giving birth.

 The sum total of feminist benefits to women come nowhere near the benefits to women of oral contraception - with no implication whatsoever that women have to have sex with men or are expected to have sex with men - although as a matter of strict biological fact - regrettable but inescapable - there will be obvious consequences for population numbers if most women chose not to.

 Feminists very often prefer to stress the personal and the social rather than the biological sphere.

  Similarly, feminists often prefer to stress the personal and the social rather than the material sphere. Issues to do with sharing housework are stressed, the technical ingenuity and overcoming of immense difficulties which were necessary to provide the equipment which overcame the worst drudgery and unending labour of housework are taken for granted - but fortunately, many women, including proto-feminists, were spared much of this drudgery and labour during the long period when vast numbers of domestic servants were available.

 Feminists are more likely to emphasize the work of advocates of contraception such as Marie Stopes than the scientists without whose work Marie Stopes and other campaigners would have had nothing but dangerously unreliable methods to advocate. Marie Stopes argument (in 'Married Love,' 1916) that women were as entitled to the sexual pleasure which can be enjoyed during intercourse as men is completely convincing, unanswerable, of course, but this pleasure, like the pleasures of food, the pleasures of an adequate and varied diet, requires an immense expenditure in knowledge and the implementation of knowlege to achieve. Without efficient methods of contraception, the same pleasure can be enjoyed, but pleasure which isn't in the least risk-free.

 Emily Wilson, in a series of reviews with the title 'On Maternity,' published in the 'Times Literary Supplement' (No. 5720). One of the books she reviews is 'Mothering and Motherhood in Ancient Greece and Rome,' by Lauren Hackworth Petersen and Patricia Salman-Mitchell. She writes (this can be considered as one account of the consequences and implications of the Malthusian nightmare, of course):

 'Even male authors of antiquity were aware that motherhood was a very dangerous business ... Those who survived to adulthood must have been conscious that their mothers could have died giving birth to them; men must have been aware that fathering children on their wives could, and quite likely would, kill them.' ['quite likely would ...' is hyperbole but not in the least a blatant distortion.]

 'Ancient mothers were also likely to watch their babies die. One estimate, cited in this book, suggests that in the ancient Greek world no more than one in three infants survived. Of course, it often happened, then as now, that both mother and child died in a difficult birth. But in other cases, one lived and the other died ...'

 The  bond between mother and baby, the joy and fulfilment which so many women - not all - find in the experience of motherhood - these experiences turn out not to be part of the natural order of things, there to be enjoyed, easily available experiences, but to be fraught. Joy and fulfilment as a possibility for most mothers turns out to have  a disappointing linkage with technical advance.

 Gratitude is in order, surely, for the work of investigators such as Gregory Goodwin Pincus, who introduced the oral contraceptive pill, or the work of the organic chemist W S Johnson, who undertook the complete synthesis of progesterone. Progesterone is an example of a synthetic chemical substance which is practically 100% effective. The structure of progesterone,

The diagram which summarizes the Johnson synthesis of progesterone hints at  only a tiny fraction of the work needed to produce progesterone. Without the work of the pioneers in organic chemistry as well as other branches of chemistry (the reactions obviously need inorganic compounds, for example) there would have been no oral contraception. Of course,  many other branches of science play a part in modern organic chemistry, as in the spectroscopic methods which have become indispensable in the field.

 It's self-evident to many feminists that 'men are useless.' They have failed to take into account, not obscure and unimportant evidence to the contrary, not a few extenuating circumstances, not matters which are marginal, but vast areas of experience.

Babies and bathwater

  The reference to 'babies and bathwater' has to be explained. I'm not alluding to the well known phrase, 'throwing the baby out with the bathwater.' (Oxford English Dictionary: 'to reject what is essential or beneficial along with what is inessential or harmful; to discard something valuable along with other things that are undesirable.) For the information of feminists who have strong feelings about maternal matters, of whatever kind (defending or rejecting the existence of a 'maternal instinct,' for example) I'm not alluding to maternal matters either.

The meaning of  'baby' here is similar to this, in the Oxford English Dictionary: ' ...a person's particular responsibility, concern, or area of interest; (also) something that a person has invented or brought to fruition, to which he or she has an emotional attachment.' 

'Baby' here means specifically 'well-established topic discussed (or mentioned without any attempt at argument) very often, and very often to the exclusion of other topics. In the case of feminism, 'babies' include references to domestic violence against women, in the case of men's movement Websites references to the feminist views on domestic violence. The topic of domestic violence is very important, obviously, but is very fully covered in other Websites, the Websites of feminists and the 'men's movement.' (feminist answers to the arguments of the 'men's movement aren't in the least plentiful, I think.)

On this page, I discuss many issues which belong to 'the bathwater,' which in my special use here is the wider context, including the wider context which is so often neglected, in books and Websites of the 'men's movement' as well as feminist books and Websites.

These are just a few examples of topics which belong to 'the bathwater,' in this sense:

'Care ethics' is an influential theory of morality. Care ethics 'treats care as central for understanding the nature of morality. The development of care ethics was largely sparked by the psychologist Carol Gilligan's 1982 book, In a different voice.' (Mark Timmons, Moral Theory: An Introduction.') On this page, I argue in various places that compassion is often ineffective - or completely ineffective - without material provision, and I stress 'the material conditions of life.' I understand completely, of course, that not all compassion needs material support, that kindliness, sympathy, empathy, patience can very often be shown without any material conditions. But compassion, and care, often do need to take account of material conditions. To give an example to do with babies, human babies rather than anything figurative, and bathwater, bathwetar which is literally water, without reference to my extended use, as context, if babies obviously need baths, and washing in general, whoever is doing the washing, man or woman, needs a supply of water, and preferably water which has been warmed. To obtain the water, advanced technological civilization provides reservoirs and other water sources and methods of heating the water, which usually involves very complex generating facilities and transmission facilities. The role of men in creating the scientific theory and the technological expertise and the labour for building the facilities should be obvious, even if it isn't obvious to many feminists. Care ethicists, and others, surely have to take account of this context ('the bathwater.')

If care ethicists do happen to be  discussing the care of babies - there are many, many other topics which will interest them, of course - then it may well be relevant to discuss the wider context, the bathwater. This involves consideration of factors which may well be uncongenial, factors which care ethics generally neglects.

Feminists make many different claims, with or without an attempt at supporting argument, in the print, digital and other media - these claims are 'the baby.' The relevant 'bathwater,' the wider context includes the invention of printing, the development of printing techniques and printing technology, the invention of computer communications and the development of computer communications. Any feminist claim that 'men are useless' should take account of the fact that the men involved in these work can't possibly have been as useless as claimed. Their work has been, to me, astonishing, very impressive.

On this page, I discuss the fact that in this country, the main - or only - feminist print publication of any prominence at all, 'Spare Rib,' collapsed amidst recriminations. Why have feminists failed to launch and sustain a variety of print publications?

I also note that feminists, in stark contrast with the energy and achievement of 'patriarchy,' have failed to launch and sustain a nationwide network of women's garages, managed by women, with women mechanics. Feminists often make scathing reference to the 'patronising' language they claim is inflected on them by men at garages run by men. A much more convincing response would be sustained work on setting up feminist garages, run on feminist lines: workshops not the feminist 'talking shops' which are  so common, I think.

If the subject is domestic violence, or rape, then of course feminists (and anti-feminists) are entitled to discuss the subject in relative isolation, but if the impression is given that these subjects, and a restricted range of other subjects, are the only ones which have an influence on the well-being of women (or men), then this is a mistake. It's essential, I think, to stress the importance of external security. If North Korea proves to be engaged only in a war of words and its nuclear capability is never used against other states, another rogue state with nuclear capability or great conventional capability is likely to threaten the well-being of men and women in the future. Domestic violence is far from being the only form of violence, of course. Again, I'd refer to this wider context, often overlooked, as 'the bath water.'

To summarize, 'the baby and the bathwater,' not an established use but a phrase with this new and useful interpretation, refers to the importance of taking into account context (the 'bathwater') in discussing the subject (the 'baby.) The subject here is very often a  widely discussed one and the relevant context often neglected. I hope that any feminists who do contribute arguments against my views take up the challenge of considering this kind of context.

Conjugates can be regarded as an instance of the 'bathwater.' I explain my concept of conjugates on the page Ethics: theory and practice, without giving any feminist examples. A non-feminist illustration of a conjugate which is harmful, I claim: a plausible and reasonable-seeming advocate for the Green Party (there are green parties in other European countries as well as this, but I think particularly of the Green Party in this country, could stress that concern for the environment is very important, that reducing waste is very important, that energy conservation is very important, that action to combat pollution is very important, and the rest. If human adaptability were greater - the kind of well-formed adaptability I refer to as {adjustment} - then there would be no reason why the speaker should not have a whole range of well-formed attitudes going well beyond thinking on the environment. There is no evidence that if the government elected a Green Party as the governing party, that the party's defence policy would be adequate in the least. (My page on veganism gives greater detail, in connection with the similar failings of vegans.) It does seem that lack of attention to defence issues is a conjugate of some views.

I think that feminism has its own harmful conjugates too, and very often in this same field, although the exceptions are many more than in the case of the green party and vegans - not including radical feminists.

A realistic defence policy is essential for a liberal democracy, unless the state has far more powerful and willing protectors. A realistic defence policy is an aspect of physical security, mentioned by John Kekes in his 'The Morality of Pluralism.' He writes, the protection of life, physical security, and some freedom to do as we please are normally good in all historical and cultural contexts.' (Quoted by Geoffrey Scarre in his review, in 'Mind: A Quarterly Review of Philosophy,' Volume 103 Number 411.) To return to the matter of material conditions and material agency, how are protection of life and physical security to be attained without material provision, material infrastructure, equipment and the rest? The concept of the conjugate is value-neutral in itself, and conjugates can be harmful or valuable, essential. Material conditions can be regarded as the enabling context of those values, the protection of life and physical security. As for 'some freedom to do as we please,' this freedom too has a material conjugate. In certain material conditions, this freedom is subject to extreme {restriction}. The freedom to travel requires the material means to travel, the freedom to think and reflect may require the material means to avoid the constant search for food or shelter or warmth,

Mary Wollstonecraft, the famousest feminist: a vindication of the right of criticism

 This is a vindication of the right to criticize Mary Wollstonecraft from an anti-feminist perspective. She has already been criticized from a feminist, particularly a radical feminist perspective.

For Mary Wollstonecraft, writing in 'Vindication of the Rights of Woman,'

'Youth is the season for love in both sexes; but in those days of thoughtless enjoyment provision should be made for the more important years of life, when reflection takes place of sensation.'

At  the time she wrote, for many, many people, youth was the season for sitting in complete darkness and nearly complete isolation, youth was the season for hauling almost impossible loads, inhaling coal dust and risking crushing, drowning and being blown limb from limb, childhood likewise, the generally short period of adulthood likewise.  The life of the children in the mines was beyond her inner resources.

Feminism and the death penalty gives another instance of Mary Wollstonecraft's failures of empathy, and Slavery and serfdom  criticizes her for her disastrous blurring of the  difference between the lives of slaves, male and female, and the lives of non-slave women, such as women of the middle-class to which she belonged. The information I provide will remove any doubts about the reality of the extreme difference.

 A radical revaluation of Mary Wollstonecraft is long overdue, and not a radical feminist revaluation. Criticism of Mary Wollstonecraft the early feminist and reservations about Mary Wollstonecraft have generally come from feminists, particularly radical feminists, who regard her as too timid, ready to accept far too readily some aspects of 'patriarchy.' This is, I think, the first critical view of Mary Wollstonecraft from a very different perspective, an anti-feminist one - but emphatically not one which opposes such advances as extension of the suffrage and higher education to women. (See my comments on Fidelbogen's Counter-feminist blog. I quote these words of his, 'Again, for the record, I am stating no personal opinion about the issue of women's voting rights. Let the fact be well noted, that I have said nothing either pro or con upon that subject.' I add this comment, 'His failure to state a personal opinion, his failure to support the extension of the franchise, has to be criticized severely. He's right about many things, as I see it, but not right about everything. He's right about many things but misguided about others.'

 I concentrate attention here on these limitations: her self-centredness, quite often amounting to self-pity, and her lack of curiosity and I give further evidence of her lack of empathy. I do far more than acknowledge the importance of her work in furthering female emancipation, for example her pleas for opening up women's access to education, but point out how limited was her conception of education, as of so much else. (In the terminology of {themes}, these limitations all amount to {restriction}:- {scope}.) I begin with evidence from the letters. These unwittingly reveal how much in the 'Vindication' belongs to the word-sphere: ringing declarations are easy, translating them into reality often very difficult.

 Even Janet Todd, a sympathetic feminist commentator, who edited the Collected Letters, finds it impossible to overlook a tone in the letters which I criticize more severely. In the Introduction, she writes, 'The letters sometimes appear melodramatic and self-indulgent but part of this is the fashion of the times, and they need to be judged beside the extreme self-dramatizing of her sister Eliza for example or indeed of her friend Mary Hays, similarly caught up in unrequited love.' I make connections - linkages - with contemporary feminism, which, in the writing of many feminists, has certainly sustained the self-dramatizing of Eliza and the self-indulgence of Mary Wollstonecraft. I also show the linkage between self-centredness and lack of curiosity in Mary Wollstonecraft, as in contemporary feminism.

Janet Todd's mention of 'the fashion of the times' as an extenuating circumstance is far from being a feeble comment, at first sight. Many individuals who transcended their times  or who were far ahead of their times  had limitations which tied them to their times - but the limitations had to do with less central matters, not the achievements themselves. In the case of Mary Wollstonecraft, the weaknesses had to do with her central claims and arguments. They showed the gulf between words and practice, and some severe difficulties in implementing feminist ideals.

The musicologist Hans Keller wrote well on these matters, even if he failed to distinguish central achievement and peripheral weakness. In his book 'Criticism,' he quotes Martin Cooper's review of 'the man and the music,' the man being the composer Benjamin Britten, one of the greatest of English composers: 'It would be rash to attempt a forecast the place that Britten will occupy in the history of European music. He was essentially a child of his day, when music had lost its traditional cosmopolitan idiom and composers had to choose between devising an individual dialect of the old language or following the few radicals into unknown territory. Britten's was perhaps the happiest of all the personal idioms achieved, by modifying rather than defying tradition.'

 Hans Keller finds this useless: 'Britten - like every genius - was essentially not a child of his day: what distinguishes his art is what distinguishes it from every single contemporary trend which, if he used it at all, he used as a background against which he threw his meanings into relief; as a result, and as distinct from the majority of contemporary composers (any age's contemporary composers) he is recognizable within a bar, whereas they, unidentifiable, pass from being contemporary into having been temporary. So estranged did he, in fact, feel from his time, in which he found more than the few radicals which Mr Cooper describes, that his situation in our musical world deeply depressed him.'

 If Mary Wollstonecraft's views had been immediately influential, if they had been implemented immediately, and as fully as she would have wished, one consequence is that women would have been admitted to higher education in large numbers, but she showed minimal interest in the curriculum. It was important that women should have far greater access to education - and it was important, very important. It was very important to consider too what sort of education women, and men, should receive.  Mary Wollstonecraft showed not the least interest in science and technology and in fact higher education at the time gave only patchy coverage to science and practically none at all to technology. The remarkable advances of the early industrial age through which she lived owed very little to higher education. Mary Wollstonecraft showed no interest in these at all. If Mary Wollstonecraft's views had dominated the thinking and practice of society, any advances in science and techonology - including the advances which had profound humanitarian effects - would have owed nothing to her school of thought.

 She died as a result of complications in childbirth, and all the advances which made childbirth so much safer owed nothing to her way of thinking. If she had been much more convincing, much more influential, much more successful in her advocacy, it would have retarded, not advanced, the vastly reduced mortality rates, not just the mortality rates during childbirth but of cholera, smallpox and many, many other causes of premature death.

 Smallpox is now an extinct disease. Nobody suffers from smallpox or dies from smallpox now. Mary Wollstonecraft mentions smallpox in her letter to Everina Wollstonecraft (Paris, September 20, 1794.) In the closing years of the 18th century, smallpox killed an estimated 400 000 Europeans each year. Of cases of blindness, a third were caused by smallpox. Smallpox was responsible for an estimated 300 - 500 million deaths during the 20th century. In 1967, the World Health Organization estimated that two million people died of smallpox. Smallpox was eradicated by vaccination, not by feminism. Men's overwhelmingly important role in eliminating this scourge, such as the work of Edward Jenner, is something which has a place in any ((survey)). It alone is overwhelmingly important evidence than men are far from useless, as so many feminists think.

Mary Wollstonecraft's child caught smallpox, as she records in this letter: 'She is now only four months old - She caught the small-pox at Havre,' where they treated smallpox 'very improperly - I, however, determined to follow the suggestions of my own reason, and saved her much pain, probably her life ... by putting her twice a day into a warm bath.'

Her own reason never suggested anything like scientific method, which gives a rigorous way of comparing useful and useless methods of treatment, in this case vaccination and warm baths. (The overall fatality rate for children less than one year old is 40% - 50%, and the recovery of Mary Wollstonecraft's child owed nothing to the treatment.)

It's fair to assume that education according to Wollstonecraft principles would give no emphasis to scientific method. In general, feminists promote the greater participation of women but are vague when it comes to the objectives and policy of the organization - apart from the objective of greater participation of women and the policy of greater policy of women.

In his essay, 'Charles Dickens,' George Orwell identifies a vagueness and a weakness in his educational ideas. After quoting Dickens, beginning with, 'Doctor Strong's was an excellent school, as different from Mr Creakle's as good is from evil' he comments, In the woolly vagueness of this passage one can see Dickens's utter lack of any educational theory. He can imagine the moral atmosphere of a good school, but nothing further.'

Feminist schools would be nothing like so vague. They would teach feminist theory and feminist history, for sure, but what else? Critical thinking? Scientific method?

She was not one to confront real difficulties, let alone insuperable difficulties, for the most part. In the case of education for working class children, the difficulties were immense. Jane Humphries gives a comprehensive account in 'Childhood and Child Labour in the British Industrial Revolution' of the realities. (Below, I distinguish my own comments by putting them in brackets.)

She claims that children experienced the most violence not at home or in the factories where they worked but in private schools, the 'Dame schools.' The teachers at these schools were incompetent and generally physically abusive. (In fact, most of the teachers at these schools were women. The liberal, refined education which Mary Wollstonecraft advocated so persuasively, at first sight, in the 'Vindication' ovelooked the fact that there was no extensive supply of liberal teachers at the time. Changing conditions so that teachers became more liberal and education lost its brutality was an objective that was general not feminist, to do with human values. It couldn't and shouldn't have been addressed by the spread of feminism alone.)

The economic difficulties confronting any reform of education - the education of boys and girls - are described at length in the book.

Jane Humphries describes the gnawing hunger that dominated every day: working-class childhood 'was one long empty belly.' In these circumstances, (Mary Wollstonecraft's view of education was an unreal one for working-class children. The priority was to assure the supply of sufficient food, and the industrial and agricultural reforms did eventually achieve that objective, by technical means, not feminist means.)

gives information about the brevity of schooling for working-class children. Between 1790 and 1850, the median age at which children started work was 10. Before and after that date it was 12.

Families without fathers and very large families were common, as a result of high mortality and fertility rates. (This is the Malthusian nightmare which was ended in industrial societies.) Children were generally crucial for economic survival. Working class families needed the wages of the children to survive. The wages of children were very significant for these families. Any form of education other  than a brief period of education would have been an impossibility. 'Sons, as well as daughters, were withdrawn from school to hold the domestic fort when mothers went out to work.'

'Before the spread of state financed schooling in the second half of the nineteenth century, it was expensive to send children to school. There were both direct and opportunity costs that were immediate and palpable. In contrast, the benefits were distant and uncertain ... Schools charged fees, and these were substantial relative to families' incomes. When Daniel Chater started at his local 'seat of learning'' his father was only earning 18s per week and there were three younger children in the family. The 6d fee proved 'too high for my parents' pocket' and he was removed. Fortunately a Board school opened nearby that charged only 3d, but Chater senior's wage was not regular, and so 'there were occasions when even that small sum could not be spared.'

William Chadwick (born 1822) lost his father aged five: ' ... To attend day school was out of the question and at eight years of age I was sent to work, for about thirteen hours a day, at a cotton mill.'

She points out that schooling was often seasonal to accommodate pressing demands for labour, particularly in agricultural areas. She gives this example, 'William Stout and his brother were so frequently out of school to assist on the family's farm that they made little progress, 'for what they got in winter we forgot in summer.'

In some areas there were no schools, or the journey to school, always on foot, was simply too long.

Harsh realities - other than a very restricted class of harsh realities -  and concrete proposals to overcome harsh realities, were never a forte of Mary Wollstonecraft. In her letter to Gilbert Imlay (Gothenburg, August 26, 1795) she writes, 'I have lived in an ideal world ...' Or of later feminists, in general. A great variety of other problems has been neglected too. The focus has been almost entirely on the non-material aspects of education, with complete indifference towards making bricks, quarrying stone, felling trees and shaping timber to build the school, the plumbing of the school - providing safe water and taking away sewage - in later times providing electricity for the school, and all the immense ingenuity and labour needed to ensure this.

The plight of poor families became less and less common, eventually, and the Malthusian nightmare was only ended, by wealth creation, the creation of the surpluses that were generally impossible in pre-industrial societies. For most feminists, this requires a journey into uncongenial territory, the absolutely unavoidable and pivotal  dominance of coal as an energy source (and later as a source of carbon for making steel on a large scale) and mechanization, even if they wouldn't for one moment care to be without the benefits of technological advance in the home and at work.

Mary Wollstonecraft's lack of curiosity, her indifference to matters with a direct bearing on her activities as well as matters which might have expanded her limited horizons, are dispiriting. Her lover Gilbert Imlay and his business associates imported alum and soap into France. Alum (hydrated potassium aluminium sulphate) has a variety of uses. Present day uses include extinguishing chemical and oil fires, and treating cloth, wood and paper to increase resistance to fire.  If Gilbert Imlay had said to Mary Wollstonecraft, 'Don't take any interest in this compound. Leave it to us men,' he would have been accused of 'sexism.' If Mary Wollstonecraft declared, 'I have no interest in alum,' leaving it to men such as Gilbert Alum to take care of the compound, this was allawable. In her letter to Gilbert Imlay (Paris, September 22, 1794) she mentions these products and immediately passes to matters of much more concern,

'Well, this you will say is trifling - shall I talk about alum or soap? There is nothing picturesque in your present pursuits; my imagination then rather chuses to ramble back to the barrier with you, or to see you coming to meet me, and my basket of grapes.' Janet Todd explains that 'the barrier' is the Paris gate where Wollstonecraft and Imlay used to meet when the former lived in Neuilly ...' Nobody can blame Mary Wollstonecraft for not discussing alum any further here, but she can be blamed for not taking any interest in practical matters which were of no direct concern to her. Her indifference to such things has relevance to her views on education. Nietzsche, who occasionally wrote sense, who occasionally had remarkable insights, wrote, 'Where neither love nor hatred is in the game, a woman's game is mediocre' ('Beyond Good and Evil,' 'Epigrams and Interludes,' 115). This is an untrue generalization when applied to woman - he wasn't writing sense here, this was no remarkable insight - but it seems true enough of Mary Wollstonecraft.

However, even Nietzsche couldn't rival the gross stupidity of those generalizing feminists who include the humane and the inhumane, the honest and the dishonest, the cruel and the kind, liberators and enslavers, benefactors and barbarians, in the one all-inclusive category of the hated and despised: men.

Janet Todd's edition of 'The Collected Letters' groups a  number of letters under the heading 'Scandinavia 1795.'

She has sailed to Gothenburg in Sweden. At this time, seafaring, like child-bearing, had not become immeasurably safer as a result of technical advance. She shows no curiosity about the hard and dangerous lives in the sailors or the construction of their ships. She is largely oblivious to everything but her own emotions.  Extracts from the series of letters sent to Gilbert Imlay from Gothenburg:

'What I suffered in the vessel I will not now descant upon ... here I could not get a fire to warm me, or any thing warm to eat; the inns are mere stables ... I believe I alluded to the extreme fatigue I endured on ship-board ... I am overwhelmed with civilities on all sides [an interesting way of making kindness into yet another burden] ... a deadly weight of sorrow lies heavily on my heart. I am again tossed on the troubled billows of life; and obliged to cope with difficulties, without being buoyed up by the hopes that alone render them bearable ... I long every night to go to bed, to hide my melancholy face in my pillow; but there is a canker-worm in my bosom that never sleeps ... I labour in vain to calm my mind ... Every thing fatigues me ... My heart is so oppressed, I cannot write with precision ... What peculiar misery has fallen to my share!' ... Love is a want of my heart ... soul and body seem to be fading away before the withering touch of disappointment ... I blush when I recollect my former conduct - and will not in future confound myself with the beings whom I feel to be my inferiors. - I will listen to delicacy, or pride ... though every remembrance stings me to the soul, I think of you, till I make allowance for the very defects of character, that have given such a cruel stab to my peace ... Do not tell me, that you are happier without us ... Ah, why do you not love us with more sentiment? ... With what a cruel sigh have I recollected that I had forgotten to hope!'

A reminder of some others who had 'forgotten to hope,' in very different circumstances. From the section above, The material conditions of life:

'Here were portrayed men and women and small children living the life of beasts: a teenage girl struggling on all fours harnessed to a waggon of coal that she was pulling along a narrow seam; little children clinging to a rope as they were lowered down a shaft by an old woman whose rags told of her poverty: boys chained to heavy corves, with only a single candle to light the dark roadways ... In one mine, near Chesterfield, boys had to pull corves weighing at least 1/2 ton and sometimes as heavy as 1 ton, for 60 yards along a roadway that was only 2 feet high ... The boys who worked as hauliers might work as many as fourteen hours a day, from six in the morning to eight at night, and on top of that they would have an often lengthy journey to and from work. (See my poem Mines in the poetry section 'Child Labour.') The pages of the Royal Commission Reports are full of accounts of children returning home too tired to eat, who fell asleep as soon as they sat at table an had to be carried to bed. Some were not even able to walk the distance to their homes, and parents would find them asleep by the roadside.'

She writes, 'There are misfortunes so great, as to silence the usual expressions of sorrow.' (Letter to Gilbert Imlay, Strömstad, July 7, 1795). She was not thinking of misfortunes of the kind suffered by miners, of course. The letter begins, 'I could not help feeling extremely mortified last post, at not receiving a letter from you.' And she writes, 'There are characters,' she writes, who 'cannot rest satisfied with the common comforts of life.' The 'common comforts of life'were beyond the expectation of the miners, of course. She continues, ' ... had not disappointment cut me off from life, this romantic country, these fine evenings, would interest me ... am I ever to feel alive only to painful sensations?' (But not the painful sensations of struggling on all fours harnessed to a waggon of coal.)

Janet Todd a writes of Mary Wollstoencraft's time in Ireland, (in a  piece on the BBC History Website
not in her edition of the letters), 'After a year of suffering depressive illness, and of surviving prickly encounters with Lady Kingsborough, Mary was dismissed in 1787.' A reading of the letters makes it clear that Mary Wollstonecraft suffered from depressive illness for much of her life, but there have been many, many people of high achievement who suffered from depressive illness (or bipolar illness)  whose interest in other people was not nearly so restricted, whose horizons were not nearly so restricted, and not because their illness wasn't nearly so severe.

Gerard Manley Hopkins, unlike Mary Wollstonecraft, was capable of empathy for people unlike himself, in a sphere remote from his own. He writes in a letter to Robert Bridges (August 2, 1871), 'But it is a dreadful thing for the greatest and most necessary part of a very rich nation to live a hard life without dignity, knowledge, comforts, delight, or hopes in the midst of plenty - which plenty they make ... England has grown hugely wealthy but this wealth has not reached the working classes ... The more I look the more black and deservedly black the future looks ...' Mary Wollstonecraft's absorption in her own black moods dominated her for very long periods, and when she felt happier, she rarely strayed far beyond her own class.

His despair is given artistic expression in the 'terrible sonnets,' which include these lines:

I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.
What hours, O what black hourswe have spent
This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went!
And more must, in yet longer light's delay.
   With witness I speak this. But where I say
Hours I mean years, mean life ...

And these:

    O the mind, mind has mountains, cliffs of fall
Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap
Mary who ne'er hung there ...

Linked with the terrible sonnets by its desolation is the poem 'Justus es ...'

... See, banks and brakes
Now, leavèd how thick! lacèd they are again
With fretty chervil, look, and fresh wind shakes
Them; birds build - but not I build; no, but strain,
Time's eunuch, and not breed one work that wakes.
Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain.

His nature poetry throws into contrast Mary Wollstonecraft's  obliviousness to nature. If she noticed none of the developments which were transforming life in England, she noticed too very little of natural beauty. The life of the working classes were remote from her but so too, to a lesser extent, was the independent life of an animal or a plant. Hopkins, by contrast, had an intense, ecstatic interest in such animals and plants as the windhover (falcon), the skylark, the woodlark, poplar trees, ash trees.

Letters have often been the occasion for an outpouring of despair, for gloom and experiences much worse than gloom. Mary Wollstonecraft's letters reveal a depression which is repetitious in its expression, one which quickly becomes predictable in its expression, formulaic, a depression which is raley put to good use (empathy with other afflicted people, for instance), depression which is without benefits for herself or her readers.

Janet Todd also wrote of Mary Wollstonecraft, when she was in Ireland  'She noticed little about the social and economic situation around her.' It would have been better if Janet Todd had explored the issue at some length.

The dangers and backbreaking work of the coal miners were unavoidable. What was avoidable was the employment of women as mine-workers and children as mine-workers, and after 1842 in this country, only men and boys over 10 years old worked underground. But the dangers and backdreaking work were not the result of greed, exploitation or incompetence but due to the harshness of reality. The factors included geological conditions, the natural production of explosive and poisonous gases, matter in bulk. The technology needed to reduce the dangers and eliminate much of the backbreaking work was sophisticated and could not be developed quickly. When children opened and closed ventilating flaps deep underground, in complete darkness, children could have been spared the horrors of the task, but the task could not be avoided - someone had to open and close the ventilating flaps, if not children then women and if not women then men.

There was an alternative to the use of coal as an energy source, wood, but wood had insuperable disadvantages, and not only the disadvantages of deforestation. Before the industrial revolution, extensive use was made of water power and wind power for powering machinery, such as the machines used for grinding agricultural and other tools and for grinding wheat and other cereals, but water-powered machines could not be used in periods of drought in summer and wind-powered machines could not be used when there was no wind, with obvious consequences for the livelihood of workers and their families.

 Lack of wind obviously made sailing in a sailing ship impossible. Some of Mary Wollstonecraft's letters record the difficulty (there were no dangers, but the crews and passengers of  vessels becalmed in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean or Pacific Ocean often faced great danger). They give too further instances of her self-pity - her depressive illness is an extenuating circumstance but not in the least a complete excuse - her obliviousness to, her lack of all curiosity about, the crew of the ship, the discomforts and difficulties they faced, not just then but throughout their working lives:

To Gilbert Imlay, Hull, June 17, 1795
I was hurried on board yesterday about three o' clock, the wind having changed. But before evening it veered round to the old point; and here we are, in the midst of mists and water, only taking advantage of the tide to advance a few miles.'

To Gilbert Imlay, Hull, June 18, 1795
Here I am still - and I have just received your letter of Monday by the pilot, who promised to bring it to me, if we were detained, as he expected, by the wind. - It is indeed wearisome to be thus tossed about without going forward ... [Marguerite] is unable to do any thing, she is rendered so sick by the motion of the ship, as we ride at anchor.'

To Gilbert Imlay, Hull, June 20, 1795
This is the fifth dreary day I have been imprisoned by the wind [not, 'we have been imprisoned by the wind], with every outward object to disgust the senses, and unable to banish the remembrances that sadden my heart.

Eventually, a favourable wind takes the vessel to Sweden and she arrives in Gothenburg: 'What I suffered in the vessel I will not now descant upon.' (Letter to Gilbert Imlay, Gothenburg, June 27, 1795.) In a letter written two days later, she mentions 'the extreme fatigue I I endured on ship-board,' one of its causes being 'the roughness of the weather,' of which the crew will have had far more experience. She ends the letter, 'I long every night to go to bed, to hide my melancholy face in my pillow; but there is a canker-worm in my bosom that never sleeps.' What she would have felt if she had had to sleep on bare boards or the ground can only be imagined.

The difficulties of sailing ships when there were no winds or the winds were unfavourable, the difficulties of wind and water powered machinery, were solved by the extraordinary developments, creative and immensely difficult, which created the steam engine. This allowed machines to be powered almost anywhere - there was no need to site the machinery by a source of water power, for example - and the machines could run uninterrupted by the vagaries of wind and water. Ships could run according to schedule. Crew and passengers were not held up for days at a time.

At a very early stage in the 'Vindication,' Mary Wollstonecraft, in the seventh paragraph of Chapter 1, she makes an observation which she never heeded, and which later feminists have practically never heeded. In general, the failure is far more serious for the later feminists with wide-ranging claims than for Mary Wollstonecraft, whose claims are more modest.

 'Men, in general, seem to employ their reason to justify prejudices, which they have imbibed, they can scarcely trace how, rather than to root them out. The mind must be strong that resolutely forms its own principles; for a kind of intellectual cowardice prevails which makes many men shrink from the task, or only do it by halves. Yet the imperfect conclusions thus drawn, are frequently very plausible, because they are built on partial experience, on just, though narrow, views.' [My emphasis.]

If someone is buying an everyday article, then a ((survey)) of factors will include, in many cases, for people who take account of environmental and ethical considerations, ((cost, colour, availability, acceptability in ethical terms, acceptability in environmental terms ... )). In deciding whether or not men are tyrannical or far from tyrannical, the most inadequate basis for decision is the autocentric one: personal experience. This is open to objections based on sampling. The person's experience may be atypical. The factors which a feminist should take into account in deciding on the culpability or otherwise of men are very many. In general, feminists confine themselves to too few: {restriction}:- survey. My page Introduction to {theme} theory explains my terminology and the associated symbolism, and my reasons for using them. I attempt to give a ((survey)) on this page which, though necessarily incomplete, includes a greater range of factors than is usually provided in feminist and anti-feminist discussion.

'Rousseau exerts himself to prove that all was right originally: a crowd of authors that all is now right: And I, that all will be right.'

A generalization (which is a counter-{restriction}:- (scope)) of the principle of falsification: the application-sphere of falsification is not only empirical science, but an application-sphere which includes ideology.  If conclusive certainty in falsification is difficult  in science, far more so in matters of ideology.

Similarly, the principle of the uniformity of nature - inductive inferences applied to nature, future cases resembling past, previously observed cases - can be generalized: what can be called 'the principle of the uniformity of flawed human nature,' and flawed society. Utopianism is denial of this principle, and Mary Wollstonecraft gives approval to a form of utopianism here. Christian doctrines of the Fall of Man entail, of course, a Christian-feminist doctrine of the Fall of Woman too.

The Christian doctrine is subject to excessive {restriction}. The application-sphere of {restriction} in my account is not only human behaviour and motivation, deeply flawed in the Christian account, but the thinking which underlies the origins and continuance of Christianity. Christianity's insights into human imperfection are more realistically based in general than  secular views which are  perfectionistic, but misinterpret the problem and propose a false solution.

The linkage between Mary Wollostenecraft's view (and feminist views in general) and these Christian views: she misinterprets the problem and proposes a false solution. The uniformity of human nature extends to men and women, surely, to the extent that women, like men, have no natural or artificial immunity (to use a linkage with human biology) to gross error, gross failings, all those shortcomings which amount to {restriction}:- ('virtuousness').

'A standing army ... is incompatible with freedom; because subordination and rigour are the very sinews of military discipline; and despotism is necessary to give vigour to enterprizes that one will directs.'

{substitution} of 'police' for 'army' and 'military' gives, 'A standing police force ... is incompatible with freedom; because subordination and rigour are the very sinews of police discipline ...' In Mary Wollstonecraft's time, the army had some of the functions of a police force, when called upon. Abuses of power and mistaken use of power are obviously likely to be vivid in the mind. The horrors which a population is spared because the exercise of power has deterred or otherwise prevented them tend to be harder to grasp. Liberal laws, including laws which rectify injustices, not only have to be passed, they have to be enforced. If women and children are forbidden by law from working underground in coal mines, then in the absence of a police force, they can defy the law with impunity. The Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 had to be enforced, and it was. From the section Slavery and serfdom, 'Slavery was ended not just by reformers who worked for legislative change and eventually achieved it. The legislation had to be enforced. The British Navy (which would count as an agent of patriarchy in most feminist histories, no doubt) played a prominent part in enforcing anti-slavery laws.Between 1811 and 1867, the British Navy's Anti-slavery Squadron liberated 160 000 slaves. In 1845, 36 British vessels were assigned to this squadron.'

Looters and rioters who have no valid reason for rioting, can either be permitted to do exactly as they wish - the absence of a police force would allow that to happen. Invaders can be permitted to invade - the absence of armed forces would allow that to happen. The frequency of invasion in the history of the world is astonishing. Wikipedia  gives a useful and comprehensive List of Invasions.

She hasn't any conception of the reasons for military discipline. It lies well beyond the scope of her insight and experience.

She goes on to lambast sailors and soldiers, and here she becomes insufferable, a  prissy Sunday school teacher of a writer. She criticizes sailors as 'indolent, when not discharging the ceremonials of their station' and the 'active idleness' of soldiers - who were not always marching long distances each day with a full pack, admittedly. She criticizes sailors because they 'acquire a fondness for humour and mischievous tricks.' But in the case of both soldiers and sailors, 'mind is equally out of the question.' 'May I be allowed to extend the comparison to a profession where more mind is certainly to be found.' Who are these paragons? The clergy in fact - who aren't criticized for their idleness.

Women and bullfighting, 'sexism' and cruelty

(See also my page Bullfighting: arguments against and action against.)

Above, Cristina Sánchez, who cut a total of 231 bulls' ears during her career, which began in 1993. (GNU Free Documentation License.)

Karla Sanchez San Martin, a female bullfighter, has said that 'she  wants to inspire girls to fight sexism wherever it occurs, as it is something she still faces in her chosen career.' ('The Indepenendent,' 4 January 2015.)

There are feminists who would claim that the Spanish bullfighter Noelia Mota has faced hideous sexism during her career. More importantly, infinitely more importantly, Noelia Mota has inflicted hideous cruelty during her career. Watching this film should leave not the slightest doubt:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lB8sPRXrOj4

The  film is the third part of a series which depicts scenes of extreme cruelty. It shows Noelia Mota at last killing a bull, after repeated stabbing at the spine.  She is a mounted bullfighter ('rejoneadora'), by this stage dismounted. In the film which forms Part 1 of the series,  she is shown stabbing the bull with the rejones de castigo (lances of punishment), which weaken the bull. Then, she stabs the bull with  banderillas, which further weaken the bull. At 04:35 in Part 2 of the series,  she is shown stabbing the bull with the 'rejon de muerte' ('lance of death') intended to kill the bull. She fails to kill the animal. With the lance embedded in its back, the bull is subjected to a long series of further stabbings, first with other lances, which again fail to kill the bull. Assistants use capes to make the bull move its head from side to side, in a failed attempt to make the lances cut a vital organ, a standard technique. Then, she makes  repeated use of a sword, the descabello,  in an attempt to sever the bull's spine. The descabello has a very sharp, broad blade about 10 cm (4 in) long. The repeated  stabbings with the descabello continue in  the third part,  the animal by now almost helpless. At 0:56 one of the lances of death is pulled out by a member of the audience. Soon after the bull has died,  one of the bull's ears is cut off (not shown in the film.) She is awarded the ear as a trophy and throws it into the audience.

I don't know how many times Noelia Mota stabbed the bull with the descabello. I haven't counted. This repeated hacking at the spine, like the use of the capes to make the embedded sword cut a vital organ, is very common.   'Alexander Fiske-Harrison, an apologist for the bullfight, saw a bull stabbed three times with the 'killing sword' but still alive, and then stabbed repeatedly with the descabello. According to the 'bullfighting critic' of the newspaper 'El Mundo' who counted the stabbings, the bull was stabbed in the spine seventeen times before it died.' Daniel Hannan, another apologist who isn't deterred by any of the scenes he's witnessed, writes about the matador Talavante, 'who gave up trying to kill his first bull after much dreich [Scots word meaning 'miserable,' most usually in connection with weather] hewing with the descabello: 'I lost count after his twelfth attempt.'

How is a feminist to approach bullfighting? Surely, not in purely feminist terms, to call for an end to 'gender stereotyping' in bullfighting, the assumption that a woman is less capable of fighting and killing a bull in the bullring than men, to call for an end to 'gender imbalance,' and to regard a world in which half the bullfighters are women as a victory for feminism.

When feminists routinely stress  the linkages between women, they ignore the  fact that time after time, it's the linkages between men and women which are vastly more important.

There are women who, like myself, loathe bullfighting, who regard it as depraved and disgusting.  Then there are women who attend bullfights and support bullfighting. There are very large numbers of these. One of them is Muriel Feiner, the author of 'Women and the Bullring.' The description of the book on the site for Abebooks includes this:

'The story of Women and the Bullring is one of daring and determined women who overcome countless obstacles and sexist barriers to realize a unique dream--that of becoming a "matadora de toros." In the first English translation of this award-winning book on the subject, Muriel Feiner chronicles the struggle of women to become matadors--not only Spanish and Latin American women but also American, French, and British--from the 17th century to the present day. She also includes women who have attempted to make inroads into the bullfighting world as bull breeders, journalists, photographers, managers, artist, and impresarios, as well as a section devoted to the wives and mothers of some of the most prominent male toreros. Feiner's extensive research included interviews with noteworthy authorities and with the protagonists themselves. The text is complemented by an extraordinary collection of historical and recent photographs. Feiner's investigation into the fears, frustrations, determination, and motivations of these remarkable women provides a unique insight into an often misunderstood spectacle.'

Muriel Feiner's book is endorsed, very enthusiastically, by Allen Josephs (Muriel Feiner has endorsed Allen Joseph's adulatory book on bullfighting just as enthusiastically): 'Muriel Feiner's Women and the Bullring is a ground-breaking work - a feminist treatise sprung from one of the last bastions of male dominance.'

To all committed opponents of bullfighting, men or women, feminist or non-feminist, these 'successes' won't be regarded as anything like a triumph for feminism.

See also the account which forms part of  'Women of Achievement and Herstory' www.thelizlibrary.org ('Compiled and Written by Irene Stuber who is solely responsible for its content'):

'CONCHITA CINTRON, THE FIRST PROFESSIONAL WOMAN BULLFIGHTER

'Conchita Cintron, is recognized as the first woman to compete at a high professional level as a bullfighter. In her lifetime she mastered over 1,200 bulls. ['mastered' is a gross euphemism, of course: this includes killing, either instantaneously, or, much more likely, not at all quickly. Another point: 'mastered' is a surprising word to find in a feminist diatribe.]

'She started in Lima, Peru at age 12 in what was to be a lifetime struggle for recognition and respect since bull fighting is one of the most macho sports there is in a culture known for its machismo.

'However, she was so talented that she fought in most of the great rings Europe.' [The word 'of' is missing in the original.]

As a matter of strict fact, many, many women attend bullfights and there are many, many women who are aficionados. The most prominent association of aficionados in this country is the Club Taurino of London. The men who contribute to the club's journal, 'La Divisa,' outnumber the women but not at all overwhelmingly. Diane Strange is one of them. She wrote a piece which included reporting of 'El Toro de la Vega' in the Spanish town of Tordesillas: an event which has a notorious reputation amongst anti-bullfighting campaigners, for very good reasons. It involves spearing and then killing a bull. In the photograph below, only some of the spear wounds are shown, of course. I give further information about the spearing of bulls at Tordesillas on my page 'Bullfighting: arguments against and action against,' including this brief summary: 'The bull is driven by horsemen wielding spears from the town to a meadow. During the run, the horsemen are only allowed to wound the bull. It's only when the badly wounded animal reaches the meadow that it can be killed.'

Diane Strange's view of the multiple stab wounds and the killing is a severely restricted one: she was only concerned about another kind of view and another kind of restriction:

'By this time I was regretting my decision to position myself so far away from the action. If we return another year, we will certainly stand on the other side of the bridge to get a better view of the action.' She knew what 'the event' involved  but she records no reflections, either troubled or otherwise, on its morality. The piece ends, 'A quick drink at a café and we made our way out of Tordesillas, and back to the hotel to catch up on some much needed sleep.'

 www.thebulltribune.org (an excellent site, promoted by the outstanding Spanish organization ADDA, 'la Asociación Defensa Derechos Animal,' http://www.addaong.org/en/)
gives an account of 'the action' (as Diane Strange would refer to it) for 2011 in Tordesillas, and the protests against the disgusting spectacle, as the Antibullfighting  Tribune refers to it:

'This year, more than five hundred animal defenders met in Tordesillas to protest against the macabre festival of Toro de la Vega, where bulls are chased and speared to death ... This year one of the bulls was named the Afflicted one after he fell to ground overcome by the wounds inflicted on him by spears and, unfortunately for him, the person who was supposed to kill him by severing the spinal cord did not appear. Instead the crowd continued to spear him until one finally delivered the coup de grace with a screwdriver. Another disgusting example from this disgusting spectacle.'

'This year one of the bulls was named the Afflicted one after he fell to ground overcome by the wounds inflicted on him by spears and, unfortunately for him, the person who was supposed to kill him by severing the spinal cord did not appear. Instead the crowd continued to spear him until one finally delivered the coup de grace with a screwdriver. Another disgusting example from this disgusting spectacle.'

Is the most important objection to the spearing of the bull at Tordesillas its 'sexism:' only men take part. Is it essential that women should be allowed to take part, preferably in equal numbers? Or will radical feminists agree that often, there are non-feminist considerations, moral and practical, which are not just very important but which must, in fact, be given priority?

How would feminists belonging to one of the less liberal schools of feminist thought judge Diane Strange, other women aficionados, women members of the audience at bullfights, the women bullfighters I discuss in this section, and other women bullfighters? As inherently virtuous, or at least in a different, superior category from the category of all men. Susan Brownmiller belongs to this school of thought (if 'thought' is applicable here). She believes that men use rape as a weapon and that rape is 'a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear.' There are less deranged versions of feminism which still practise {separation}, with approval for women and disapproval, or much worse, for men, and deranged views comparable to  Susan Brownmiller's, applied with relentless, stupid and inhuman consistency. According to Susan Brownmiller's view, it would seem, at Nazi extermination camps, the men kept the women in a state of fear - the men who kept women in a state of fear included the men about to be gassed as well as the men who did the gassing, whilst the women supposedly kept in a state of fear included  the women camp guards, such as Irma Grese at Bergen-Belsen and Maria Mandel at Auschwitz-Birkenau, whilst outside the camps, the men who 'kept women in a state of fear' included members of the resistance to Nazism and men who fought against Nazism, and the women who were kept in a state of fear included Nazi women.

Other contributors to 'La Divisa' in recent years are these women: Shelly Frape, Rosannah Smith, Elizabeth Schraft, Draza Webb, Helen Leary, Diana Webb-Davies, Janet Fisher, Fiona Cook, Barbara Jeffery, Helen Windrath, Lucy Burman, Mareta Sánchez, Fiona Cook, Diana Thurston.

See also my page on A L Kennedy. I strongly criticize her book 'On Bullfighting,' but not the fiction of hers which I review. There's an extract from my review of 'On Bullfighting' on my page, 'Bullfighting: arguments against and action against.'

Some groups and individuals have greater volume, as I put it. My page Ireland and Northern Ireland: distortions and illusions gives an extended criticism of the volume of Irish nationalists. I write, 'According to the mythology of Irish nationalists,  nobody has suffered like the Irish, nobody has exploited others like the English.' I subject the claim to detailed examination and find it unjustified.

The earlier works of Nietzsche made modest claims for his own importance. The later works were misguided not in making very great claims for his own importance but for making distorted claims. 'Ecce Hom' has the chapters entitled 'Why I am so wise,' 'Why I am so clever' and 'Why I write such excellent books,' Nietzsche by now writing at full volume.

My page Bullfighting: arguments against and action against includes criticism of  'the romanticized exaggeration, the flagrant myth-making' of bullfighters and bullfighting supporters, as I see it. For example, many of them give the impression that the dangers of the bullring are extreme and that bullfighters are the most courageous of people. In the section 'the courage of the bullfighters' I show that this isn't so.

Similarly, feminism has its own versions of  flagrant myth-making, exaggeration and distortion. Feminists have been loud - they have had great volume - but it's essential not to leave feminist claims unexamined.

The BBC has broadcast no television programmes about bullfighting for decades. There has been, though, a radio broadcast in the series 'A book at bedtime.' This was based on the novel 'Alex y Robert,' by the American writer Wena Poon. The novel is published by 'Salt Publishing,' which publishes, amongst other things, literary fiction - as well as fiction with literary pretensions, like this one. It has a picture of part of a matador's suit of lights on the front cover, and gushing praise from the crime writer Stav Sherez: 'Alex y Robert drags bullfighting kicking and screaming into the 21st century.' Stav Sherez, and Salt Publishing, seem not to have a bullshit detector and no cliché detector either.

Stav Sherez also claims that the novel is 'perfectly structured and viscerally imagined.' As for 'perfectly structured,' the claim is incomprehensible. Perhaps he was very impressed by the novel's division into three acts, corresponding to the three stages of the bullfight. The acts are described on the Contents page:

ACT ONE The Act of the Spears
[When the picador stabs the bull one or more times with his lance, and when his horse is exposed to the risk of suffering broken ribs or internal injuries.

ACT TWO The Act of the Colorful Darts
[The 'colorful darts' are the six barbed banderillas which are plunged into the back of the bull.]

ACT THREE The Act of the Kill
[very often a long-drawn out affair after the 'killing sword' has been used, often involving more stabbings, sometimes many more.]

Scraps are tipped into the text at intervals. Regurgitated scraps play a prominent part. Since this is a book about bullfighting, one scrap which makes an early appearance is this little bit of didactic prose, which is supposed to correct and enlighten a character who knows nothing about bullfighting. Anyone who has delved into this hideous 'art' will know about this:

" - bullfighting - "
"You don't fight bulls, you torear. Some words just cannot be translated." This makes not the least difference - the words 'bullfighter' and 'bullfighting' are used throughout.

The novel has started much more impressively, quite momentously, giving promise that no matter what objections there are to the author's moral sense, she has descriptive abilities, even if there are obvious faults here:

'The tracks were clean, narrow, intimate. A man could lie down, stretching with his toes and fingers, and spread himself across both sets of tracks. He could stop two trains going in opposite directions if he wanted to.

'There was low fog on the ground that night. In the east, planes lay helplessly on the airport runway, unable to talk off.'

This is sustained for almost two pages, some of the writing very good, but it turns out that this is just a scrap and the novel is a kind of scrap-book, and not in the least 'perfectly structured.'

Here, 'intimate' isn't well chosen, surely. If the man had to stretch out toes and fingers, it would seem that otherwise, he couldn't 'spread himself' across the sets of tracks but the exactness is ludicrous, of course, given the variability in men's heights - short men couldn't possibly manage it, even with toes and fingers stretched out, whilst tall men, presumably, wouldn't have to stretch out toes and fingers at all. Elementary common sense would make it clear that he couldn't possibly  'stop' two trains, unless the drivers saw him in plenty of time and applied the brakes - impossible at night. The man would be reduced to pulp.

The scraps of dire dialogue which are tipped into the mix are never momentous in the least. They provide information about the characters but the characterization in the novel is primitive, apart from the characterization of Robert, and psychological penetration - unlike penetration by picadors' lances, 'colorful darts and swords - is lacking.

"Remember all the bullfighting stuff I told you about?"
"Uh - huh?"
"I'm gonna do it in Spain."

A few lines later:

"Have you ever seen a woman matador?"
"No. So? It's Europe. Anything goes, right? Aren't they all, like, liberal?"
"What I'm going to try to do may get me in a lot of trouble. I just don't want you to be freaked out when the school reports that I never showed up here."
"Um - kay? Like, what kind of trouble? Are you gonna get arrested?"
"I don't know. I might get injured in the bullring."

The only information that stops this from being interpreted as an inconsequential, late adolescent whim is the fact that the heroine has had an interest in bullfighting since childhood, as is made clear by another scrap (anything like an enthralling or disturbing evocation of childhood experience, any kind of complex evocation, is never even attempted.)

'It was Halloween.
Alex, aged five, was dressed in a makeshift matador costume in the backyard of the ranch. There was a party at her house. The grown-ups were indoors. She was surrounded by a ring of older Mexican kids dressed as pirates, ghosts, itches and devils.

...

'Wielding a plastic sword ... Alex began shouting at a large Australian Shepherd ... she fixed a stern glare at the dog ... She flicked the cape expertly over its head and taunted it again, one arm cocked behind her back and her feet held tightly together ...

...

Finally, the dog fell down, exhausted, and rolled over to its side. Alex poked it gently between its shoulders with the plastic sword. "I killed it. Now you shake the hanky" She then paused and turned to look back at the older kids, who shook their white tissues in unison.'

Of course, this is the sort of thing that children sometimes like to do, but in the novel, this is leading somewhere - the first stage in the process which leads to an actual kill. (A rare instance of direction.) For anyone who knows about the realities of bullfighting in Mexico, it's hard to ignore them in reading this scrap. Children as young as five learn to become bullfighters. Michelito Lagravere, who hoped to become the youngest bullfighter, first faced a calf at the age of five.

The 'New York Times:' ' ... baby-faced bullfighters are the rage throughout Mexico. Even though some of the school-age children appearing at the country’s scores of bullrings are not much taller than the bulls they confront, these mini-matadors have begun getting top billing from promoters, who view them as a new way to bring people to the arena.

 'It is difficult to know exactly how many of them are fighting across the country, and no Mexican law limits their age. Regional and national bullfighting groups consider the bullfighters’ experience when matching them with the bulls, with the youngest and least experienced starting with year-old bulls.'

 This is a novel not suitable for children (it deals with issues they don't have the maturity to consider carefully) and not suitable for 'grown ups' either (it deals with the issues in an immature way and if it can be classed as literature at all  it's unformed literature.

Alex arrives in Spain and meets Roberto. Intermittently, Wena Poon's descriptive strengths emerge. They go to a construction site, 'full of rusty iron rods, bags of cement, heaps of torn down brick. On one end rose a ghostly eighteenth century façade partly covered with graffiti ... Roberto picked his way through the wheelbarrows and orange construction cones. They came to the center of the old palace. Moonlight fell in a single shaft from the broken roof. Pale frescoes still adorned the walls, speaking of an earlier time. Their footsteps stirred up smoky plaster dust.'

This is the unlikely setting for Alex to show Roberto her bullfighting skills. 'He set his bag on the ground and pulled out a magenta and yellow cape. He handed it to her. "Go ahead. Show me." How has she learned these skills? From a number of instructors, from T.V., from a bullfighting academy in California, where it's illegal to kill the bulls, and 'we have training trips to Mexico and we get to kill bulls there sometimes.' She adds, "I can get them in the right spot with my killing sword. That's the thing I'm best at." She has been training since about the age of ten.

Bullfighters have only a tiny chance of being killed in the bullring, as I make clear in the section The courage of the bullfighters, where I quote some very revealing statistics. It would be too much to expect Wena Poon to forego the chance of furthering the outrageous mythology of bullfighting, according to which  dying in the ring (bullfighters dying in the ring, that is, not bulls) is overwhelmingly common. Sure enough, Roberto claims, 'Our grandfathers were famous because they died in the ring at the height of their fame.' Before penicillin and other antibiotics were available, before modern medical care in the modern bullfighting infirmaries, bullfighters were killed not in the least often. Alex has been on the phone to Robert. (Of another phone call, the author writes, 'He raised the phone to his face to see if he could smell her.') 'They hadn't learned yet to say goodbye, knowing that each goodbye could be the last.' My extended section Alexander Fiske-Harrison: the baboon and bull-killing club includes more discussion of the exaggerations and falsifications of bullfighting apologists, including this:

' ... throughout, as early as  the book's  Prologue, Alexander Fiske-Harrison can be as uncritical as any bullfighting slob who ever slouched on a bullring cushion.

'In his account of  the bullring in Seville, of  the first bullfight he witnessed, he gives us this: 'The gate was opened ... by Manolo Artero, a stout middle-aged man, who shouted to the rustling crowd the words he had shouted for thirty years: 'Silence! A man risks his life here today.' How impressive the words of Manolo Artero sound to bullfighting supporters, how stupid to other people, ones with a healthy sense of the ridiculous and an appreciation  of equally dangerous acts or far more dangerous acts.  The last fatality in this ring was in 1992. This was the last fatality in any bullring in Spain.'

The disillusionment of Roberto is quite well conveyed. He wants to get out of bullfighting. For a short time, the novel seems far less stale and predictable. Quickly, though, the novel reverts to type and empty generalities become more frequent again, including this scrap of outright falsification:

"But women aren't interested in bullfighting," said Roberto, finally." I don't know a single woman who is." There are many films which show the audience at bullfights as well as what happens in the bullring, and as a matter of strict fact, women attend bullfights in very large numbers.

 She sees Roberto fight in the bullring. Her descriptive skills generally fail her when it comes to describing actual bullfighting.

 'The fifth bull finally keeled over, but it was a bad kill. The crowd was unhappy and restless. [Not nearly as unhappy as the bulls, I'd add.] The other matadors' bulls had been problematic and had refused to perform. Yet when the matadors tried to kill them quickly, they refused to die. The bull breeder was in the crowd, angry and ashamed by the animals that he had so carefully reared for so many years.'

In connection with their refusal - a refusal to die as well as a refusal to perform to the satisfaction of the crowd! - see my comments on Daniel Hannan on my page Bullfighting: arguments against and action against:

'He writes in a superior tone about bulls he obviously regards as not nearly as fearless as himself, bulls unwilling to fling themselves on the lance of the picador, the six spiked banderillas or the matador's sword  (not forgetting the weapons used to hack at the spine - more of the descabello later):

'These bulls, by San Miguel, were among the worst I’ve watched: cowardly, weak, lazy and petulant. Their lack of breeding was evident from the moment they sauntered out of the toril, [the holding area where bulls wait before they are made to enter the arena] trembling, fidgeting, lowering.'

'Of a later bullfight:

'The first [bull] set the tone for the entire string, being manso [cowardly] and sulky.' Another stale scrap in the stale mixture is this:

' ... the exotic passes by the matador are akin to foreplay ... the last act - the suerte de matar - is like an exquisite act of copulation. They say that matadors in the old days would boast of ejaculating at the climax of the kill.' No doubt in the old days, psychiatric services in Spain were undeveloped and treatment for sexual pathologies was difficult to find.

The Acknowledgments chapter contains this: 'If there are few women matadors, there are even fewer women writing in English about bullfighting. Sarah Pink's Women and Bullfighting, and A. L. Kennedy's On Bullfighting, are invaluable precedents.

It may be that Wena Poon was inspired by A L Kennedy's book in compiling her account of sexual apotheosis in the bullring. I quote A L Kennedy on the subject and comment in my page on A L Kennedy. My comments include this:

'The fast approaching death of the bull sometimes seems to bring A L Kennedy closer and closer to a kind of orgasmic writing ...

'But she's often denied the fulfilment she craves and the death of the bull is like bad sex, very bad sex. Before the bull can die, though, there's a kind of perverted foreplay, in which the spears of the picadors and the banderillas play their part:

'...the picadors spear as much danger as they can out of the bull.'

'After the picadors have lanced it '...another bull is left, staggering and urinating helplessly, almost too weak to face the muleta.' She comments, prosaically, 'I do appear to be observing considerable distress.' The muleta, as she has explained in a footnote, is 'The small red cape, stiffened with a rod, which is used by the matador during the final passes which lead to the kill.' But before the bull could face the muleta, he still had to endure six more stabbings from the six barbed banderillas. These would bring him to an even more helpless state.'

Those feminist who are indifferent to the sufferings of the bull (some of them may even consider that since the animal is male, it deserves all it gets) and indifferent to the standard of the writing (or, of course, they may disagree about the standard) will be pleased that the novel portrays a young woman not afraid to challenge the 'sexism' of the bullfighting world, but they may well have strong reservations about other things. They may approve of her response to  criticism  only in part:

" ... Most of their criticism involves the frequent mention of the word 'balls'. Half of them are very concerned that I don't have any. The other half calls me a butch lesbian. I'm going to act even more girly just to irritate the hell out of them.

 Today I posted a ton of girly stuff on my fan page on VirtualPeña. I said I love Hannah Montana, teddy bears, and OPI nail polish."

There's also this: 'Roberto appeared in public with a different young woman every night, so they'd stopped photographing his arm candy years ago.' 'Arm candy' is new to me.

In Alex y Robert, the acute suffering of the bull is neglected in favour of the determination of Alex, lover of teddy bears, to kill a bull. Alex gets her chance to kill a bull in a shockingly contrived scene. Roberto is gored in the back of the knee. He fights on. 'The front of Roberto's uniform [an aficionado would shudder at this description of the matador's 'suit of lights' but I'm the opposite of an aficionado] was now completely smeared with blood from the dying animal.' (The bull has been speared by the picador and stabbed by the banderilleros but as a matter of fact, the sword hasn't been used on the bull yet.) Roberto 'stopped it dead in its tracks with a look. He tapped the bull with his sword, chastising the panting animal. Then he rested his hand on the bull's forehead and stared at it sternly.'

He plunges the sword  into the bull, but fails to kill it. 'It pranced about madly; the half-buried sword was flung off and bounced across the sand. There was no way Roberto would be awarded an ear now.' Roberto has had enough. Time to hand over to Alex.

'Kill him,' he rasped, and thrust the red cape at her.' She climbs into the ring and picks up Roberto's sword. 'The beleagured bull ambled restlessly around the ring, bloodied and dismayed.

'Who the hell's this chick?' asked the senior matador, impatient to restore order.

Before long, the bull charged, but 'the darts on its back were weakening it.' And:

'the giant sea anemone wavered, stilled and fell silent.' (The giant sea anemone is the crowd.) She assumed the pose of the recibiendo. She was standing still and urging the bull to charge at her and impale itself on her sword.' And, according to the author,  the bull did so. Since bullfighters of vastly greater experience have such trouble finding the killing spot with the sword  even when the method is the standard one, vastly less tricky than the recibiendo, for someone with no experience in a bullring to kill the bull in this way is nonsensical. It would have been absolutely impossible for anyone in the audience to be allowed to take part in a bullfight, in the way that this farcical book claims for Alex. From time to time, a member of the audience, an espontáneo, jumped into the bullring and tried to make a few passes, in an attempt to gain entry into the world of bullfighting, but these people were generally arrested. They were never allowed to carry on.

Compare the complete implausibility of a very different claim, made earlier in the book: 'In 1889, a great fir swept through the city of San Martin. It was started in the middle of the night by the unlikeliest of culprits - mice. A small house had gotten hold of a box of matches and dragged it into the wainscoting of a townhouse ... Matches spilled all over the interior of the walls ... Then, one night ... a small mouse [as opposed to a large or gigantic mouse] scurried over a match and by chance dragged it against the dry side of the matchbox. The match flared and very quickly ignited the other matches. The flames spread quickly in the paper-dry interior of the walls and up the timbers to the roofs.' How could anyone possibly have found out that this is how the fire started? Back to the barbaric bullring.

'The entire bullring burst into riotous clamor. Seventeen thousand loud verbal opinions rang out in the night.' My own 'verbal opinion' of this preposterous rubbish is very different. This is a  book which manages to be both bland and hideous.
This is how Wena Poon views the novel (from the Website of The International Literary Quarterly): 'The story of Alex and Robert, and their transatlantic friendship, is my hope for a new world order ...

'For it is already the 21st century. [Why! What a surprise!] Technology and travel is at our disposal in a way that writers of prior eras would have envied. In many societies, both men and women are free to take advantage of ever-increasingly efficient and inexpensive means of travelling, communicating and understanding each other’s point of view. Now, more than ever, there are no mysteries, no barbarians, no “Other.”

Wena Poon lives, obviously, in a state of extreme innocence, in a state of illusion, a state of  delusion, if she can ignore so completely the barbarians in the world. There are no barbarians! Not President Assad of Syria, to name just one? The people who stone men and women to death for adultery -  not barbarians?  Increased opportunities for travelling and communicating don't seem in the least to have ended  torture, massacre and other horrors. She could hardly be more ignorant if she lived in a world without any modern communications.

She is completely sure of the virtuousness of young people like herself, and people like the fictional Alex and Robert. When the president at a bullfight in Valencia refused to award an ear or two to Roberto, despite his performance, the 'younger crowd' in the audience, 'now energized and defiant. They were upset with the president of the plaza for withholding the trophy. It was an insult to their generation, they thought. Fuck Valencia! they texted each other on their cellphones. They don't know shit!' Of Alex and Robert: 'Separated by the Atlantic Ocean, they’ll rely on Twitter, Facebook, and SMS to forge a glorious alliance against parents and the limitations of their respective societies.'

This is yet another reminder that any feminist view that female insights, opinions and arguments are superior to male insights, opinions and arguments is hopelessly crude and is vulnerable to the obvious objection  that female views are in conflict, just like male views. On the subject of the social media, this is Melanie Philips, writing in 'The Daily Mail. This view, which I share, is far from being obscure, of course.

 Even though her Website presents her as a modern young woman with a laptop, I'd unhesitatingly describe the bullfighter Noelia Mota as barbaric. Wena Poon writes that there's 'no excuse for denouncing what we do not understand.' She would take that to include Noelia Mota and other bullfighters. Alex y Robert contains this: 'To the dismay of animal rights grops, the interest in girl matadors - and by the same token, in bullfights in general - began spreading like wildfire on social networking sites.'  If it spreads 'like wildfire on social networking sites,' it must be good. To confirm the unquestionable truth of all this, 'Fashion designers took interest.'

This is what Alex is described as writing to Robert (his replies not quoted here).

'So, you know how when you come out to the bullring before a fight, all the women fans outside the gate go crazy and they grab you and kiss you.

Do you kiss them back?

Just curious. Why not?

Oh. So, when I become a matador, when I show up at the bullring, are the men gonna grab me and kiss me the same way?

I think it would be cool. I mean, it might be kinda gross, you know, because of H1N1. But if I get mobbed in the same way, and all these cute guys scream and hug and kiss me, I could get used to it.

Faint???

I want to be famous so that cute guys are fainting at the sight of me. That would really be the apogee of woman matador achievement.

I want to email one of the girl novilleros and ask them if guys kiss them.

That's all. Thanks. Goodnight.

Weena Poon's complacency seems to be limitless. The smugness and stupidity of some of the people who reviewed the book seem to be limitless. Particularly noteworthy is 'Pam Reader' (real name: Pam McIllroy) of Nottingham, whose review can be found on the site www [dot] pamreader [dot] co [dot] uk She describes herself as 'creative and organised.' Pam Reader shares Wena Poon's almost unlimited faith in 'social media.' (This is still an age of gullible faith, even if the objects of faith are very different.) If she uses twitter so much, how can she not be exciting and scintillating?

After wading through quite a bit of her work, I'd ask, where are the creative bits exactly? Or is it all meant to be creative? Perhaps she believes that cliched writing can be creative too. Extracts from another review: 'Lets face it, the main character ...' and 'she has done a great job in my opinion.'

In her poor pieces (such as her review of 'Alex y Robert')  Pam Reader/Pam McIllroy is what I'd call a 'Pot Noodle Writer.' For the benefit of readers in countries where Pot Noodles aren't available:

A Pot Noodle Writer provides an instant snack, with plenty of spicy, synthetic flavouring, or a trace at least.  Proper food needs far more care and effort.

Pam Reader's worldview has many differences from Wena Poon's, but they share some of the same dismal outlook. From Pam Reader's review of 'Alex y Robert:'

'This book explores the history of bullfighting, from skill of the Matadors to the prejudice against women in the bullring ... Alex instinctively knows she has inherited the ability to fight bulls, but even her own family conspires to keep her out of the ring. Raised in America she dreams of travelling to Spain and fulfilling her dreams ... Robert walks away from his heritage ... Finally, you're deafened by the roar of the crowd, then stunned by the salty blood of the bull that splatters against your lips as it succumbs to the Matador's blade.'

I don't equate stoning a woman to death for adultery and bullfighting in the least - they're very, very different forms of violence -  but I'd suggest that a visceral, physical style of writing, which Pam Reader obviously likes so much, can be used to justify any form of violence, as in this hypothetical account: 'Finally, you're deafened by the roar of the crowd, then stunned by the salty blood of the girl that splatters against your lips as she succumbs to the stones they throw.'

She mentions that the novel includes 'the controversy that surrounds bulls being killed for sport' but the 'controversy' is only mentioned in passing, in various places - the novel is dominated by a very different perspective. Pam Reader is making  the usual token attempt at a balanced viewpoint. Nobody who loathes bullfighting, nobody who wants to see bullfighting banned, could possibly write of 'the prejudice against women in the bullring.'

On my page Seamus Heaney: ethical depth i explore a linkage which isn't a very distant one, between bullfighting and the blood lust at the Colossseum:
Seamus Heaney describes his emotions at a bullfight:

' 'But gradually, I would find myself in a kind of trance: the choreography in the ring and the surge and response of the crowd with the music going on and on just carried you away. And your focus stayed tight on the man and the bull. There was something hypnotic about the cloak-work ... Once you've been there, you're implicated, you have some inkling of what it must have been like in the Colosseum.'

'No great ethical depth would be needed to reject the killing in the Colosseum. Would Seamus Heaney not even have the ethical depth to reject the killing of the Roman arenas? He'd be 'carried away' by 'the surge and response of the crowd?' His focus would stay tight on one man trying to kill another man, or one man trying to kill an elephant, in the case of the animal 'games,' or on Christians being torn apart? There would be something hypnotic about the work of the man with the net swinging the net and trying to trap the other gladiator and then stab him with his spear? He would have watched blood pouring onto the sand of the arena, intestines pouring onto the sand of the arena, wounded gladiators frantically begging for mercy, wounded gladiators having their throat cut after being refused mercy, women fighting, women torn apart, elephants speared - in a trance? Not everyone would have been 'implicated' in all this, not in the least, not everyone would have been without outrage and disgust.'

Seamus Heaney was experiencing a kind of blood-lust, surely, and Pam Reader experienced a kind of blood-lust too, a vicarious, less culpable but still discreditable  reader's blood-lust.

Social media can be used for any purposes, including holocaust denial, calls to behead unbelievers and calls to stone women for adultery. Nobody should get too excited about the limitless possibilities of the social media. In 'Alex y Robert, the social media are used, completely uncritically, for a very different purpose.

Pam Redar writes, 'Alex y Robert is the first book I've come across that integrates social media into the story telling ...  It ... weaves one of the oldest skills in the world - bullfighting, with one of the newest skills - social networking. One of the most exciting moments for me in this book was in the build up to an extraordinary bullfight. Poon has written the entire sequence in twitter posts and it reads like the real thing.'

Wena Poon is writing a sequel to 'Alex y Robert.' She could consider writing a second sequel on something like these lines. It would make it even clearer, I think, how stupid and disturbing is the author's project. Wena Poon comes from Singapore, where the gallows is actively used. If she were to write a novel called 'Hangman and  Hangwoman' it might tell the story of a young American woman whose grandfather was a hangman in Singapore and who is determined to hang people herself, to show that women can hang people just as well as men. When she was five years old, at a Halloween party, where some of the other children are dressed up as devils, she takes a noose and plays at hanging some of her dolls. On a visit to Singapore, she attracts the attention of the hangman and takes lessons from him. Back home in the United States, they exchange texts or phone each other on cellphones every day. Eg (aspiring hangwoman first):

It's kinda hot here.

  It's kinda hot here too.

Hotter than here?

  Sure, much hotter.

Whaddya say to this? I know the tables by heart!

   OK. What are two times two?

Not those tables, stoopid! The table of drops!

     I know, I know. What do the tables say you should give a guy, 158 pounds but big, broad neck, like a bull?

Eight feet six inches.

     Wow! This is something else! What about a small chick, 100 pounds, nice trim, slender neck?

Ten feet nine inches.

     Easy there! You don't want to tear her head off! Better make it 10 feet, no more.

Won't that just strangle her? It's kinda really uncool, to go down and pull on her legs and stuff!

     No way. Just trust me.

You're my hanging guru!

       Read those books I sent you? 'Executioner Pierrepoint' is a MUST READ! One hell of a biography!

Thanks, but no thanks. I thought I told you, I never read books. I borrowed a DVD, though. Pierrepoint -  his wife was a door-mat, completely unliberated.

     The book wasn't written by Pierrepoint himself. The guy who wrote the screenplay for 'Those Incredible Men in their Flying Machines' wrote it. Used the pen-name 'Albert Pierrepoint.'

Men!' He ought to have liberated his language! As for Pierrepoint, I don't want to imitate him. Women who imitate men are lacking in ambition. He hanged hundreds. I want to hang thousands. Do you like do-nuts? Do you like popcorn?

   I love do-nuts and popcorn.

I've got to go charge my cellphone now.

In an amazing development, the hanging guru is caught at the Singapore international airport with marijuana in his suitcase and sentenced to death. (Singapore is really hard on drugs.) His post becomes vacant. She's determined to fight for her right to hang people, even if it means hanging him. She starts a social media campaign and - it goes viral! Hundreds of thousands of people use Twitter and Facebook to attack 'The Male Dinosaurs.' Examples:

This ain't the Middle Ages! Women can hang people too!

21st century executioners for 21st century society!!

Singapore sucks!!!!!!

Gallows babe - go for it!!

How come Texas nurses can give injections but not lethal injections at Huntsville? This is plain WRONG!

The authorities give way and she lands the executioner's job. Her first client is the hanging guru himself.

A moon loomed low and large, the reassuring bulk of the jail  bleached in moonlight. There was a deluge of heat, a downpour. She was carrying a bag but the tools of her trade were already there waiting. Waiting too was the man who would require her attention the next day

He is carried to the gallows and seated on a hanging chair, since he cannot stand. A last tear rolls down his cheek. She looks at him coldly, says nothing, puts the hood over his head, puts the noose round his neck and pulls the lever. Duty done. The spectators are all  wildly enthusiastic: 'The entire execution chamber burst into riotous clamor. A number of loud verbal opinions rang out in the night.' She wipes away a small tear from her own cheek, feels momentary shame about this momentary failure in  professionalism, and checks the messages on her cellphone.

Opposition to the death penalty in Singapore: www.thinkcentre.org

Feminism and animals: the contracting circle

'He would just state one case which had occurred at the Westminster pit, it was a fight between an unlucky bear and a bull dog: the lower jaw of the bear was torn off, and he was then not killed and put out of pain, but allowed to languish in torment; the dog had its jugular artery cut, and died. The wretched animals that survived one combat were brought out month after month. He had seen one that had lived two years; its eyes were out, its lip torn off, and the keepers said that it was necessary to shoot it at last, as there was nothing left for the dogs to lay hold of.'

This is Richard Martin, speaking in a debate on 'bear baiting and other cruel sports' in the House of Commons (Hansard, HC Deb 26 February 1824 vol 10 cc485-96). The Cruelty to Animals Act of 1835 banned bear-baiting (bull-baiting had been banned in 1822.) The Act also furthered animal protection and humane treatment of animals in other ways.

Bear-baiting has a very long history in this country. Women as well as men went to see bears baited. Queen Elizabeth I had a passion for bear-baiting. On 36 occasions, she vetoed laws passed by Parliament, as in the case of a law passed in 1585 which prohibited hunting, cock-fighting and bear-baiting from taking place on Sundays.

Taking seriously the suffering of animals - those animals which can be regarded as  sentient beings - challenges the priorities of very many feminists: it becomes even harder to treat seriously the claim that women have a monopoly or near-monopoly of suffering and exploitation if the avoidable sufferings of animals are taken seriously. Very many of these suffering animals suffer in ways which are surely far more severe than the sufferings which are the staple of feminist claims. Feminists who mechanically divide humanity into the virtuous - women, such as Queen Elizabeth I - and the despotic - men, such as Richard Martin - have some explaining to do.

Mary Wollstonecraft advocated kind treatment for animals, as her 'Original Stories from Real Life' of 1788 makes clear, but her advocacy was vague and sentimental. She devoted none of her time and energy to opposing bear-baiting or any other form of animal cruelty.

The campaign against the fur trade in this country tested the priorities of very many feminists. Wearers of fur were overwhelmingly women and criticism of the fur trade entailed criticism of women. The most energetic and determined campaigning organization at the time was 'Lynx,' founded by Lynne Kentish and Mark Glover. Lynx had no hesitation in criticizing women in its poster campaign. It organized large-scale events in which women models took part. Lynx was accused of 'sexism' by feminists. At one of the events I attended, there was a protest by feminists outside the hall, although not many of them - a man and a woman. No matter what the issue, there are feminists who will automatically give precedence to the feminist 'perspective.'

I played a part in this campaign - and other campaigns concerned with other aspects of animal welfare: Animal welfare: arrest and activism. From this page, in connection with the book 'Facts about Furs,' by Greta Nilsson and others:

'The images in the book are shocking, but the book doesn't make the mistake of suggesting that an image can be any substitute for rational argument, the presentation of evidence, although now, when I'm no longer involved in the struggle to end the fur trade, the images do linger in the mind particularly. Above all, the images which show the cruelties of the leghold trap (banned in this country in 1958 but still permitted in most American states and Canada): a beaver which chewed off both its front paws to escape the leghold trap, a raccoon hanging by one leg from a trap, a large hole dug by a badger trying to escape a leghold trap, a coyote dead of apparent starvation in a trap, an animal with all its teeth broken, its jaw bone eroded in the struggle to escape, a golden eagle, a swan and many pets caught, losing limbs or their lives, a bobcat with protruding bones, a trapper killing a coyote by trampling on it. Methods of killing trapped animals aren't regulated in most American states. The cruelties involved in farmed fur are less obvious but real - keeping animals in barren cages until the time comes for their asphyxiation, and all for a completely unnecessary product.'

I've taken part in the campaign to end the battery cage over a long period of time. The life of the battery chicken is  extreme in its deprivation and suffering, of course - the chicken given a space about the size of an A4 sheet of paper, unable to extend a wing, often debeaked to prevent it pecking the other chickens in the cage out of frustration, given no veterinary treatment.

When feminists claim that nobody is as exploited as a woman - a gross falsification applied to people, What if the circle is expanded? Are women the most exploited of sentient beings? Are well-off women, are women in middling circumstances, who buy battery chicken eggs to be pitied for their sufferings?

 Feminists in general approve of higher standards of animal welfare. (I don't explain here my preference for 'animal welfare' rather than 'animal rights.') Some feminists actively campaign for animal welfare. There are many feminist vegetarians and vegans. But there are many feminists who claim that women's degree of exploitation is unique: they are badly mistaken.

'Expanding the circle' is a phrase coined by William Lecky, an Irish writer. In a book published in 1869, he wrote, 'At one time the benevolent affections embrace merely the family, soon the circle expanding includes first a class, then nation, then a coalition of nations, then all humanity and finally, its influence is felt in the dealings of man with the animal world.'

If feminists favour the extension of compassion to animals, there are many of them who are unwilling to overlook the fact that it was a man who wrote these words and who are less interested in the expanding circle than in denouncing the blatant 'sexism' of 'man' in 'the dealings of man.'

The philosopher Peter Singer's influence on animal welfare has been immense. His book 'Animal Liberation' described the sufferings of animals in harrowing detail and gave impetus to the campaign to reduce it. The title of his book 'The Expanding Circle'  follows Lecky. Both Lecky and Singer, to the most uncompromising feminists, are exploiters themselves, with the mentality of rapists.

So is the philosopher Jeremy Bentham, to these people, even though he advocated women's suffrage, long before the suffragettes and in advance of Mary Wollstonecraft, and other women's causes. He saw animals as sentient beings and  wrote powerfully on behalf of animal rights. His breadth can be contrasted with the narrowness of so many feminists, their lack of concern for any people, for any sentient beings, other than women (with the emphasis on the interests of feminists). He wrote,

'The day may come when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been witholden from them but by the hand of tyranny. The French have already discovered that the blackness of the skin is no reason a human being should be abandoned without redress to the caprice of a tormentor. It may one day come to be recognised that the number of the legs, the villosity  of the skin, or the termination of the os sacrum   are reasons equally insufficient for abandoning a sensitive being to the same fate. What else is it that should trace the insuperable line? Is it the faculty of reason or perhaps the faculty of discourse?  But a full-grown horse or dog, is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversable animal, than an infant of a day or a week or even a month, old. But suppose the case were otherwise, what would it avail? The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?'

These claims have become very, very influential in moral philosophy. The philosopher J L Mackie, for example - who criticizes utilitarian thought, particularly act utilitarianism, writes, 'A human disposition is a vital part of the core of morality ...  Such a disposition, if it exists, naturally manifests itself in hostility to and disgust at cruelty and in sympathy with pain and suffering wherever they occur.' This includes the suffering of animals: ' ... we cannot be callous and indifferent, let alone actively cruel ... towards non-human animals.'  ('Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong'. Chapter 8: Practical morality, section 8: Extensions of morality.)

Peter Singer failed to take into account some difficulties in expanding the circle of moral concern. Its expansion weakens feminism's claims to a monopoly or near-monopoly of exploitation, or at least shifts attention from these claims.

A feminist who conceded that the suffering of a battery chicken is greater than that of a very prosperous woman with many, many advantages, forced to live in a liberal democracy which she interprets as 'sexist' and who was determined to act against might, hypothetically, go on to formulate a 'gender-based animal rights programme.' This would be disastrously misguided.

She (or he - after all, there are males who advocate feminist ideology) might advocate vigorous campaigning against the factory farming of battery chickens, female, but not against the factory farming of male chickens reared for their meat. She, or he, would campaign against the confinement of cows in 'zero grazing' systems, in which cows are confined indoors for life, with no access to fields, but not against systems which cause suffering to the males of the species. The female calves born to cows have value for milk production, but not the male calves. In many, countries, the male calves are confined to veal crates, without even the comfort of bedding, without even the opportunity to turn round. Cows are occasionally used in bullfights. The feminist would oppose these bullfights, but not the usual kind, in which only the males, the bulls, are repeatedly stabbed before killing them.

Lisa Kemmerer, of Montana State University Billings - someone whose delusions it would take a very long time to discuss - does mention on her Website

http://www.lisakemmerer.com/presentations.html

'Sister Species explores the relationships between various forms of oppression, highlighting similarities between the exploitation of female humans and the exploitation of female nonhumans.' What her attitude is towards bullfighting I'm not sure. Bulls are perhaps viewed as inconvenient for her theory.

For more on Lisa Kemmerer's vegan views, see my page Veganism: arguments against.

The morality of this hypothetical programme, the moral depth of this hypothetical programme, is obviously subject to severe {restriction}. Almost always, animal welfare activists, and those who call themselves animal rights activists, aren't guided by considerations like these. Sentient beings capable of suffering are the subject of their concern, not the suffering of a gender. Those people who give most of their time and energy to ending the gross abuse of battery chickens aren't oblivious to the suffering of male animals.

In attacking human suffering, a 'gender-based' approach would usually be just as limited as in this hypothetical example. To cite examples which are mentioned on this page, slavery and serfdom were opposed and ended by people who recognized the suffering of male and female slaves, the death penalty has been opposed, and ended, in the majority of the countries of the world, by people who recognized the suffering of male and female prisoners under sentence of death and their suffering, so often, during the process of execution. 

Bonds: famine, families, Sophie Scholl, mining, happiness

Linkages include bonds, including the bonds formed by bitter experience. Often, these tie men and women together far more closely than the ties of men to other men and women to other women. Radical feminists isolate linkages between women, they treat the linkage of 'gender' as always the most important. Often, this amounts to a complete distortion. A feminist who claims or assumes that she's speaking for 'women' is more often than not speaking for women similar to herself, not women whose experiences are vastly different.

There are many communities with relative unity of outlook and feeling. Feminists outside those communities aren't speaking for women within those communities. Usually, they have not the least conception of the difficulties they face. The women whose husbands or partners go to fight in Afghanistan won't take seriously the idea that these husbands or partners are oppressors. The inconvenient fact, for feminists, is that these soldiers are doing a very great deal for women, facing risks of course beyond the experience of most Western feminists. See also the next section, Feminism and the Taliban.

'By the waters of Doo Lough we lay down and slept'

During The Great Famine in Ireland, six hundred starving men, women and children walked from Louisburgh in County Mayo to Delphi Lodge to ask, unsuccessfully, for famine relief. Many of them died on the way back, below the stark mountains which overlook Doo Lough. Searing experiences such as these establish linkages which are vastly more significant than any linkage between a starving woman and a prosperous woman, or between a starving man and a prosperous man.

The linkages between Sophie Scholl and her brother Hans - they were guillotined by the Nazis on the same day for membership of the White Rose group, which protested against the Nazis - were far more significant than the linkage of gender between Sophie Scholl and the wife of Goebbels or the linkage of gender between Hans Scholl and Goebbels.

I quote from the account given in William L Shirer's 'The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich:'

'The University of Munich, the city that had given birth to Nazism, became the hotbed of student revolt. It was led by a twenty-five year-old medical student, Hans Scholl, and his twenty-one-year-old sister Sophie, who was studying biology. Their mentor was Kurt Huber, a professor of philosophy. By means of what became known as the 'White Rose Letters' they carried out their anti-Nazi propaganda in other universities; they were also in touch with the plotters in Berlin.'

'...the students, led by the Scholls, began to distribute pamphlets calling on German youth to rise. On February 19 a building superintendent observed Hans and Sophie Scholl hurling their leaflets from the balcony of the university and betrayed them to the Gestapo.'

'Their end was quick and barbaric. Haled before the dreaded People's Court, which was presided over by its president, Roland Freisler...they were found guilty of treason and condemned to death. Sophie Scholl was handled so roughly during her interrogation by the Gestapo that she appeared in court with a broken leg. But her spirit was undimmed. To Freisler's savage browbeating she answered calmly, 'You know as well as we do that the war is lost. Why are you so cowardly that you won't admit it?'

She hobbled on her crutches to the scaffold and died with sublime courage, as did her brother. Professor Huber and several other students were executed a few days later.'

There are photographs of the female camp guards and the male camp guards taken after the liberation of Belsen concentration camp. One of them is shown in Tom Bower's 'Blind Eye to Murder,' which is about the failure of Britain and America to prosecute Nazi war crimes effectively, except in limited cases. Anne Frank died at Belsen. Any bonds of gender between Anne Frank and the female guards are irrelevant. Feminism is irrelevant here.

To return to coal-mining, women worked in the mines in this country until the passing of the Mines Act in 1842. The men and the women working underground had this in common: they did backbreaking work in complete or almost complete darkness, breathing in coal dust, constantly at risk of severe injury or death by explosion, crushing or drowning. These linkages were vastly more significant than the linkage between the women toiling in the mines and the wife of a colliery owner or an aristocratic woman. During the last miners' strike in this country, there were linkages between the miners' wives and Mrs Thatcher based on gender, but the linkages based on shared hardships in the mining communities were far more significant.

There was no linkage of sympathy and empathy between a woman novelist, George Eliot, and the miners, including the miners' wives. 'George Eliot's approach in her novel Felix Holt the Radical is reasonably typical. She introduces the miners into the story as an ignorant mob, preyed on by every kind of agitator, frequently drunk and often riotous. Although they play an important role, they never emerge as characters nor do we ever learn anything about either their work or their lives away from work.' ('The Miners.') The miners and their wives had bonds, George Eliot had no bonds with the miners' wives except 'gender,' which radical feminists would count as the most important bond of all.

An extract from Anthony Burton's 'The Miners' about the rescue of five men trapped underground at Tynewydd Pit in 1877, to illustrate not just these bonds but the heroism of the rescuers - these men, like other men, would be dismissed as 'useless' or 'no more than rapists' by lunatic feminists - of whom there are many. The rescue was the subject of a book by an eyewitness, Charles Williams, 'Buried Alive!'

'Between the rescuers and the trapped men there was a 38-yard barrier of coal, which could only be approached down roadways turned into a vast underground sea. The alternative was to try and reach them through the main floodwater, and divers came who volunteered to attempt to travel the 257 yards of passages flooded from floor to ceiling. They tried and failed. It was clear that if there was to be a rescue, then a way would have to be forced through the coal barrier ...'

[After many difficult operations, complicated by gas seeping into the workings] 'All through the rescue operation, the men kept continuously at the task ... They worked under the double threat of inundation or explosion, but no one hesitated ... on the Friday, the attempt was made. The coal-face was broken in, gas and air rushed out like a hurricane, and, before the waters could fill their refuge, the five prisoners were pulled to safety.

'The Tynewydd accident was not exceptionally bad, nor the rescue exceptionally heroic: it is mainly notable for having been so carefully recorded. But death and injury were familiar enough in every mining village, and the endurance, the carelessness of danger shown by the rescuers, were repeated a hundredfold with no one on hand to record them. Although Williams hardly mentions it, this common experience of sharing hardship, of facing death, drew the mining community together by uniquely strong bonds. when the news of a pit accident reached the village, everyone felt it as a personal disaster. Each wife knew that her husband or her sons stood in the same danger. So too, the rescuers were working to save friends and relations. These strong bonds were reinforced by the nature of the mining village and its community. They were isolated, with the mine often the only source of employment. Miners, looked upon almost as a race apart, ignored by the rest of the world, were content to draw inwards, to make their own lives. Probably only the fishing villages, which shared the same sense of isolation and shared danger and loss, could show a comparable unity of outlook and feeling.'

Happiness and unhappiness are different communities of feeling. Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote in Proposition 6.43 of the 'Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus,' 'Die Welt des Glücklichen ist eine andere als die des Unglücklichen.' C K Ogden translates this, accurately but not gracefully, as 'The world of the happy is quite another than that of the unhappy.' I would give this as one interpretation, which of course leaves out all the possible reasons for being happy or unhappy:

'The world of the happy woman is different from the world of the unhappy woman. The world of the unhappy woman is similar to the world of the unhappy man.'

Feminism, the Taliban and the shooting of schoolgirls

A British soldier conducting security operations as a new turbine is brought from Kandahar Airfield to the Kajaki Dam, Helmand Province, Afghanistan

To expect British  feminists of a certain kind - the predominant kind - to admire the courage of British armed forces in Afghanistan would be asking the impossible.  To expect these feminists to admire and put on record their admiration for the courage of women members of the armed forces serving in Afghanistan is asking too much.

Some instances of harsh reality are freely discussed and condemned, such as the domestic violence of men against women (but not the violence of women against men - that particular demonstrable fact goes unexamined, the arguments of anti-feminists which point it out go unanswered.)

Will feminists whose main concern is 'sexism' in this country, including the sexism faced by women who are pampered, be able to maintain their self-image much longer if they go on ignoring  a wider world of harshness?

Malala Yousafzai, 14 years old, was shot in the head by the Taliban for espousing secular values. The incident  should have aroused an upsurge of comment in feminist blogs and websites throughout the world, including ones where the focus of attention is 'patronising language' and similar issues - or if not this incident, others which are similar.

This is from the BBC's account:  

'Miss Yousafzai came to public attention in 2009 by writing a diary for BBC Urdu   about life under Taliban militants who had taken control of the valley.

'She earned the admiration of many across Pakistan for her courage in speaking out about life under the rule of Taliban militants, correspondents say.

'She was just 11 when she started her diary, two years after the Taliban took over the Swat Valley and ordered girls' schools to close.

'The group captured the Swat Valley in late 2007 and remained in de facto control until they were driven out by Pakistani military forces during an offensive in 2009.

'While in power they closed girls' schools, promulgated Sharia law and introduced measures such as banning the playing of music in cars.

'In the diary, written under the pen-name Gul Makai for the BBC's Urdu service, she exposed the suffering caused by the militants.

'Her identity emerged after the Taliban were driven out of Swat and she later won a national award for bravery, while being nominated for an international children's peace award.

'Since the Taliban were ejected, there have been isolated militant attacks in Swat but the region has largely remained stable and many of the thousands of people who fled during the Taliban years have returned.'

The Taliban were driven out of the Swat valley, of course, by military action.

A simple, direct question for radical feminists. Should Western military action in Afghanistan continue or be ended as soon as possible? Bear this in mind:

Under the Taliban, 4 - 5% of Afghan children received primary education, virtually none of them girls. Now, about half of Afghan children do, about a third of them girls. If the Taliban can be driven out of the areas they still control - by the use of military force, unless radical feminist have a better idea - then the number of girls being educated will rise. If Western armed forces are withdrawn before the Afghan forces are ready, then the Taliban will surely defeat the Afghan armed forces. (But radical feminists may well view the Afghan army, like the coalition forces, as one more manifestation of 'patriarchy.' They are paying a heavy price. At least 616 Afghan national army members were killed in a two month period in 2012.) If the Taliban take control of Afghanistan, then the plight of girls and women (and males) will be extreme. As it is, the Taliban burn school books, bomb schools, murder teachers and plant bombs that kill civilians. The number of civilians killed unintentionally by coalition troops is vastly exceeded by the number of civilians killed by the Taliban.

Radical feminists prefer posturing and  pontificating, are fond of  quoting, some of them, Hélène Cixous or Judith Butler or other feminist luminaries, like the sound of   like 'logocentric' and 'phallogocentric' (see my discussion of Fran Brearton) - far more pleasant and congenial activities than answering legitimate objections, accounting for inconvenient facts, engaging with reality, which is so much harsher and so much more unfair than they suppose, no more designed to fit radical feminist conceptions than Christian ones.

Whether it was advisable or not to go into Afghanistan in the first place is a separate issue. The case for intervention is much stronger than is often supposed. As a matter of strict fact, Western armies were engaged there.

I see every reason why radical feminists should be intensely grateful to these soldiers, whose achievement is all the greater if we remember the massive dangers they face, but of course there isn't the least chance that they will be grateful. But to repeat the question, should Western military action in Afghanistan continue or be ended as soon as possible?

Faced by a situation of extreme difficulty, asked to state how they would resolve the difficulty, if that is possible at all, or how they would at least make it less extreme - lessen its harshness - ideologists often make use of a simple tactic - why, if people had only followed our beliefs, they claim, the difficulty would never have occurred in the first place! So, many vegan ideologists show no interest in opposing factory farming of animals. If people had only followed a vegan diet, there would be no factory farming of animals, or any farming of animals for that matter. If the world would only listen to feminists, there would be no such thing as injustice and barbarity. (But it's highly likely that a vegan feminist world - a complete impossibility, surely - would never have developed the heavy lifting machinery to help people trapped under fallen buildings after an earthquake, or the lorries and helicopters to bring aid to earthquake victims. I give earthquake victims as an example because earthquakes are one catastrophe, which have killed millions, for which even feminists can't hold patriarchy responsible.) The solving of such technical problems isn't in general uppermost in the minds of feminists and vegans.

This was long before the British army went to Afghanistan, but some feminist graffiti which appeared on the walls of the army barracks near here typify the glibness, superficiality, simple-mindedness of radical feminists: 'All war is war on women.' 'War - men make it, women take it.' 'Take the toys from the boys.' When they write at enormous length, the writing isn't always less glib, superficial and simple-minded.

At the time of the graffiti, the most recent operation of the British army had been the one in Northern Ireland. I discuss the British army and terrorism in connection with Seamus Heaney's 'The Toome Road.' Before that, there was the British army's part in defeating fascism, with weapons, of course, not 'toys.' Radical feminists would do well to refresh their memory on such matters as Nazism and the Holocaust by reading some histories of the subject. Fran Brearton's glib comment on the 'emasculation' of British soldiers becomes much worse than glib in the context of The Second World War. I discuss it in the link above.

As a matter of strict fact - although radical feminists show few signs of caring very much for the world of strict facts - men have 'taken it' very, very often in war, if the number of casualties is any criterion, and it is. The name of the barracks is a reminder of that: 'The Somme Barracks.'

The Taliban have been shooting other schoolgirls. Schoolgirls helping with the campaign to eradicate polio in Pakistan by vaccination have been killed, along with adult workers. Feminists who say that all men are useless would do well to consider the case of Jonas Salk, the American medical researcher who developed the first polio vaccine. If gratitude to such benefactors is out of the question, they might just be able to modify their inhuman and inhumane stupidity, which treats the conquerors of infectious disease as simply agents of patriarchy, or even would-be rapists. This is from the Wikipedia entry for Jonas Salk:

'Until 1955, when the Salk vaccine was introduced, polio was considered the most frightening public health problem of the post-war United States. Annual epidemics were increasingly devastating. The 1952 epidemic was the worst outbreak in the nation's history. Of nearly 58,000 cases reported that year, 3,145 people died and 21,269 were left with mild to disabling paralysis,[1] with most of its victims being children. The "public reaction was to a plague," said historian William O'Neill. "Citizens of urban areas were to be terrified every summer when this frightful visitor returned."

 ...

' ... The field trial set up to test the Salk vaccine was, according to O'Neill, "the most elaborate program of its kind in history, involving 20,000 physicians and public health officers, 64,000 school personnel, and 220,000 volunteers." Over 1,800,000 school children took part in the trial.[3] When news of the vaccine's success was made public on April 12, 1955, Salk was hailed as a "miracle worker," and the day "almost became a national holiday." His sole focus had been to develop a safe and effective vaccine as rapidly as possible, with no interest in personal profit.

 ...

"If Salk the scientist sounds austere", wrote The New York Times, "Salk the man is a person of great warmth and tremendous enthusiasm. People who meet him generally like him." A Washington newspaper correspondent commented, "He could sell me the Brooklyn Bridge, and I never bought anything before." Award-winning geneticist Walter Nelson-Rees  called him "a renaissance scientist: brilliant, sophisticated, driven... a fantastic creature."

He enjoys talking to people he likes, and "he likes a lot of people", wrote the Times. "He talks quickly, articulately, and often in complete paragraphs." And, notes the Times, "He has very little perceptible interest in the things that interest most people—such as making money."

Women in traditional Moslem societies

The incandescent fury of radical feminists when they attack the 'oppression' of women is more often than directed at the alleged failings of liberal democracies, not at the harshness of traditional Moslem societies and traditional Moslem enclaves in liberal democracies. When they attack 'sexism,' they are more likely to be referring to slights, real or imaginary, or disadvantages, real or imagined, which are worse than slights but which  fall well short of such practices as honour killings or the beating of wives which is recommended in the Qu'ran. This is Sura 4.34, translated by Dawood:

' As for those [women] from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and send them to beds apart and beat them. Then if they obey you, take no further action against them. Surely God is high, supreme.'

 This has advantages for them. It allows them to maintain their self-image. But this is moral cowardice.

Feminism isn't an adequate basis for opposing the injustices and abuses of traditional Moslem societies, or in general other injustices and abuses. A radical feminist view of social  and economic history which finds horrifying the atrocious labour of girls in mines in this country and finds nothing wrong in the atrocious labour of boys in mines at the same time - and later, when girls no longer worked underground - is worse than inadequate. A radical feminist view of Moslem punishment which finds horrifying the stoning to death of women but not the stoning to death of men is shockingly inadequate.

Broadly based opposition to Islamism is far better than the  selective opposition which recognizes only the harm done to women, not at all  to men. Broadly based humanitarianism is far better than selective humanitarianism. Qur'an 24:2: "The woman and the man guilty of adultery or fornication,- flog each of them with a hundred stripes: Let not compassion move you in their case, in a matter prescribed by Allah, if ye believe in Allah and the Last Day: and let a party of the Believers witness their punishment."

Hirsi Ali, the Somali former Moslem who is an outspoken critic of Islam and whose life is still threatened, is one of those women whose criticism of Islam goes well beyond a specifically feminist one. She has said that Islam is 'not compatible with the liberal society that has resulted from the Enlightenment.' I  fully agree.

 When Salman Rushdie's life was threatened by Moslem fanatics, many, many writers committed themselves to opposing this assault on free speech. Germaine Greer (the author, of course, of 'The Female Eunuch') wasn't one of them. She refused to support Salman Rushdie.

In the traditional Moslem societies where there is gross injustice in the treatment of women, women who oppose the injustice are outnumbered by women who are willing accomplices. The practice of female genital circumcision is perhaps the most dramatic illustration, practised in various non-Moslem societies as well as in some Moslem societies.

As a matter of strict fact, in societies where female genital circumcision is practised, the women generally carry out the operation, which leaves the woman, very often, with medical problems for life. There are growing numbers of men who try to stop women carrying out circumcision. One case was reported in 'The Times.' A man identified as 'Abdi' tried to stop his wife 'from circumcising their two daughters, aged 2 and 4. She called him from Somalia while on holiday to say she wanted to carry out the procedure.

'But he refused to be swayed, despite his wife’s argument that the girls would improve their chances of attracting a good husband because they would be perceived as being more traditional and pure.

'It is women who believe in the concept as their duty to look after their children,” said Abdi, who is also aware of prospective mother-in-laws examining their sons’ future brides to ensure they are circumcised.

'Women “fear that if they don’t circumcise their daughters then they won’t be able to get them married”, he said.

Here are six translations of  Sura 4: 34 in the Qur'an quoted from

http://www.bible.ca/islam/islam-wife-beating-koran-4-34.htm:

1. "Men are superior to women on account of the qualities with which God has gifted the one above the other, and on account of the outlay they make from their substance for them. Virtuous women are obedient, careful, during the husband's absence, because God has of them been careful. But chide those for whose refractoriness you have cause to fear; remove them into beds apart, and scourge them: but if they are obedient to you, then seek not occasion against them: verily, God is High, Great!" (Rodwell's version of the Koran, Quran, 4:34)

2. "Men have authority over women because God has made the one superior to the other, and because they spend their wealth to maintain them. Good women are obedient. They guard their unseen parts because God has guarded them. As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and send them to beds apart and beat them. Then if they obey you, take no further action against them. Surely God is high, supreme." (Dawood's version of the Koran, Quran, 4:34)

3. "Men are in charge of women, because Allah has made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah has guarded. As for those from whom you fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them. Then if they obey you, seek not a way against them. Lo! Allah is ever High Exalted, Great." (Pickthall's version of the Koran, Quran, 4:34) [The copy of this translation which I have varies from this modernized version, with 'hath' instead of 'has' and 'ye' instead of 'you.']

4. "Men are the managers of the affairs of women for that God has preferred in bounty one of them over another, and for that they have expended of their property. Righteous women are therefore obedient, guarding the secret for God's guarding. And those you fear may be rebellious admonish; banish them to their couches, and beat them. If they then obey you, look not for any way against them; God is All high, All great." (Arberry's version of the Koran, Quran, 4:34)

5. "Men are the maintainers of women because Allah has made some of them to excel others and because they spend out of their property; the good women are therefore obedient, guarding the unseen as Allah has guarded; and (as to) those on whose part you fear desertion, admonish them, and leave them alone in their sleeping places and beat them; then if they obey you, do not seek a way against them; surely Allah is High, Great. (Shakir's version of the Koran, Quran, 4:34)

6. "Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because Allah has given the one more (strength) than the other, and because they support them from their means. Therefore the righteous women are devoutly obedient, and guard in (the husband's) absence what Allah would have them guard. As to those women on whom part you fear disloyalty and ill conduct, admonish them (first), (next), refuse to share their beds, (and last) beat them (lightly); but if they return to obedience, seek not against them means (of annoyance) for Allah is Most High, Great (above you all). (Ali's version of the Koran, Quran, 4:34)

But to be outraged in this case or to oppose these religious beliefs, would be to confront dissonance. As a result, many, many feminists are silent - for once.

The patriarchy thesis and some very powerful women

Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I in the Long Gallery at Hardwick Hall, commisioned by Bess of Hardwick. © Richard Croft and licensed for reuse under a Creative Commons Licence.

Radical feminists generally give the impression that 'patriarchy' has been a constant in the recorded history of government, in the recorded history of the world.  They  fail to mention the  extended periods of 'non-patriarchal' government, the vast power and influence which women have so often exercised. They give the utterly false impression that in all times and in all places women have been downtrodden.

In democracies, a female Prime Minister or President is subject to checks and balances. Instructive examples come from the Age of Absolutism, when the Empress was subject to far less {restriction} in her policies and actions.

From these examples, it would be impossible to conclude that women make a mess of government whenever they are given the chance. Maria Theresa, Empress of Austria, and Elizabeth and Catherine the Great, Tsarinas of Russia, were all strong and effective rulers, the Russian Tsarinas quite enlightened rulers, for their time, but none of them promoted the freedoms of women more than any 'patriarchal' rulers. None of them promoted the freedoms of men and women more than any 'patriarchal' rulers. 'Patriarchy' has achieved far more. More often than not, reality is desperately harsh - or awkward and inconvenient. Reality hardly ever flatters utopian, sentimental or naive illusions, such as those of radical feminists. Their very strong interest in women who reach positions of power and influence and ensuring that there are more of them isn't accompanied by any strong interest in the success or failure of these women, their strengths and weaknesses. The very notion that there can be such a thing as female failure and female weakness is an affront to believers in the inherent virtuousness of women. This is truly living in illusion and estrangement from reality. The only form of female weakness which is acknowledged is the weakness of women who fail to see the attraction of radical feminism and the women who sell out to men, by, for example, posing for advertisements, with the extenuating circumstance that it's men who bear the main responsibility.

It isn't possible to do justice to the achievements and limitations of the three Empresses here, but I mention some facts which suggest falsification of some radical feminist interpretations.

Maria Theresa, Archduchess of Austria and Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, ruled the Habsburg empire between 1740 and 1780 - four decades of non-patriarchal rule. She was succeeded by her eldest son, Joseph II. Like any representative of patriarchy, she was preoccupied for long periods of time with military matters - the Seven Years' War, for example - but here domestic policies were more instructive, for the purposes of the discussion here, and the contrasts between her domestic policies and those of Joseph II.

Toleration for people with religious beliefs different from the state religion and toleration for people with no religious beliefs, the toleration taken for granted now in liberal democracies, was originally denied. It was dangerous, it required courage and a revolution in outlook to bring it about. The Enlightenment gave the powerful ideas of toleration, the rulers of Europe adopted those ideas enthusiastically, cautiously or not at all. Maria Theresa, a Roman Catholic, was virulently anti-semitic and loathed Protestantism. She rejected religious toleration completely. The Enlightenment also promoted humanitarianism. In penal reform, Beccaria and his circle in Milan - representatives of 'patriarchy' - were the most important of all advocates of humanitarianism, such as the abolition of torture. Maria Theresa was opposed to its abolition. She made no practical steps to abolish serfdom in the Habsburg Empire.

The reforms of Joseph II improved the lives of men and women in the Hapsburg Empire dramatically. In 1781, a year after succeeding Maria Theresa, he abolished serfdom and an edict of toleration gave Protestant and Greek Orthodox subjects almost complete equality with Roman Catholics. In 1782, the Jews of the Empire also had their rights recognized to a large extent. His codes of criminal law (1787) abolished torture and even the death penalty, a very rare accomplishment in the eighteenth century, but one shared by the Empress Catherine. Both, though, made use of punishments which were not intended to cause death but did cause death almost as certainly as by execution - forced labour of a very severe kind in the Hapsburg Empire and such punishments as running the gauntlet in Russia.

The most serious humanitarian objection to the rule of the Empress Elizabeth and the Empress Catherine the Great concerns their failure to abolish serfdom in Russia. When she dismissed her lover Lavadovsky in 1777, Catherine gave him, by way of recompense, money - and 4 000 peasants, men and women. It was a representative of patriarchy, Alexander II, although much later, who ended serfdom. In 1861, he freed the serfs from private estates and household serfs. In 1866, he freed the state-owned serfs.

In this country, Queen Elizabeth I was hardly the exploited victim beloved of so many feminists, including feminist scholars, nor was Mary I of Scotland (Mary Queen of Scots.) The conflicts between these two, which ended with Queen Elizabeth's decision to sign Mary's death warrant and the beheading of Mary in 1587, would require considerable ideological 'analysis' to explain in feminist terms. Reality (including harsh historical reality) undermines ideology.

Mary Queen of Scots ('Bloody Mary') came to the throne in 1553. The restoration of the Roman Catholic Church in England was her great aim and she began a relentless persecution of protestants. In 1555, a protestant was burnt alive in full view of his wife and children. In the next five years, over 300 protestants were burned. Torture was used extensively, with no exemption, of course, for women. This reign of terror took precedence over the economy, which was neglected, leading to severe hardship.

In those distant centuries, well before the Birth of Feminism, women who weren't a Queen or an Empress were able to accumulate vast wealth and exercise enormous influence, far beyond the reach of most men of the time. Bess of Hardwick is an instructive example Hardwick Hall is not so far from here, across the county border in Derbyshire. The Hall is owned by the National Trust and open to the public.  There's an excellent National Trust guide to the hall and its remarkable builder - except that Hardwick, like the seven gates of Thebes in Bertolt Brecht's poem 'Fragen eines lesenden Arbeiters,' was built by toiling men, quarrying the stone, hauling the stone, lifting up the stone. This is the beginning of the poem, in my translation:

Who built seven-gated Thebes?
In books stand the names of kings.
Did the kings haul the blocks of stone?
And Babylon, so many times destroyed -
who rebuilt the city so many times?

This is from the section 'The fruits of ambition' in the guide:

'With her second marriage Bess emerged from obscurity, and the main aspects of her character became clear. She was capable, managing, acquisitive, a businesswoman, a money-maker [but the greater part of her money had been made by one man or another - above all her fourth husband, the immensely rich Earl of Shrewsbury], a land-amasser, a builder of great houses, an indefatigable collector of the trappings of wealth and power, and inordinately ambitious, both for herself and her children ... She was immensely tough ... Her amazing vitality carried her unflaggingly through her four marriages and widowhood to her death in her eighties, immensely rich and still formidable.'

In the same era, but in a very different society - on the wild west coast of  Ireland - women could achieve power and influence. Feminists, include the biography of Grace O' Malley, the pirate queen, in your thinking (or, not with condescension but with anger, 'thinking') about patriarchy. This is the account in 'Ireland: The Rough Guide:'

'Grace O' Malley, or Gráinne Ni Mháille (c. 1530 - 1600; often corrupted to Granuaile), was the daughter of Owen O' Malley, chief of the west coast islands. Through fearless and non-too-scrupulous warfare and piracy, she made herself queen of the Clew Bay area when he died. She effectively controlled the vigorous trade between Galway and the Continent, as well as running a lucrative business importing Scottish mercenaries for chieftains' wars against Elizabeth I and their cattle-rustling and plundering. She earned her place in Irish legend by being one of the few Irish chiefs to stand up to the English.

' ... When she met Elizabeth I in London in 1593, she insisted on being treated as her regal equal. However, always a canny tactician, Grace switched sides when she realized she couldn't beat the English, and her son was created first Viscount Mayo. Continually mentioned in sixteenth-century dispatches, her exploits included dissolving her Celtic secular marriage to her second husband, Sir Richard Burke of Mayo, by slamming the castle door in his face and then stealing all his castles.'

Living in illusion and making excuses blight the thinking of so many feminists. If anything is likely to make achievement difficult or impossible, it's the ideological belief that 'sexism' or 'patronising language' hold back women at every turn. Why can't a woman open a garage and service and repair cars? The patronising language of motor-parts suppliers and male customers? If so many obstacles could be overcome centuries ago,  far more so now, when such measures as 'affirmative action' are commonplace. Except that affirmative action is itself an obstacle, giving some people the impression that sustained hard work, often great abilities and the ability to face risk can be dispensed with.

'It was, of course, the period of Ronald Regan and Margaret Thatcher and thus of the near defeat of organized labour within both the U.S. and Britain ...' This is the feminist writer Rosalind C. Morris, in 'Can the Subaltern Speak? Reflections on the History of an Idea.' ('Can the Subaltern Speak?' is the title of an essay by the Marxist - feminst- post-colonial studies writer Gayatri Spivak.)

The linkage of politics between Ronald Regan and Margaret Thatcher is an instance of cross-linkage, as I term it. The linkage of 'gender' between Margaret Thatcher and female feminists is important but outweighed by the massive contrasts. So much of life is like this - considerations of gender may not be primary at all. Putting women into senior positions puts highly competent and incompetent women, clear-sighted and deluded women into senior positions - but feminists and non-feminists are certain to disagree about the criteria of clear-sightedness and delusion.

Rosalind Morriis ought to have paused at this point and given some evidence. As regards Margaret Thatcher, it can be argued that her labour policies were realistic and courageous, disastrous and devoid of insight. (A verdict on the 'community charge' or 'poll tax' need not be ambiguous in the least. The 'community charge' provided for a single flat-rate per-capita tax on every adult, at a rate set by the local authority. It promoted egalitarianism of the worst kind - the rich and the poor paying equal amounts. Its effects were destructive.) The power of some trade unions was excessive, and she showed great determination in opposing it. She  showed no insight into the pride and strength of the mining communities but understood very well the disastrously misguided leadership of Arthur Scargill, the leader of the National Union of Miners.

From 'The Guardian,' 12 March 2009:

Slavery and serfdom

Many, many men, as well as many, many women, have been 'the property' of - women. ' ... at the beginning of the nineteenth century an estimated three-quarters of all people alive were trapped in bondage against their will either in some form of slavery or serfdom.' (David P Forsythe, 'Encyclopedia of Human Rights.' Oxford University Press.) Slavery and other forms of bondage have been dominant realities in virtually every century of recorded history. 

The male slaves listed as being for sale in the poster above (from 1829) - Hannibal and William  - and  the female slave - Nancy - and the male and female slaves listed as being for hire, shared a common plight.  To claim that women with the status of citizens and women who were slaves shared a common plight, exploitation by men, that this was the most important form of injustice in slave states, is more than misguided.

Slavery has not only involved the buying and selling of people but more often than not negligible protection for the slaves.  In some slave-owning states, the owners, men and women, have had almost unlimited freedom to treat slaves as they wished. In ancient Rome, the owner could impose almost any punishment, for almost any reason. Flogging was one of the mildest punishments, and was generally  carried out in public view. Execution of slaves was generally by crucifixion, most often preceded by flogging, a punishment which was practically never imposed on Roman citizens, men and women.

The Roman poet Juvenal (who was not at all a moral paragon - he went to watch gladiators fight to the death) describes the cruelty of a Roman citizen towards a slave. In this case, the citizen was a woman.  Of course, men as well as  women in ancient Rome bought and sold and mistreated slaves.

'pone crucem servo,' she says, 'crucify the slave!' The husband pleads, 'Where are the witnesses? Who gave evidence against him? Give him a hearing.' (This degree of kind-heartedness wasn't usual.) She replies, 'A slave is a man, is he? He has done no wrong. It may be so. But this is my will. This is what I order.'

Charles Darwin on slavery (from Chapter XXI of 'The Voyage of the Beagle):

On the 19th of August we finally left the shores of Brazil.  I thank God, I shall never again visit a slave-country.  To this day, if I hear a distant scream, it recalls with painful vividness my feelings, when passing a house near Pernambuco, I heard the most pitiable moans, and could not but suspect that some poor slave was being tortured, yet knew that I was as powerless as a child even to remonstrate.  I suspected that these moans were from a tortured slave, for I was told that this was the case in another instance.  Near Rio de Janeiro I lived opposite to an old lady, who kept screws to crush the fingers of her female slaves.  I have staid in a house where a young household mulatto, daily and hourly, was reviled, beaten, and persecuted enough to break the spirit of the lowest animal.  I have seen a little boy, six or seven years old, struck thrice with a horsewhip (before I could interfere) on his naked head, for having handed me a glass of water not quite clean; I saw his father tremble at a mere glance from his master’s eye.  These latter cruelties were witnessed by me in a Spanish colony, in which it has always been said, that slaves are better treated than by the Portuguese, English, or other European nations.  I have seen at Rio de Janeiro a powerful Negro afraid to ward off a blow directed, as he thought, at his face.  I was present when a kind hearted man was on the point of separating for ever the men, women, and little children of a large number of families who had long lived together. 

 To give just one named example of a male slave, and his exceptionally grim fate, which may be sufficient to implant the first signs of uneasiness in those who accept without question the dogma that throughout history, men have enjoyed all the advantages. From the Website executedtoday, an entry for May1.

'On this date in 1830, a slave named Jerry was executed in Abbeville, South Carolina … by burning to death.
The slave was the property of a Miss Elizabeth McQuerns, a schoolteacher who hired him out — in which capacity he raped the wife of his subcontracted master.

This case is treated in an April 1990 piece for The South Carolina Historical Magazine by Lowry Ware, titled “The Burning of Jerry: The Last Slave Execution by Fire in South Carolina?” ... As remembered, decades later, by a minister named Samuel Leard who witnessed the execution as a teenager, thousands of men, women and children, both white and colored, assembled together in an old field not far from the residence of Mr. Donald to witness the execution of a beastly criminal by burning alive at the stake. The crime cannot with propriety be named — the name and the memory of the criminal ought to be consigned to eternal oblivion. But there sat the prisoner, the waiting impatient crowd, the immense pile of pitch pine logs and kindling wood scattered around, the sheriff and his posse, the temporary platform for the preacher … for it was determined that the fiendish criminal should hear his own funeral sermon pronounced … As the poor doomed man ascended the pile, he began to pray audibly and this was kept up continuously during the process of chaining him to the stake, and until the mounting flames deprived him of a wretched life. This was the last execution by fire ever seen in South Carolina.
-Abbeville Press & Banner, July 2, 1879.'

 The views of Mary Astell (1666 - 1731), the English proto-feminist writer who gives her name to Triona Kennedy's 'Astell Project for Women and Gender Studies' should be examined very carefully. Her best known pronouncement is probably this (in 'Reflections'): 'If all Men are born Free, why are all Women born Slaves?' Did she think, did she reflect on realities, before writing this?

During the many, many centuries of slavery, women slave-owners in general were incomparably more fortunate than their male slaves. In many slave-owning societies, women had the power to beat their slaves and in some to have them executed. What would be the feminist interpretation of these incidents?

The slave Henry Bibb 'decided to flee in 1835, when his Kentucky mistress began abusing him physically, "every day flogging me, boxing, pulling my ears, an scolding" (From Peter Kolchin's exceptional analysis, 'American Slavery,' in the chapter 'Antebellum Slavery: Slave Life.'

From the same chapter: 'Virginian William Lee got tired of the beatings he suffered from his mistress, who would hold his head between her knees and "whack away" on his back, so he grabbed her legs and "bodily carried ole missus out an' thro' her on de ground jes' as hard as I could." In this slave society, the penalties for such resistance could include death but far more often more physical punishment. In the slave society of ancient Rome, it would have been crucifixion or some other atrocious form of execution.

  Lewis Clarke, a house slave in Kentucky, Lewis Clarke, a slave in Kentucky, described in his autobiography the behaviour of his mistress: 'Instruments of torture were ordinarily the raw hide, or a bunch of hickory-sprouts seasoned in the fire and tied together. But if these were not at hand, nothing came amiss. She could relish a beating with a chair, the broom, tongs, shovel, shears, knife-handle, the heavy heel of her slipper, and an oak club, a foot and a half in length and an inch and a half square. With this delicate weapon she would beat us upon the hands and upon the feet until they were blistered.'

I don't underestimate feminists. This is one site which offers a feminist perspective on the sufferings of plantation mistresses. Extracts:

'Women in the Civil War era were little more than slaves themselves. Even in the most deluxe of plantations, the mistress of the house was expected to run the household, make clothes, darn socks, make soap, make butter and cream, plan and fix meals, educate children, and keep the valuables locked from the household help.

Plantation mistresses' 'diaries, letters, and other hand written works were FILLED WITH LETTERS OF COMPLAINT, not resignation. Many women of plantations felt that the wife was the most complete slave in it.'

'Health was poor in the South, and death in childbirth as well as stillborn children made many women fear having children. And the rampant epidemics made sure that the majority of the wife’s life was spent nursing ill slaves and family members. The only escape was to be sick themselves.'

This particularly site doesn't in the least give a comprehensive or detailed view, but the perspective of scholarly feminism may be just as selective in its indignation. Observance of the scholarly convention of references and citations is obviously no guarantee that a writer will be providing sense rather than rubbish.

 It would be asking too much to expect even a passing mention of the men whose work drastically reduced morbidity and mortality rates from such conditions as these. Men such as John Snow and William Budd, whose work did so much to reduce the incidence of typhoid and cholera, contracted from contaminated water.
Louis Pasteur
Robert Koch
Edward Jenner, Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin, who worked on vaccines against smallpox and polio, leading to the complete eradication of smallpox and the near eradication of polio.
Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of penicillin
Gerhard Domagk, who discovered sulphonamides, the first broad spectrum synthetic antibacterial drugs

and scientists whose work was indispensable for these advances, such as the microscopist Anton van Leeuwenhoek and the chemists who synthesized the compounds used in these advances, and the engineers and labourers who constructed the vast works of civil engineering which supplied safe water.

In the antebellum south, slave owners included black women. 'Opportunists or Saints? Slavery and Free Women of Color in Antebellum New Orleans' by Anne Ulentin gives information which is resistant to feminist interpretation. I view it as the defeat of ideology in the conflict between realitiies and ideology.  Extracts: 'In New Orleans in 1810, a twelve-year old girl, named Francoise, passed from one slaveowner to another, both of whom were free black women ... this story is one instance of a larger trend in antebellum New Orleans: free black women buying, selling and holding slaves ... These women are called Free Women of Color ... they benefited from certain unique opportunities for social and economic advancement in colonial and antebellum New Orleans. Some of them came to hold prominent roles in the society and economy of the city ... Gary B. Mills, in his study of Cane River's Creoles of Color in Louisiana, claims that Louisiana's free persons of color entertained feelings of superiority to "Negroes," just as whites did. Indeed, the development of a caste system separated slaves from free people of color. In such a strict social and racial hierarchy, free persons of color were color conscious just as whites were ... Free women of color did not identify with white women. Scholars such as Jacqueline Dowd Hall and Elizabeth Fox-Genovese showed that women of color and white women did not share bonds of gender because they were "profoundly divided by class and race." ... A general knowledge of the wealth of such women [free women of color] and the extent to which they resorted to legal transactions, may be derived from wills, successions, slave sales and mortgage records. Such records not only show the amount of land and slave free women of color possessed, but they also reveal the nature of the relations between free women of color, slaves, whites, and free men of color. I started my research in the pivotal year of 1810. Free women of color were particularly numerous in New Orleans at that time because of the recent Haitian refugee incursion, and generally played an active role in the city's economy ... Besides the notaries' records, I used the New Orleans Public Library's extensive collection of microfilms and original manuscripts of wills, successions, inventories, suit records, and emancipation petitions ... From this rich documentary record, I concluded that most free women of color viewed slaveholding as a commercial venture ... My research shows that free women of color traded slaves of all ages - from infants to 60 year-olds. The majority were between the ages of 11 and 30, when they were the most valuable ... Some documents show that slaves ... were to be handed down from parent to child just like any other possession ... The free women of color, for whom we have inventories, often owned significant property, including slaves, houses, lots, and furniture ... It was very common for these women to choose not to emancipate their slaves, and instead to pass them down to children or other relatives ... it is difficult to ignore evidence that free women of color, like whites, engaged in slavery for commercial purposes, and that, in doing so, they prospered.'

In North and South America, men made up the majority of slaves.

Hugh Thomas wrote (in 'The Slave Trade: the history of the Atlantic slave trade 1440 - 1870), 'Throughout the slave trade, women and children were less sought after than men in the prime of life. This was a contrast with the Arab trade in West African slaves across the Sahara ...

'In the New World the reverse was often true. A decree in Lisbon of 1618 sought to ban female slaves absolutely, as well as males less than sixteen years old. Two men to one woman was the proportion which the Royal African Company customarily sought. In the Dutch trade between 1675 and 1695 18 000 women slaves seem to have been carried, compared with 34 000 men. The explanation is that planters preferred slaves whom they could work hard and then discard, or leave to die, without the troubles of having to rear their families.'

 I'm not in the least danger of overlooking the male monsters who made the lives of slaves hellish (the whipped slave in the photograph above was whipped by a male overseer. The fact that he was discharged later by the male owner isn't an extenuating circumstance.)  I don't make any excuses for thinkers such as Nietzsche who ignored or attacked humanitarian thought and practice, as my page on Nietzsche makes clear (although it should be obvious to anyone who reads his work with care that he was far from being deluded in everything, that he was a very substantial thinker.)  Many feminists seem to me to have a ridiculous belief in the innate virtue of women. I've no belief whatsoever in the innate virtue of men.

 Mary Wollstonecraft, the proto-feminist author of 'A Vindication of the  Rights of Men' and 'A Vindication of the Rights of Woman,'  opposed slavery but never gave to the issue anything like the prominence it demanded, given the scale and extremity of its cruelties. Moira Ferguson writing in 'Feminist Review,' No. 42, Autumn 1992: 'Whereas the Rights of Men refers to slavery in a variety of contexts only four or five times, the Rights of Woman contains over eighty references; the constituency Wollstonecraft champions - white, middle-class women - is constantly characterized as slaves.' Moira Ferguson goes on to explain this in these terms: 'For her major polemic, that is, Mary Wollstonecraft decided to adopt and adapt the terms of contemporary political debate.' But the overwhelmingly important point to make is that  these white, middle-class women (with unfortunate exceptions) were incomparably more fortunate than slaves (with particularly fortunate exceptions), just as they were incomparably more fortunate than the miners - men, women and children of the Industrial Revolution.

 A concrete objection to the equating of the experience of slaves and the experience of white, middle-class women at the time - a concrete objection not to  the blurring of differences but the bridging of a chasm. There were many slave rebellions during the eighteen century, as in earlier centuries and later times. Slaves found their lives intolerable. They rebelled despite the huge risks. The chances of success were minimal. There was an immense  risk of execution or torture or beating. Their fate was so extreme that they decided they had nothing to lose. If the fate of white, middle-class women could be compared with the fate of slaves, why were there no rebellions of white, middle-class women? If they failed, they would never have been punished with the gallows or burning alive. After Mary Wollstonecraft wrote the 'Rights of Woman,' why was there no unstoppable support from these middle-class victims, eager to escape their bondage? Why did she receive so little support? Can it have been that the lot of these people was far from being unbearable? Feminists who argue that in the case of white, middle-class women the system of repression was much worse than in the case of slaves, making rebellion not just difficult and dangerous in the extreme but absolutely impossible are surely living in a fantasy world.

The records of the Slave Compensation Commission offer astonishing insights, amongst them insights into the status of women at the time.

'On 28 August 1833, the Abolition Bill received the Royal Assent. From 1 August 1834, slavery was to be abolished in the British colonies. The Slave Compensation Commission was established - not to compensate slaves, but to compensate their owners. The massive sum of 20 million GBP was paid to the slave owners, the equivalent of 17 billion GBP in today's values.

'David Olusoga 12 July 2015 'The Guardian'

'The records of the Slave Compensation Commission ... represent a near complete census of British slavery as it was on 1 August, 1834, the day the system ended. For that one day we have a full list of Britain’s slave owners. All of them. The T71s tell us how many slaves each of them owned, where those slaves lived and toiled, and how much compensation the owners received for them. Although the existence of the T71s was never a secret, it was not until 2010 that a team from University College London began to systematically analyse them. The Legacies of British Slave-ownership project, which is still continuing, is led by Professor Catherine Hall and Dr Nick Draper, and the picture of slave ownership that has emerged from their work is not what anyone was expecting.

...

'Slave ownership, it appears, was far more common than has previously been presumed. Many of these middle-class slave owners had just a few slaves, possessed no land in the Caribbean and rented their slaves out to landowners, in work gangs.These bit-players were home county vicars, iron manufacturers from the Midlands and lots and lots of widows.'

Over 40% of the people who applied for compensation for losing the slaves they owned were women.

From the site

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/media-new/pdfs/hyoung.pdf

Dorothy Little was a seventy year old widow who claimed £297 13s 6d for 13 slaves in the Jamaican parish of St James ... between mid-1833 and March 1835 she wrote at least five separate letters to the Commission asking for information and advice. She was not simply passively waiting for an award but taking an active involvement in the compensation process ... Despite politics supposedly being a masculine domain she unashamedly reveals that she has “with the greatest attention read every debate in the House of Commons on the West India question”, seeming far more perturbed that the concerns she had previously voiced had not been raised. Indeed, the letters of reply from the Commissioners, which answer her questions fully and comprehensively, paid little heed to the fact that they are writing to a seventy-year old widow: the language, tone and style of the letters is little different to those sent to male inquirers. Perhaps the fact that she was a resident of Clifton, near Bristol, an area with extensive links to the West Indies may explain why Dorothy Little‟s knowledge of the compensation process was so remarkable. Dorothy Little was clearly an intelligent, informed and forthright woman: her cognisant letters to the Slave Compensation Commission highlight the extent to which, in reality, women were not completely restricted by domestic ideology. Indeed, Dorothy Little felt so passionately about the subject of compensation, and the fact that she felt it disproportionally punished those who owned slaves but no land, that she even sent a petition to Lord Stanley, the colonial secretary, voicing her concerns ... upon realising that the Lord Chancellor “took no notice” of the original petition she sent it directly to Lord Stanley herself.  This was accompanied by a warning that if politicians continued to ignore what she believed to be the injustice of the current system she would ensure that “the matters…be brought before the public in the next sitting of Parliament.” Threatening, of all people, the colonial secretary in this manner is hardly the action of someone restricted to the private domestic sphere. Dorothy Little may have sent her first letter anonymously for fear of “seeing my name in the newspapers” but her determination to right the wrongs that she believed lay at the heart of the plans for compensation ensured a dramatic change of heart.  Indeed, that she questions why she cannot be given “£100 a piece for [her slaves]…which is the sum the French received for theirs in America” demonstrates that Dorothy Little had an interest in global as well as domestic politics, and was willing to use this information to achieve her own ends. Similarly, in voicing her fears that an annuity she received from the Clergy Fund was potentially at risk should emancipation “produce anarchy and revolution in the island” she is highlighting her knowledge of the recent slave insurrections in Jamaica and again, using this knowledge to strengthen her argument. The detail and knowledge invoked in Dorothy Little‟s letters and petition highlights that politics was hardly exclusively the preserve of men. Dorothy Little‟s letters also highlight an acute awareness of the situation she found herself in. “There is a wide difference between the situations of those who, like your Petitioner, are Owners of Slaves only and those who are owners of Estates and also of the Slaves” she perceptively noted. As a slave-holder who owned no land she was in a particularly vulnerable position. Whereas at the end of the seven proposed years of apprenticeship those who owned land would probably “find their properties equally valuable as at present” the property of those who owned slaves alone would be “completely annihilated.”Yet they received no greater proportion of the compensation fund, and it was this which Dorothy Little took issue with. An intimate knowledge of her own finances is clear: she explains that she has been receiving £80 sterling a year for “eight working negroes” for the last twenty years, although  “in consequence of a change in the ownership of the Estate [to which they were hired] and the late rebellion” the rental was reduced to £57 sterling. Yet she calculated that at £26 per slave she would receive a sum of £364 sterling “which will produce an [annual] income not exceeding £12 14s 9d.74 Indeed, she ultimately received £310 18s 11d, including interest, which a W.P. Kerridge picked up on her behalf in February 1836.75 Thus, far from being an “unconscious stipendiary of a wicked system” as abolitionists tended to argue widows were, Dorothy Little was aware that emancipation would have severe personal financial implications. Indeed, since women made up a considerable proportion of non-land-holding slave-owners they were, on the whole, disproportionately affected by the privileging of land in the compensation process. Dorothy Little clearly recognised this: “Your Petitioner…believes that there are many in her situation, but they are principally Widows and Orphans and she is sorry to perceive that the large Proprietors have not had the generosity to put forward their peculiar situation.” In lamenting the lack of help she, and others, had received from the large, usually male, landowners Dorothy Little is certainly reinforcing the belief that women are dependent on men‟s help. Yet she is simultaneously, by writing letters and petitions herself, challenging this very notion ... this excerpt from a letter dated May 12th 1834 suggests that a strict distinction between „moral‟ women and „depraved‟ men simply cannot be made: I am anxious to ascertain if there is a prospect of my getting a full and fair compensation for my unattached field labourers. They will I fear be put down as inferior labourers, for out of the whole number  10 of them are females, but from that very circumstance they have been more valuable to me than if they had been strong men, for they have more than doubled their original number, and of course doubled my income. This demonstrates that far from only „slave-masters‟ manipulating the fertility of the female slaves for their own economic advantage, the imperatives of their female counter-parts were hardly rooted in any greater sense of morality. The callous manner in which Dorothy Little proudly talks of how the reproductive capacities of the female slaves have enabled her to “double my income” may initially seem shocking but it suggests that female slave-owners were no less inclined to prioritise their own economic needs over the well-being of slaves.

In the case of slavery, the reformers who opposed it, successfully, in country after country comprised very many men, of course. To treat such men as these as part of a group, the homogeneous enemy or object of contempt, as many feminists do and have done, is deeply shocking. To treat men with other achievements to their credit, including labouring with dignity, as the homogenous enemy or object of contempt, is deeply shocking. Mary Wollstonecraft, writing to Gilbert Imlay, Paris, December 30, 1794: 'You know my opinion of men in general: you know that I think them systematic tyrants ... '

Hugh Thomas, in 'The Slave Trade,'

'The determined efforts of philanthropists, in France, North America, and Britain, and later in Spain, Brazil, and elsewhere, working through the press, parliaments, and diplomacy, eventually achieved the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade and of slavery in the Americas, so paving the way for the beginning at least of the abolition of slavery and the traffic in Africa. Experience of what occurred between 1808 and 1860 suggests that the end of the slave trade came not because, as the French historian Claude Meillassoux put it, 'slavery as a means of production hindered agrarian and industrial growth', but because of the work of individuals, with writers such as Montesquieu playing an essential part. Thomas Clarkson and Wilberforce in England, Benezet and Moses Brown in the United States, and Benjamin Constant and other friends and relations of Madame de Staël in France, were the heroes. The effectiveness of Louis Philippe's first government, in particular of the Minister of the Navy, Count Argout, showed that a determined leader could do much. Isidoro Antillón, who first first spoke against the slave trade in Spain in 1802 and who may have been murdered for repeating his views in Cádiz in 1811, should not be forgotten. Other Spanish abolitionists such as Labra and Vizcarrando should have their places in the Pantheon. Nelson Mandela, during his visit to the British Parliament in 1995, recalled the name of Wilberforce. He might have mentioned others, not to speak of the British West Africa Squadron. In Brazil, Dom Pedro's opposition to the slave trade was continuous ... '

Slavery was ended not just by reformers who worked for legislative change and eventually achieved it. The legislation had to be enforced. The British Navy (which would count as an agent of patriarchy in most feminist histories, no doubt) played a prominent part in enforcing anti-slavery laws. Between 1811 and 1867, the British Navy's Anti-slavery Squadron liberated 160 000 slaves. In 1845, 36 British vessels were assigned to this squadron.

Below, slaves liberated by the British navy in 1869. Photograph in the public domain.

Feminists, particularly pacifist feminists, should not overlook the role of military action in ending slavery in the United States, even if this wasn't uppermost in the minds of many of those who went to war.

Peter Kolchin, in 'American Slavery' gives a very good account in Chapter 7,  'The End of Slavery:'

'The Civil War began as a war for - and against - Southern independence. Although slavery was the issue that both underlay and precipitated the conflict between North and South, the initial war goals of both sides were simple, and only indirectly linked to the peculiar institution: Confederates fought for the right to secede and form their own country; federal forces fought to prevent them from doing so. During the secession crisis preceding the start of hostilities, Abraham Lincoln had promised that the new Republican Administration, although opposed to the expansion of slavery, would pose no threat to slavery in the states where it already existed, and in the early months of the war he took pains to reemphasize his government''s limited war goal: preservation of the Union ...

Lincoln's caution stemmed not from moral equivocation - he constantly reiterated his belief that slavery was wrong and ought to be abolished - but from potent practical considerations. Four slave states - Maryland, Delaware, Missouri, and Kentucky - remained in the Union, and a fifth, West Virginia, was in the process of breaking away from its Confederate parent; defining the war as a struggle over slavery threatened to push these states into the Confederate column ...

As the war dragged on, however, the President ... faced mounting pressures to seize the moment and embrace a new war aim: freedom for the slaves. Such a move appeared increasingly desirable to American diplomats striving to prevent foreign powers - most important, Great Britain - from extending recognition (and assistance) to the Confederacy; so long as the Confederates could portray their rebellion as an exercise in national self-determination, their cause aroused considerable sympathy abroad, but much of this sympathy would be likely to dissipate if the war could be redefined as a struggle over slavery.'

The treatment of serfs in Russia in the nineteenth century, before the abolition of serfdom, poses more questions for feminists.  Radical feminists may feel anger, outrage at the injustice, when they read that '... in the higher classes, it was normal for married women to own property, even landed property, at a time when this was difficult in England. ''On the front of every house in Moscow and St Petersburg'', reported Haxthausen in the 1840s, ''is written the name of the proprietor, and before every third house at least the name is that of a woman.'' ' (Angus Calder, 'Russia Discovered: 19th-Century Fiction from Pushkin to Chekhov.') Anger and outrage because women found it difficult to own property in England, and anger because every third house in St Petersburg has the name of a woman. Why not something like 50 % of the houses, in accordance with the 'gender ratio?' The anger at this further statistic would probably need to be of a complicated kind. It concerns the kind of inequality which feminists would probably prefer not to confront - women valued less than men! During the reign of Catherine the Great in Russia, a pedigree dog could be bought for 2000 roubles. A male serf could be bought for 300 roubles but a female serf cost less than one hundred.

Just as everyday cuts and burns are outweighed by life-threatening injuries, and aches and pains are outweighed by the agony of torture, there was a major injustice, an overwhelmingly important injustice, which made such considerations far less important by comparison: serfdom.

The woman who owned property in Russia, even if less property than men, had incomparably more freedom than the serfs. The property owned by women in Russia often included serfs. The owner of the serfs had almost unlimited power over them. The owner had no right to kill a serf but did have the right to flog the serf with 'the knout,' which tore strips of flesh from the skin. If the serf died under the knout, then this was allowable. Serfs were bought and sold and were hardly distinguishable from slaves. In the census of 1857, the private serfs (not owned by the state) amounted to 23 million out of a total population of 62.5 million Russians.

The writer Turgenev was a young adult in the 1840's. His mother owned 5 000 serfs. She had them flogged and she had Turgenev flogged very often. When two young serfs failed to bow as she was passing them, she made use of her almost absolute power over them by ordering them to be deported to Siberia.

From 'Turgenev: His Life and Times' by Leonard Schapiro:

' ... her general practice was to maintain a rule of terror under which complete subordination was exacted from her peasants, who were never allowed to forget that they were serfs or to think of themselves as human beings.

'From childhood he had always felt instinctive sympathy with the domestic serfs as fellow human beings ... '

One incident:

'Turgenev, hearing that his mother had sold one of her young girl serfs, announced that he would not tolerate the sale of human beings, and hid the girl with a peasant family. The purchaser applied to the police, and the local police chief, with a posse armed with clubs, arrived to demand the girl. He was greeted by Turgenev with a gun, who threatened to shoot.' On this occasion, his mother backed down and she agreed to cancel the sale of the girl.

The title of Jerome Blum's book 'Lord and Peasant in Russia: From the Ninth to the Nineteenth Century' may infuriate some feminists: obviously a sexist title, women excluded. The author does include material on women, such as here:

'The helplessness of the serfs proved too great a temptation for those proprietors in whose natures sadism lay close to the surface. These people inflicted frightful cruelties upon their peasants. One of the most infamous cases was that of Devia Saltykov who in 1756 inherited 600 serfs from her husband.'

(The subject of wealthy heiresses and their plight isn't a flourishing topic in feminist writing.)

'In seven years she tortured scores of them to death for petty or imagined offenses. Her conduct became so atrocious that the authorities decided they had to do something. So in 1762 they began an investigation. It lasted for sex years. Finally, she was stripped of her noble rank, pilloried for one hour in Moscow, and then sentenced to spend the rest of her life in confinement in a convent. In contrast to her mild punishment, the serfs who at her command had aided in the torturing of her victims were beaten with the knout and then condemned for life to hard labor in Siberia.'

The serfs in Russia were liberated not by the Empress Catherine or the Empress Elizabeth - although both were very able rulers - but by Alexander II

who emancipated by decree all Russian serfs. Triona Kennedy complains that 'only a handful of schools ... address feminist thought and history. This act, which of course brought immense benefit to an immense number of women as well as men, would go unrecorded in a history of feminism, but would be recorded in any comprehensive history of humanitarianism.

Women in Nazi Germany

 the policy of deportation and extermination which began to be implemented in 1941 made the favoured status of aryan women and men compared with the fate of Jewish women and men all the more shockingly obvious.

Radical feminist writers prefer to generalize rather than to write about women who may be heroic or cowardly, wonderful or repulsive, civilized or barbaric, and women with all the contradictions and mixture of strengths and weaknesses which are more common in human nature than the absolutes.

They have nothing to say about  Nazi women, the subject of the book by Kathrin Kompisch. She writes, 'Apart from a few particularly cruel examples, the participation of women in the crimes of the Nazis has been blended out of the collective conscious of the Germans for a long time ... The history of National Socialism has long been reduced to one that blamed men for everything. This was and is the popular picture ... Women typed the statistics of the murdered victims of the SS Action Squads in the east, operated the radios which called up for more bullets, were invariably the secretaries - and sometimes much more - in all the Gestapo posts. And at the end of the war they tried to diminish their responsibility by saying they were just cogs in the all-male machine which gave the orders." The Gestapo files in Düsseldorf noted that women "try to change the power balance of the household by denouncing their husbands as spies or Communists or anti-Nazis." Most of the people in apartments who spied on their neighbours and reported them for ideological unsoundness or for being Jewish were women.

Perhaps the best known of the 'particularly cruel examples' was Ilse Koch, who 'had become infamous for her manufacture of lampshades and gloves made out of tattooed skin of dead inmates ... Other accounts detailed her sadism while walking or riding through the camp, ordering SS guards to beat or whip individual inmates who displeased her ... the victims of Buchenwald included 51 000 who had perished ... as a result of straight physical torture and starvation ... Through all this Ilse Koch lived quite voluntarily. She had no military rank, so there was no suggestion of compulsion or fear of death should she refuse to remain. On the contrary, all the evidence suggested that she enjoyed living in Buchenwald. After all, she even stayed on after her husband's dismissal as camp commandant.' (Tom Bower, 'Blind Eye to Murder.')

'Women in Nazi Germany' is the title of the book by Jill Stephenson. She makes it completely clear that the apparatus of terror was set up by men - only someone who was exceptionally stupid could possibly disagree. My views are counter-feminist, not 'masculinist.' I've no belief whatsoever in the intrinsic virtuousness of men. She also makes it clear that the apparatus of terror was actively supported by large numbers of women in Germany and that many women took an active part in the apparatus of terror. Some extracts from the book ('Opponents, perpetrators and the persecuted'). References not included.

‘As Wiggershaus says, ‘in terms of arrogance and self-righteousness, inventiveness in kinds of torment and unbounded sadism, there was no gender-specific difference in women’s favour.’ Women victims were shocked by the pleasure some female warders took in inflicting cruelty from a position of power. For Goldhagen, ‘German women [camp] personnel sought to strip the Jews of all vestiges of humanity.’ Some showed a pitilessness defying belief in their brutality towards women and children. They personally beat and kicked the defenceless to a pulp, unleashed savage dogs on them, drowned them in latrines. In extermination camps, they whipped victims towards the gas chambers.  Wives of SS men and camp commandants sometimes made a sport of tormenting inmates or ‘selecting’ them for death. The most notorious of these was Ilse Koch, at Buchenwald, but there were others.

…

‘Professionally-qualified people of various kinds … oiled the wheels of the machinery of persecution … Social workers, who were overwhelmingly female, identified candidates for sterilization: as Rosenhaft says, ‘women [in] the welfare service … stood at the cutting edge of Nazism’s most inhumane policies.’ Nurses  in psychiatric institutions participated in the murder (‘euthanasia’) of their charges, or knowingly assisted those who did by moving patients to rooms where the killing took place or preparing lethal medicines …

One of the paradoxes of Nazi Germany is that, while the Gestapo was rather thin on the ground, ‘no one felt far from the scrutiny of the Nazi state whether in public, at work or even at home.’ The reason is that ‘there were many professional and amateur helpers on whom they could rely.’ There were networks of official informers, and, beyond them,  there were thousands of individuals who denounced neighbours, lodgers, acquaintances and even spouses to the police. Franziska Haenel, a clandestine socialist and pacifist, was denounced by a female neighbor in a close-knit community. Her reaction was: ‘I just couldn’t believe such people existed.’ While for the state’s purposes denunciation served political ends, by uncovering nonconformists and dissidents, for the denunciator it was often a means of settling a personal score. Thus wives informed on husbands who were unfaithful or drunken or violent, in the hope of being rid of them for a while. Alternatively, a long-standing grudge against a former husband might be the motive. Women who were not Nazis might exploit state repression to solve their personal problems.

 The accusations varied. A slighted wife might denounce her husband’s lover. Although the Gestapo often recognized personal  grudges for what they were, if the woman denounced was a Jew or had dealings – particularly sexual relations – with Jews, its officers took a strong interest … ‘Aryans’ convicted on the basis of denunciation generally received a prison sentence, but Jews would be sent to a concentration camp; they would be lucky to survive. Denunciation of one ‘Aryan’ by another tended to be of the stronger by the weaker, ‘with both sexes evenly distributed.’

Feminism and the death penalty

See also the page The death penalty: reasoned revulsion.

Feminists have chosen to ignore the complete or almost complete exemption of women from the death penalty in many jurisdictions. Their ((survey)) of women's sufferings and disadvantages, the real and the imagined, the substantial and the trivial, is subject to serious {restriction}.

The Death Penalty Information Center in the United States documents and discusses the death penalty in meticulous detail. From the page

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/women-and-death-penalty

'Women account for only 1 in 50 (2%) death sentences imposed at the trial level;
Women account for only 1 in 67 (1.5%) persons presently on death row; and
Women account for only 1 in 100 (1%) persons actually executed in the modern era.'

Another aspect. From the Abtract of 'Chivalry is Not Dead: Murder, Gender, and the Death Penalty' (Social Science Research Network) by Steven F. Shatz of the University of San Francisco School of Law and Naomi R. Shatz of the New York Civil Liberties Union:

'The data for the article comes from our original study of 1299 first degree murder cases in California, whose death penalty scheme accords prosecutors and juries virtually unlimited discretion in making the death-selection decision ... We ... found substantial gender-of-defendant and gender-of-victim disparities. Women guilty of capital murder are far less likely than men to be sentenced to death, and defendants who kill women are far more likely to be sentenced to death than defendants who kill men.'

The walk to the execution chamber or conveyance to the execution chamber on a wheeled stretcher of the arguably innocent, the mentally ill, the victims of gross childhood abuse, the juvenile offenders, and offenders who are none of these things, after the degrading ritual of the 'last meal' (called the 'special meal' in Ohio) has been overwhelmingly the experience of males. The state of Indiana, like the state of Oregon, has never executed a female offender. At the time of her execution in February 2014, Suzanne Basso was the 510th person to be executed in Texas, the most prolific executing state, since the death penalty was restored in 1976. Of these, 505 were men.

Feminism isn't responsible for the continuance of capital punishment in the United States, which separates it from more civilized countries. But feminism gives the impression that the continuance of the death penalty isn't so important, or not important in the least. For a whole range of issues and not just the death penalty, feminism's tendency is to monopolize attention or to deflect attention from the need for reform.

Only one country in Europe still carries out executions - Belarus. Since March 1, 1994, women have been exempt from the death penalty.

Section 4.5 of the new constitution for Zimbabwe reads in part: 'A law may permit the death penalty to be imposed only on a person convicted of murder committed in aggravating circumstances, and the penalty must not be imposed or carried out on a woman.'

Countess Constance Markievicz played a prominent part in the Easter Rising of 1916 against British rule in Ireland. She was sentenced to death but wasn't shot. Sixteen men went before the firing squad at Kilmainham Gaol but she was reprieved explicitly on grounds of 'gender.'

From information supplied by 'Hands off Cain,' an Italian anti-death penalty organization:

February 14, 2010: Bangladesh has executed more than 400 people since the country became independent in 1971, an official said, and more than 1,000 others are currently sitting on death row.

At least 36 women have been sentenced to death but none went to the gallows, another prison official said, speaking on condition of anonymity as he is not authorised to reveal figures.

 
"Those hanged were all men," the official said ... '

Any honest ((survey)) of the relative sufferings and disadvantages of men and women should take account of the death penalty.

 Extracts from a newsletter I receive from 'Hands Off Cain,' an Italian anti-death penalty organization (06.10.12):

SRI LANKA: GOVERNMENT MOVES TO REVIVE THE DEATH PENALTY

Child Development and Women’s Affairs Minister Tissa Karaliyadda told the Nation in July that the death penalty should be imposed for those convicted of rape, with no amnesty given. “I hope to present a cabinet memorandum requesting to amend the laws regarding the matter,” the minister said.

LOUISIANA (USA): THIBODEAUX FREED FROM DEATH ROW

September 28, 2012: Damon Thibodeaux, 38, white, was freed from death row through DNA after 15 years.

Today a Jefferson Parish judge overturned the conviction and ordered Thibodeaux released from death row at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, also known as Angola, at 12:35 p.m. Central Time, a corrections spokeswoman told The Times.

Thibodeaux was convicted in October 1997 and sentenced to death after he confessed to the July 19, 1996, rape and murder of his 14-year-old step-cousin, Crystal Champagne. He at first confessed to the attack after a nine-hour interrogation by detectives. He recanted a few hours later and claimed his confession was coerced.

In 2007, Thibodeaux's legal team persuaded Jefferson County Dist. Atty. Paul Connick to reinvestigate the case, and DNA testing showed that Thibodeaux was not the murderer and that the victim had not been raped. Connick, who was elected in 1996, said he supports Thibodeaux's release and would continue to search for Crystal Champagne's killer. Thibodeaux is the 141st person to be exonerated and freed from death row since 1973, and the 18th person released through DNA evidence.

 My page The Death Penalty has evidence concerning the death penalty and arguments against the death penalty but it can only give a brief indication of its horrors, which are the experience almost entirely of men in The United States. This is one more horror which I don't describe on that page. I travelled to London to attend a vigil outside the United States embassy. Gary Graham, a black prisoner, was due to be executed in Texas later that day. At the time I travelled to London he was alive, at the time the vigil started he was alive, but meanwhile, as he was in the holding cell, preparations had been made to kill him. He was a juvenile offender at the time of the offence. Almost all the jurisdictions which still executed never executed anyone under the age of 18 at the time of the offence. The United States was an exception. A couple of hours after I arrived to take part in the vigil, news came that there had been a stay of execution. Who can convey the horror of facing extinction? Dostoevsky could, but he had been sentenced to death himself, led out to execution and only reprieved at the last moment.

A long time later, Gary Graham faced execution again. By this time, he had been given not one execution date, on the day I took part in the vigil, but six times. This was gross cruelty, not the actions of a civilized state. He refused a final meal. (The Web site of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice used to provide details of the last meal but now no longer does. I refused to look at this information even once.) This time he was executed, one of four juvenile offenders executed that year in the United States, all male. He went to the execution chamber protesting his innocence. There was only one eyewitness evidence of the murder and no forensic evidence at all.

The horrors of the execution or attempted execution: 'Ohio prison staff earlier this month failed to administer a lethal injection to another man, Romell Broom, despite 18 attempts to insert a needle into his veins. After two hours, Broom was returned alive to his cell ... the 2007 case of Christopher Newton, when it took more than an hour to find a vein, giving him enough time to go to the bathroom in the middle of the procedure. And there was also the case of Joseph Clark who sobbed in agony during his execution when his vein burst.'

Even if the execution is fast and painless, waiting for execution is very prolonged and far from painless. After being sentenced to death long before (12 years is the average but Cecil Johnson was executed in Tennessee after 29 years on death row), the inmate may in the end, after losing the last appeal, be given an execution date which is eight months ahead, an exact date on which he (or she) will be put to death. Then comes the weekend before the execution, the day before the execution, and unless the inmate has been given a stay, he or she has to reckon with an hour of life left. In 99 cases out of 100 it's a 'he' rather than a 'she.' Radical feminists - what comments do you have to make about this form of 'gender disparity?

The history of the death penalty in this country offers instructive insights into feminism. Two quotations from my page The Death Penalty:

'Rituals of Retribution: capital punishment in Germany 1600 - 1987 by Richard J. Evans. The author writes that "The past, as the famous opening to L.P. Hartley's novel The Go-Between says, is a foreign country; they do things differently there. By visiting this foreign country we can enlarge our conception of what it means to be human, and perhaps gain a better understanding of the limits and possibilities of the human condition. One of the aims of this book, therefore, is to restore a sense of strangeness to the past. We have to make an imaginative leap of understanding by which to comprehend mentalities which present-day Europeans may find at first encounter repulsive and bizarre."

'The Hanging Tree: execution and the English people 1770 - 1868 by V.A.C. Gatrell. I fully agree with the comment on the cover: "This gripping study is essential reading for anyone interested in the processes which have 'civilized' our social life...Panoramic in range, scholarly in method, and compelling in argument, this is one of those rare histories which both shift our sense of the past and speak powerfully to the present." The author writes, "Late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century English people were very familiar with the grimy business of hanging. This is so large a social fact separating this era from our own that although it is not the most obvious way of defining modern times, it must be one of them...What they watched was horrific. There was no nice calculation of body weights and lengths of drop in those days; few died cleanly. Kicking their bound legs, many choked over minutes.'

Mary Wollstonecraft, the author of 'A Vindication of the Rights of Woman,' lived at a time when executions were frequent, the time of the 'Bloody Code.' There was a peak in the 1780's and a decline in (public) executions after that. V A C Gatrell: 'Trevelyan thought the eighteenth century English 'a race that had not yet learned to dislike the sight of pain inflicted'. There's no evidence that Mary Wollstonecraft was any different. She has many, many observations to make on female dress, but makes no comment at all on public hangings, whether of men, women or children.

Lyndall Gordon describes Mary Wollstonecraft's move to London in Chapter 7 of 'Mary Wollstonecraft: A New Genus.' She moved to an area near St Paul's cathedral. 'An eighteenth century drawing showsa bustle of business and shoppers, not far from the Fleet Prison, Newgate Prison with its public hangings, and the skewed old justice of the Old Bailey ...' But living near to the gallows wasn't in the least essential for knowing something about  the realities of the death penalty. The something that Mary Wollstonecraft knew never roused her to indignation, it would seem.

In the Preface to 'The Hanging Tree,' V A C Gattrell writes, 'Complex ... were the defences polite people erected against experiencing the scaffold: this is the subject of Part III.' Part III has the title, 'The Limits of Sensibility.' Mary Wollstonecraft was surely one of those polite people and the limits of her sensibility should never be overlooked, although of course they have been. Her reaction, or lack of reaction, to the lives of people caught up in the Industrial Revolution, the world of mines, mills and other factories, the world of vast works of civil engineering, was similarly the reaction of one of those polite people. He writes further, 'Most middle-class diaries, letters, and newspapers reveal an extraordinary detachment about the spectacle, or else they reveal defences, denials and rationalizations which spoke for anxiety at the least.' The sympathies revealed in Mary Wollstonecraft's letters are heartening but it would be a mistake to ignore their limitations. As for this issue, there's detachment but no defences, denials or rationalizations.

Compare Cesare Beccaria. From my page on the death penalty: 'Cesare Beccaria (1738 - 1794), the author of 'On Crimes and Punishments' (Dei lelitti e delle pene) is magnificent, astonishing. His work has had an incalculable effect, wholly for the good. At a time when the criminal justice systems in almost all countries were hideously barbaric, he cut through all the traditional arguments and traditional complacency and attacked the death penalty and other abuses. From section XXVIII, on the death penalty: 'This vain profusion of punishments, which has never made men better, has moved me to inquire whether capital punishment is truly useful and just in a well-organized state...In order to be just, a penalty should have only the degree of intensity needed to deter other men from crime...If anyone should cite against me the example of practically all ages and nations, which have assigned the death penalty to certain crimes, I shall reply that the example is annihilated in the presence of truth, against which there is no prescription, and that human history leaves us with the impression of a vast sea of errors in which a few confused and widely scattered truths are floating.'

If he had confined himself to attacking the death penalty, this would have been an enormous achievement, but his humanitarianism was very broadly based and deserves to be mentioned here. From the introduction to 'On Crimes and Punishments' (Hackett edition, translated by David Young):

'The criminal justice systems of Europe in the eighteenth century were open to criticism on a number of counts. There was often cruelty in the investigation and punishment of crime. Judicial torture was frequently used, and the death penalty was common even for relatively minor crimes. Almost everywhere, the law reflected the common assumption that political loyalty and good behavior were best secured by religious uniformity. Reliance on tradition and ancient custom tended to reinforce the powers of local courts and parochial elites...and to circumscribe the central authority of the state. In most countries, equality before the law was not recognized, even in principle; different rules applied to different levels of the social hierarchy. The law's vagueness, contradictions, and wide scope for interpretation and discretion tended to reinforce the personal dependence of the disadvantaged on those with inherited property and authority.'

Beccaria wrote against all these abuses, and his writing had a dramatic impact. It should be read, and remembered, with gratitude.'

The risk of executing the innocent is a powerful argument against the death penalty. I mention it on my page The death penalty: reasoned revulsion. I discuss in more detail a further argument against the death penalty, one which is  neglected far too often. I refer to it as  'the risk of executing the damaged.' I discuss the case of Johnny Garrett, executed by the state of Texas - and a juvenile offender: ''Chronically psychotic and brain damaged, Johnny Garrett had a long history of mental illness and was severely physically and sexually abused as a child, which the jury never knew. He was described by a psychiatrist as "one of the most psychiatrically impaired inmates" she had ever examined, and by a psychologist as having "one of the most virulent histories of abuse and neglect... encountered in over 28 years of practice". Garrett was frequently beaten by his father and stepfathers. On one occasion, when he would not stop crying, he was put on the burner of a hot stove, and retained the burn scars until his death.'

Why are there no national feminist magazines?

Print magazines not only survive but flourish, despite the importance of internet publication. There are print magazines concerned with a vast range of topics, from Allotment gardening to Zymurgy (the magazine of the American Homebrewers' Association.') There are many, many magazines, of course, devoted to trash and trivia.

According to many feminists, very few  women are concerned with trash and trivia,  or none at all. (For my own opinion, see the section Feminism: trash and trivia.) If there are women who seem to have an interest in trash and trivia, then they've been influenced - or oppressed - by patriarchy's promotion of trash and trivia. At the same time, many of these feminists insist that women - all women or almost all women - are strong, not in the least weak beings.

Feminists don't agree about the extent of women's oppression but there's general agreement that women are victims. You'd imagine, then, that these victims, yearning to be free, eager to end their oppression, would welcome nothing more than a feminist magazine to inspire them and guide them and inform them - and not just one magazine, but many magazines. Why, then, is there no widely available feminist magazine in this country?

There used to be a widely available feminist magazine in this country, 'Spare Rib.' It ceased publication in 1993. Its history isn't encouraging. According to the Wikipedia entry, 'As the women's movement evolved during the 1970s the magazine became a focus for sometimes acrimonious debate between the many streams which emerged within the movement, such as socialist feminism, radical feminism, revolutionary feminism, lesbian feminism, liberal feminism and black feminism.'

In the section Triona Kennedy and feminist sanctity, I point out that she ignores these conflicts. She promotes feminist lesson-plans in schools but it really does seem that the variety of feminism to be promoted in lessons plans is the variety she supports.  See also the section Feminist divisions and in-fighting. 

If patriarchal entrepreneurs and risk-takers have managed to launch succesfully many, many magazines, including magazines for minority interests, what about feminist entrepreneurs and risk-takers? What's stopping you?

Spare Rib was succeeded by 'The Feminist Times.' It lasted just 12 months. From the report in the Huffington Post, 14.07.2014.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/07/14/feminist-times-spare-rib-magazine-close_n_5584591.html

'When radical feminist magazine Spare Rib relaunched as The Feminist Times last year, we were excited about the return of their iconic straight-talking, sexism-busting journalism.

'But just 12 months after their re-naming ceremony, The Feminist Times have announced that this week will be their last.

'In a saddening statement to readers, the publication say that they "simply cannot survive any longer".

'Speaking to HuffPost UK Lifestyle, founder Charlotte Raven, editor Deborah Coughlin and deputy editor Sarah Graham explain why The Feminist Times is really shutting up shop.

...

'Sarah puts the magazine's closure down to "lack of sustainable funding."

...

'In order to keep afloat the publication tried crowd-funding and appealed for more paying members and donations, but sadly their business is not sustainable.

...

'Fans may be disappointed to hear that there are no immediate plans to re-model the magazine - Sarah and Deborah are both moving on to other projects.'

My comments and criticisms are directed at the feminist movement, which seems so far incapable of launching ventures of any size. I don't criticize the women who were involved in launching 'The Feminist Times.' Why the feminist movement didn't support the publication, by buying it at least, is a question I can't answer.

One of the founders of 'The Feminist Times,' Charlotte Raven, has the condition Huntington's Disease. A long time ago, I had the responsibility of helping to care for someone who had the disease. Her Website on the condition is very impressive, the way she is dealing with the effects of the condition is very impressive. This is someone I admire very much.

Trash and trivia

A significant proportion of women have an intense interest in shopping, in the kind of shopping which is more to do with status and image than with needs - the most trivial ways of enhancing status and the most trivial ways of presenting the right image: the world of rampant consumerism which leads some women to buy things on credit which they can't possibly pay for - they will need to take them back and get a refund but they will have had The Joy of Shopping. These women are unacknowledged by many feminists. 'Facts' are crude or imaginary things according to  higher feminist views. Feminists will either be indifferent to consumerism or give it a low priority, if the consumerism seems to have nothing to do with feminist issues. If women are buying things to please men, then that's a very different thing. Here, as so often, feminist criteria turn out to be completely inadequate.

Mary Wollstonecraft, proto-feminist, like so many later feminists, is fond of the nonsensical generalization, as in this, 'If then women are not a swarm of ephemeron triflers ...' As a matter of fact, there were many women then and there are many women now who could be described as 'ephemeron triflers,' although a less quaint description would be preferable.

This is a man, Paul Kingsnorth, criticizing a woman, name unknown. If there's a distinctively feminist perspective which can illuminate this, what is it? Surely, one conclusion that can be drawn, a non-feminist conclusion, is that in this instance a woman can have debased values and a man can have better values and the man is fully entitled to criticize the woman.  Paul Kingsnorth is writing in 'Real England: The Battle Against the Bland.'

'A few days ago, I was lying in bed listening to a current affairs programme on the radio. A presenter was interviewing a woman who was angry with Tesco. At first, through my fug of half-sleep, I thought this sounded promising. I wondered what was bothering her: the death of the high street, the crucifixion of local farmers, over-packaging, junk food ... there was so much to choose from. But it wasn't any of those.

'The woman was angry because Tesco had refused to accept her brand of credit card when she went shopping. She was so angry, she wanted to tell the nation. She thought it was an outrage. She couldn't see why a big supermarket like that couldn't accept every credit card there was. 'It's my right,' she said - and Tesco was violating that right by telling her to pay some other way. She was going to start a campaign. I felt a strange and alien emotion: sympathy for Tesco was coursing through my veins.

'Some on the political right used to talk a lot about the 'dependency culture' created by the welfare state ... Increasingly, as the Tesco woman showed, we do live in a 'dependency culture' - of  a different kind. We depend on the consumer machine to provide for us - to give us what we want, when we want it. This is our 'right'. The Thing has dehumanised us, and we are all increasingly dependent on it for succour. We expect. We demand. We are like children. Everything must be instant and, if it isn't, somebody must pay.'

In this instance he had a legitimate point but I criticize him severely in the section Paul Kingsnorth and green terrorism of my page  'Immature, unsophisticated, or gullible:' green ideology.'

My page on Supermarkets has extended criticism of Tesco and some other supermarkets - and criticism of some small shops.

'Dumbing down,' the relentless tide of trivialization, the huge numbers of infantile adults, moronic media (moronic TV and radio programmes, moronic magazines and books, not forgetting moronic contributions to the social media) only attract attention from feminists qua feminists if they infringe feminist norms.

There's a place for the trivial in human life - how  would comedy manage without it, for example? - but so much that's trivial is dispiriting. In a world awash with trivia, to meet more of it at every turn depresses the spirits. Not again! And again and again, the trivial is hard to separate from the  moronic

Theodore Dalrymple, writing in 'The Spectator,' 'I have come to the conclusion that ... most thoughts lie too shallow for words. That is why an age of easy communication is almost certain to be an age of absence of communication. There will be no plumbing the shallows of the human heart.'

His starting point (one of a vast number of possible starting points, of course) is the visitor's book for annexe of the Rijksmuseum at Amsterdam Airport: ' ... there is nothing quite like a visitors’ book for appreciating the preponderance of the banal in human thought and existence.

'Some of the praise of the museum was for distinctly extraneous reasons:

 Your couch is really comfy. I will sleep on it again when I return.

 It was a very nice museum. I was able to find my husband here and now we are happily married. Thank you Amsterdam Museum. I love you.

 Best place to fart in the airport.

An Indian wrote:

 Amazing art show. Got new trivia about European culture.

Between a tenth and a twentieth of the comments were bizarre in various revealing ways. First was the purely egotistical:

 Hey Bridget, I can’t believe we’re finally in the same place at the same time, but apart from my flight… I miss you like  crazy and check in your Facebook to see all the fun you’re having… I will leave your present at your house so you can  get it in December. Don’t forget that trip that we’ll plan.

This is signed Hanna, with a little heart that — well, makes the heart sink. Or again:

 From Boston Bar, to Amsterdam, to Kenya and back again. 13 small town members travel half way around the world to help build a primary school in Kenya. What an adventure!

Yet again:

 All the way from Sac-Town, California! Holla! Always mackin, never slackin.

Egotism is international and not the property of one country:

 I’m from Taiwan.

Next came the patriotic-xenophobic range of comments:

 Bonjour à tous les French people qui passeront par ici! Escale dans cet aeroport en direction Nouméa! Faites bon voyage les français. 

 Hello from Cleveland Ohio, in America, aka USA. The land of the free, if you didn’t know.

 Bien por inculcar cultura en general espero haya variedad de presentaciones en específico México. 

 Thailand rulez.

A foreigner has tried his pidgin Dutch to say something ideological:

 Europeers is niet die beste kunstenaars! (Europeans are not the best artists.)

Or simply:

 USA! USA! USA!

Then there are the religious enthusiasts:

 He died for our sins – J-C – Praise God for the gift of eternal life.

 Waddup! Shout out to Bethany Church and my second family from Terradise! Love you guys!

Then there is the purely-irrelevant-to–outright-thought-disordered range:

 I love sandwiches.

 Amsterdam 4 ever! But the prices are RIDICULOUSE!

 What’s Jello meat about… thanks, -Belarus!

 Girl don’t play with my fine art! Ain’t gonna put no dance Club or nothin, but as museum? bid please! – Ya heard.

Finally, there is the facetious to vulgar range:

 Wally the pregnant walrus was here.

 Charles son of Darmouth, King of Uranus, we appreciate this here service.

 Please excuse my terrible language. Now bugger off.

 Literally mindblowing, where’s my mind? My breasts just about fill this hell hole.

 Wordup to all you Motherlickas from the nasty nati.

 No me gustó el arte holandés, nunca estuvo de moda. Pongan unas chavas bien chulas! (I didn’t like Dutch art, it was never cool. Put up some pretty chicks!)

To which someone has appended Puto, male prostitute.'

Faced with this list of banalities, the feminist duty - or pleasure - is clear, for so many feminists. Not all feminists would react in the same way, but as for the rest, condemnation consists in finding out  which comments were written by men and then condemning them.

The comments sections of many, many Webs and blogs offer unlimited illustrative material. Here, superficial, inane, moronic and worse than moronic material abounds.

I don't in the least contend that people should spend all their time or most of their time addressing extreme suffering and injustice.  I only object when people seem to actively distort and make distorted claims, claiming that less serious injustices, for instance, are much worse than the worst injustices.

People are fully justified in addressing lesser concerns and other concerns - the problem of litter in a neighbourhood, which may well be a real probelm in that neighbourhood, the decline in the standard of string playing, the choice of wildly unsuitable tempos, after a now conductor has been appointed.

 It pleases me very much that during the Second World War, including the years when Britain's survival was very much in doubt, cultural life was far from coming  to a standstill. Many books to do with the arts were published, for example. Susie Harries' wonderful biography 'Nikolaus Pevsner: The Life' is about the German Jew whose writing on the architecture of this country has very great significance. He wrote most of the volumes in the monumental series, 'The Buildings of England.'

 His book, 'An Outline of European Architecture' was published in the  grim year of 1942. She writes that it , ' ... took the great buildings of Europe and the vocabulary of architecture to a wider and older audience ... 'Thousands,' wrote Banham, 'must have made their discovery of Vierzehnheiligen in an air raid shelter, or the Pazzi Chapel in a transit camp.'

Gretchen Rubin and The Happiness Project

What are feminists to make of Gretchen Rubin's blatant promotion of infantile attitudes? Don't many, many feminists settle for something similar? This is what she writes on her Website, 'The Happiness Project,' www.happiness-project.com

Why I Treat Myself Like a Toddler. A Cranky Toddler.

'I remember reading somewhere that writer Anne Lamott thinks about herself in the third person, to take better care of herself: “I’m sorry, Anne Lamott can’t accept that invitation to speak; she’s finishing a book so needs to keep her schedule clear.” [No criticisms. Anne Lamott can't be faulted.]

'Similarly, I imagine myself as a toddler. “Gretchen gets cranky when she’s over-tired. We really need to stick to the usual bedtimes.” “Gretchen gets frantic when she’s really hungry, so she can’t wait too long for dinner.” “Gretchen needs some quiet time each day.” “Gretchen really feels the cold, so we can’t be outside for too long."

'The fact is, if you’re dealing with a toddler, you have to plan. You have to think ahead about eating, sleeping, proper winter clothes, necessary equipment, a limit on sweets, etc. Because with a toddler, the consequences can be very unpleasant. In the same way, to be good-humored and well-behaved, I need to make sure I have my coffee, my cell-phone charger, my constant snacks, and my eight hours of sleep.'

Gretchen Rubin is obviously dependent on people who don't follow her example, who couldn't possibly follow her example, such people as loggers, labourers, roofers and trawlermen, who have to be outside 'for too long' whether they like it or not, who become 'over-tired,' exhausted, every working day. Many millions of the world's population do have to 'wait too long for dinner,' or any sort of meal, of course.   This objection is such an  obvious one that only a devoted narcissist could fail to notice it.

Various comments followed, none of them expressing incredulity. This is from Williesha Morris:

'Williesha pretty much likes to sit around and do absolutely nothing for long periods of time. Williesha needs a lot of motivation and excitement to get things done. Williesha needs a buddy. Thankfully she is married to that person.'

This is Mary Sahs:

'When Mary Beth eats too much sugar, she gets very emotional and unhappy, and then she feels sick. She really needs to pay attention and only eat a tiny bit and she really needs to stop sitting there like a lump and go out and play ... or even to the playroom in the basement ... work off some of that bad energy.' (I can't confirm beyond all doubt that this is Mary Sahs the 'Natural Health Consultant and Wellness Planner' and a grown adult, but it seems likely.)

Of the groups mentioned in this section, who are the more privileged and who are the less privileged?

Gretchen Rubin's  devotion to herself does allow for some consideration for her husband. She has given some thought to Maximisation of Married Bliss. Her observations will be an affront to many feminists. They seem to come from a different, and surely better, person than the spoilt brat:

 'I complain about the time I spend paying bills, but I overlook the time my husband spends dealing with our our car. It’s easy to see that over-claiming leads to resentment and an inflated sense of entitlement. So now when I find myself thinking, “I’m the only one around here who bothers to…” or “Why do I always have to be the one who…?” I remind myself of all the tasks I don’t do.

 ...

 ' ... Just as I find it easily to overlook the chores done by my husband ... it’s easy for me to forget to appreciate his many virtues and instead focus on his flaws. For example, although I find it hard to resist using an irritable tone, my husband almost never speaks harshly, and that’s really a wonderful trait. I’m trying to stay alert to all the things I love about him, and let go of my petty annoyances. This is easier said than done.'

 As regards car maintenance, see the section Feminism and the art of car maintenance.

 has  importance in feminism  Although her liberal treatment of her husband may disappoint, or outrage, so many feminists, Gretchen Rubin's curriculum vitae will be very encouraging and  heartening  to the many feminists who emphasize the importance of studying at the 'best' universities and being appointed to  'top jobs.' She studied law at Yale University and  she has been a lecturer at Yale Law School and the Yale School of Management.

William Deresiewicz has written well on the disadvantages of an education at Yale and other prestigious universities. The American Scholar gives his very interesting essay The disadvantages of an elite education. It certainly interests me.

His essay isn't in the least an anti-feminist (or pro-feminist) one but I think it contains a great deal which challenges some common feminist norms and tendencies. Do many feminists have any more idea how to talk to a plumber, or a mechanic? (whose jobs, they may forget, are skilled or very highly skilled ones, perhaps demanding more skill than the feminist's own), or to a labourer (whose job is intensely demanding.) When they find the plumber, the mechanic or the labourer 'patronising' we only have their word for it, usually, that they aren't to blame, that they haven't patronised the plumber, the mechanic or the labourer. What William Deresiewicz writes about Ivy League universities is often more widely applicable, surely. Professors of Women's Studies (or other studies, of course) at a very different kind of university may well lack understanding of men's and women's lives if the men and women belong to a section of society which they know next to nothing about. I do think that a knowledge of 'différance,' acquaintance with the important works of Derrida, Kristeva and the rest won't be of any help. What William Deresiewicz writes  about  'top jobs' is highly relevant to feminism, surely. He wrtes from experience. He was a Professor of English at Yale University until he got out.

 Extracts:

 'It didn’t dawn on me that there might be a few holes in my education until I was about 35. I’d just bought a house, the pipes needed fixing, and the plumber was standing in my kitchen. There he was, a short, beefy guy with a goatee and a Red Sox cap and a thick Boston accent, and I suddenly learned that I didn’t have the slightest idea what to say to someone like him. So alien was his experience to me, so unguessable his values, so mysterious his very language, that I couldn’t succeed in engaging him in a few minutes of small talk before he got down to work. Fourteen years of higher education and a handful of Ivy League degrees, and there I was, stiff and stupid, struck dumb by my own dumbness. “Ivy retardation,” a friend of mine calls this. I could carry on conversations with people from other countries, in other languages, but I couldn’t talk to the man who was standing in my own house.

 'It’s not surprising that it took me so long to discover the extent of my miseducation, because the last thing an elite education will teach you is its own inadequacy. As two dozen years at Yale and Columbia have shown me, elite colleges relentlessly encourage their students to flatter themselves for being there, and for what being there can do for them. The advantages of an elite education are indeed undeniable. You learn to think, at least in certain ways, and you make the contacts needed to launch yourself into a life rich in all of society’s most cherished rewards. To consider that while some opportunities are being created, others are being cancelled and that while some abilities are being developed, others are being crippled is, within this context, not only outrageous, but inconceivable.

 ...

 'The first disadvantage of an elite education, as I learned in my kitchen that day, is that it makes you incapable of talking to people who aren’t like you. Elite schools pride themselves on their diversity, but that diversity is almost entirely a matter of ethnicity and race. With respect to class, these schools are largely—indeed increasingly—homogeneous. Visit any elite campus in our great nation and you can thrill to the heartwarming spectacle of the children of white businesspeople and professionals studying and playing alongside the children of black, Asian, and Latino businesspeople and professionals. At the same time, because these schools tend to cultivate liberal attitudes, they leave their students in the paradoxical position of wanting to advocate on behalf of the working class while being unable to hold a simple conversation with anyone in it. 

 ' ... Graduates of elite schools are not more valuable than stupid people, or talentless people, or even lazy people. Their pain does not hurt more. Their souls do not weigh more. If I were religious, I would say, God does not love them more.

 ' ... When elite universities boast that they teach their students how to think, they mean that they teach them the analytic and rhetorical skills necessary for success in law or medicine or science or business. But a humanistic education is supposed to mean something more than that, as universities still dimly feel. So when students get to college, they hear a couple of speeches telling them to ask the big questions, and when they graduate, they hear a couple more speeches telling them to ask the big questions. And in between, they spend four years taking courses that train them to ask the little questions—specialized courses, taught by specialized professors, aimed at specialized students. Although the notion of breadth is implicit in the very idea of a liberal arts education, the admissions process increasingly selects for kids who have already begun to think of themselves in specialized terms—the junior journalist, the budding astronomer, the language prodigy. We are slouching, even at elite schools, toward a glorified form of vocational training.

 'Indeed, that seems to be exactly what those schools want. There’s a reason elite schools speak of training leaders, not thinkers—holders of power, not its critics. An independent mind is independent of all allegiances, and elite schools, which get a large percentage of their budget from alumni giving, are strongly invested in fostering institutional loyalty.'

More inconvenient facts

 Generally, the 'Men's Movement' opposes particular distortions, such as the notion that all domestic abuse is by men against women. It doesn't claim that men have the monopoly of virtue. Many feminists are close to claiming that women have the monopoly of virtue, or do claim it.

I recognize that many men are irrational, trivial-minded, cruel, vindictive, bullying, infantile, easily-led, and many women likewise. Some feminists give the impression that they believe women are inherently virtuous. If so, this view is vulnerable to experience, I think. Feminists may find that in the workplace, some of the men are unexpectedly and uncomfortably compassionate and that not all the women are all they seem. One very bad woman boss may destroy the illusion for good, just as one very bad male boss may confirm views. A heterosexual feminist loses a husband or partner to another woman. The belief that women are inherently virtuous is diminished. A 'Women's Studies' academic is more often than not competing against other women rather than men and if she fails in an application, she may well blame women rather than men.

The harshness of reality, the injustice of reality, tend to destroy illusions and support deeper thought but sometimes illusions have such a grip that {modification} of reality is more convenient than {modification} of the illusions.

Instances of hostility between women are so common, of course, that it requires an effort to realize this:  according to one stream of feminist thought, disharmony between women is, if not impossible, negligible in comparison with the disharmony between men and women - men and women opposite but not in the least equal. Women are the victims. An instance of disharmony between women, which can be interpreted according to the affiliation of the feminist.

From

 http://www.pugbus.net/artman/publish/printer_07217002_11
rowlingfeud.shtml

'Harry Potter author, J.K. Rowling, has accused New York Times book reviewer Michiko Kakutani of "gross unprofessionalism" for writing a review of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows before she had read the entire book.

'Saying that she was "staggered, gobsmacked" and several other Briticisms that mean "like totally surprised," Ms. Rowling registered her complaint with Rod Bender,THEM Weekly's children's lit editor.

' "An author of my stature and earning power [earning power!] deserves more respect than that Yoko Ono gave me," said Ms. Rowling. "How dare she buy a copy of my book in the morning and post a review of it that same evening? I spent weeks [weeks!] writing that book. The least she could do is give me the courtesy of reading all of it. Besides, she had the cheek to post her review three days before the official release date of Deathly Hallows. I've got a mind to buy the bloody New York Times and fire that woman." [the privileges of wealth!]

'Ms. Kakutani refused to discuss her working method or her reading speed, so we do not know if she had help reading Deathly Hallows. If she did, however, why weren't her elves mentioned in one of those additional-reporting footnotes at the end of her review? At worst she appears guilty of skipping large portions of Deathly Hallows, a short cut that would earn any junior high school student an F on her book report. Or else Ms. Kakutani is guilty of passing off others' work as her own, another F bomb in book report circles.

'Although Ms. Kakutani wouldn't say how much of Deathly Hallows she had read, she was willing to answer Ms. Rowling's criticism of her review.

 ' "Nobody reads her [stuff] cover to cover except ten-year-olds," she said. "Adults, for whom my review was intended, skim the Harry Potter books. I don't know of anyone with a mental age greater than nineteen who reads those books in their entirety.

' "Furthermore, what does Ms. Rowling have to complain about? I said nice things about her book. That woman needs to get over herself." '

 In general, the warm feeling of sisterhood in the face of male opposition is a feeling difficult to maintain indefinitely. Reality is denied, modified to support the illusions but sooner or later, the complexity and harshness of reality make it impossible to continue believing in illusion, except for the most deluded fantasists, those with the weakest grasp of realities - but many feminists are exactly that.

Kingsley Amis

At the end of his novel 'Jake's Thing,' Kingsley Amis, a novelist obviously vastly inferior to such women novelists as George Eliot or Emily Bronte, or male novelists such as Kafka and Coetzee, writes about women. His intended target here isn't one I accept, but it can be reinterpreted as an attack on radical feminists, and then it's surely devastatingly accurate -

 '... their concern ... with seeming to be better and to be right while getting everything wrong, their automatic assumption of the role of injured party in any clash of wills, their certainty that a view is the more credible and useful for the fact that they hold it, their use of misunderstanding and misrepresentation as weapons of debate, their selective sensitivity to tones of voice, their unawareness of the difference in themselves between sincerity and insincerity, their interest in importance (together with noticeable inability to discriminate in that sphere), their fondness for general conversation and directionless discussion, their pre-emption of the major share of feeling, their exaggerated estimate of their own plausibility ...'

These lines from his poem 'A Bookshop Idyll' will probably be just as offensive to feminists:

Women are really much nicer than men:
aaNo wonder we like them.

Here, Kingsley Amis is using generalization, of course. Feminists' use of generalization is almost limitless and just as empty. Feminist claims beginning with 'men are ...' or 'women are ...' should be examined very, very carefully.

Claiming superiority the easy way

In the final paragraph of her book 'Mary Wollstonecraft: A New Genus,' Lyndall Gordon repeats the glib phrase which dismisses from serious consideration not just a few achievements - but achievements which are massive and  momentous -  such as the Periodic Table, Quantum Theory, the building of a masterpiece such as King's College Chapel - but an almost limitless number of achievements. She writes, 'Women who imitate men lack ambition, goes the old phrase.' The phrase isn't likely to motivate any woman to make discoveries in science far more remarkable than the Periodic Table or Quantum Theory or to design and construct buildings far more remarkable than King's College Chapel, but to leave a feminist with the certainty that if she ever did want to achieve on such a scale, it wouldn't be difficult. I think that Lyndall Gordon is deluded here.

Faced with a man's massive achievement, which has directly or indirectly reduced suffering - but only some massive achievement has humanitarian benefits - feminists more often than not overlook the achievement. If the man can be found to be 'sexist' in some way - the criteria used are very broad, the judgment regarded as practically infallible - then of course the matter is clear-cut, but otherwise, simplification-words such as 'phallocentric' and 'patriarchal' will do and the achievement can be dismissed or overlooked. Who are the important people? Why, the feminists. They are spared the necessity of achieving, they can gain a reputation for superiority by this easiest of ways, by using simplification-words, by showing that they know how to use the word 'gender' instead of 'sex.' In any case, 'achievement' may well be a 'masculinist' idea, according to some feminists.

'Sexist' is an easy way of disposing of arguments without the hard work needed to present a case in detail, with supporting evidence. It's far easier to say that a garage is 'sexist' or 'patronising' than for a radical feminist to set up a garage. Lying underneath a vehicle trying to dislodge a rusted part, covered with grime and oil, doesn't offer the same advantages in self-promotion. It's easier to deny angrily that in general women have less interest in mechanical matters and to speak glibly of 'gender stereotyping' than for a feminist car-owner to study a workshop manual and actually carry out major mechanical work on a car.

The sphere of 'strict facts'

 I refuse absolutely to apologize for men or to defend men if their actions seem indefensible, or to defend women if their actions seem indefensible. I follow the principle of cross-linkage. In some cases, 'gender' is the most important linkage, but very often not. I feel ties to, linkages with, men in some cases, not in others. In other cases, I feel ties to, linkages with, women. 'Facts' were under attack for a time, but facts can now be seen as clear-cut in very many cases, open to theoretical objections but no more so than the existence of an external world or the materiality of a stone, a 'fact' of the external world, as shown by kicking it.

In the previous section, on the death penalty, I discussed the use of the death penalty in this country in the eighteenth century, and the failure of Mary Wollstonecraft to show any awareness of its evils.

As a matter of strict fact, the harsh penal code of the later eighteenth and early nineteenth century was imposed by men, not women. As a matter of strict fact, the harsh penal code of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century was opposed by a tiny minority of men but no women, or none that I know of. As a matter of strict fact, the worst excesses of this harsh penal code were ended by men. V A C Gatrell: 'Then suddenly - and I mean suddenly - this ancient killing system collapsed. The 1832 Reform Act ... opened parliament to some hundred independent MPs, largely middle-class advocates of progress and critics of the ancien régime, fervently advocating the bloody code's repeal ... When most capital statutes were at last repealed in 1837, only eight people were killed that year in the whole country, and six in the year following, all murderers ...' As a matter of strict fact, women were denied any political say in such matters. Not as a matter of strict fact, but as a likelihood, if they had been, they would not have been any more humanitarian. As a matter of strict fact, Mrs Thatcher in the twentieth century made determined efforts to reintroduce the death penalty in this country after its abolition in the 1960's by Harold Wilson's government.

As a matter of strict fact, the Nazi terror in Germany was due to men. As a matter of strict fact, the Nazi regime came to be supported actively and passively by the overwhelming majority of Germans. As a matter of strict fact, the Nazi regime was actively opposed by only a tiny proportion of Germans, men and women. As a matter of strict fact, the armed military action which eventually ended the Nazi regime was overwhelmingly due to men rather than women.

As a matter of strict fact, virtually all the scientific and technological advances which have made life longer and less subject to such scourges as famine and epidemic disease have been achieved by men. As a matter of strict fact, feminists have increased human happiness to a far, far lesser extent than the work of these men.

'Gendercide'

The attempt to be as fair as possible, the attempt to avoid distortion as far as possible, the attempt to take account of evidence, to avoid selective use of evidence, so far as possible, including evidence which is inconvenient to a theory or a view of the world - these aren't characteristic of feminism and feminist 'theory.' The examination of 'gendercide' in the Website www.gendercide.org  does seem to me to follow these principles. From the introduction to the site:

 'Gendercide is gender-selective mass killing. The term was first used by Mary Anne Warren in her 1985 book,Gendercide: The Implications of Sex Selection. Warren drew "an analogy between the concept of genocide" and what she called "gendercide." Citing the Oxford English Dictionary definition of genocide as "the deliberate extermination of a race of people," Warren wrote:

' 'By analogy, gendercide would be the deliberate extermination of persons of a particular sex (or gender). Other terms, such as "gynocide" and "femicide," have been used to refer to the wrongful killing of girls and women. But "gendercide" is a sex-neutral term, in that the victims may be either male or female. There is a need for such a sex-neutral term, since sexually discriminatory killing is just as wrong when the victims happen to be male. The term also calls attention to the fact that gender roles have often had lethal consequences, and that these are in important respects analogous to the lethal consequences of racial, religious, and class prejudice.'

'Warren explores the deliberate extermination of women through analysis of such subjects as female infanticide,maternal mortality, witch-hunts in early modern Europe, and other atrocities and abuses against women. Gendercide Watch includes all three of these as case-studies of gendercide. In addition, we include cases of mass rape of women followed by murder, as has occurred on a large scale in recent decades (see the case-studies of gendercide against both women and men in Nanjing in 1937-38 and Bangladesh in 1971). We also feature a case-study of the Montreal Massacre (1989), a gender-selective mass execution of young women that is indelibly imprinted in the memories of millions of Canadians, and which shocked many others worldwide.

The difficulty with Warren's framing of gendercide, though -- and this is true for the feminist analysis of gender-selective human-rights abuses as a whole -- is that the inclusive definition is not matched by an inclusive analysis of the mass killing of non-combatant men. [In my terminology, feminists use a defective ((survey)), a ((survey)) subject to unwarranted {restriction}, or {restriction}:- ((survey))]Gendercide Watch was founded to encourage just such an inclusive approach. We believe that state-directed gender-selective mass killings have overwhelmingly targeted men through history, and that this phenomenon is pervasive in the modern world as well. Despite this prevalence of gendercide against males -- especially younger, "battle-age" men -- the subject has received almost no attention across a wide range of policy areas, humanitarian initiatives, and academic disciplines. We at Gendercide Watch feel it is one of the great taboos of the contemporary age, and must be ignored no longer.

'We offer case-study treatments of gendercide against men in political, military, and ethnic conflicts over the last century-and-a-quarter. If the case-studies numerically outweigh those of mass killings of women in wars and other conflicts, this reflects our conviction that men are, indeed, generally the victims of the most severe gender-selective atrocities in such situations.

'Case-studies range from The Paraguayan War of 1864-70 to the gendercides in Kosovo and East Timor in 1999. Other cases of gendercide against men include theIndonesian genocide of 1965-66, Bosnia-Herzegovina,Kashmir/Punjab/The Delhi Massacre, Sri Lanka,Burundi, Colombia, and the Anfal Campaign in Iraqi Kurdistan (1988). We analyze little-known gendercides such as the Nazi murder of 2.8 million Soviet prisoners-of-warin just eight months of 1941-42 -- possibly the most concentrated mass killing of any kind in human history. The ambiguous case of Stalin's Purges in the USSR receives case-study treatment because of the sheer scale of the gender-specific killing (tens of millions of men). It is harder to say whether Stalin's mass murders were intentionally gender-selective, in the manner of the Serbs in Kosovo or the Nazis in Occupied Russia. Should they truly be considered acts of "gendercide"? Where such difficulties and ambiguities arise, we will do our best to acknowledge them and open them for discussion.

'As feminists have sought to move beyond traditional political-military framings of conflict and violence, we seek also to understand institutions rooted deep in human history that have consistently been "gendercidal" in their impact on men. Four of these institutions have been discussed alongside "non-traditional" institutions that overwhelmingly or exclusively target women. For men, the case-study institutions are: corvée (forced) labour, military conscription, incarceration/the death penalty, vigilante killings, and violence against gay men. [I discuss the general 'imbalance' in inflicting the death penalty above.]

Academic publishing

This is Hélène Cixous urging women to write: 'Write, let no one hold you back, let nothing stop you: not man; not the imbecilic capitalist machinery, in which publishing houses are the crafty, obsequious relayers of imperatives handed down by an economy that works against us and off our backs; and not yourself. Smug-faced readers, managing editors, and big bosses don't like the true texts of women - female-sexed texts. That kind scares them.'

This, of course, was published by W W Norton and Company, a big publishing house based in the United States which is inextricably linked with 'capitalist machinery,' and one of those 'crafty, obsequious relayers of imperatives ...' It's not true that the managing editors and big bosses of this publishing company 'don't like the true texts of women - female-sexed texts.'

In this book of 2 624 pages (General editor, Vincent B Leitch) there are many, many feminist essays, extensive extracts from such works as Adrienne Rich's 'Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence,' Monique Wittig's 'One is not Born a Woman,' (Monique Wittig is described in the introduction as 'the French writer and radical lesbian theorist,' one who claims that "lesbians are not women"), Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar's 'The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination,' (the extract begins 'What does it mean to be a woman writer in a culture whose fundamental definitions of literary authority are, as we have seen, both overtly and covertly patriarchal?'), Annette Kolodny's 'Dancing through the Minefield: Some Observations on the Theory, Practice, and Politics of a Feminist Literary Criticism,' Donna Haraway's 'A Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the 1980's,' Barbara Smith's 'Towards a Black Feminist Criticism,' Susan Bordo's 'Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture and the Body,' Judith Butler's 'Gender Trouble.' There are no 'masculinist' essays at all. In some of the introductions, there are criticisms, but only of particular points. In the whole massive volume, there are no extracts from some of the very many works of sustained criticism of feminist interpretations which exist. Any readers unfamiliar with these works would never know from reading this book that they do exist.

Two of the notes to the Introduction to 'Theory's Empire' concern 'The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism.' From Note 6: 'Harpham's detailed review addresses the great gaps, arbitrariness and presentation of the Norton Anthology, noting the tendentious introductions to the essays included and the tone celebrating the risky business of Theory. See his "From Revolution to Canon," The Kenyon Review, n.s. 25, no. 2 (Spring 2003): 169 - 87. Of course, the Norton Anthology is hardly unusual in its biases. For critiques of major reference works with similar agendas, see, for example, John Ellis's "In Theory It Works," a review of The Penguin Dictionary of Critical Theory, by David Macey, Times Literary Supplement, 29 September 2000, 6 -7. Ellis demonstrates Macey's partisan view of his subject, especially deplorable in reference works, which, Ellis states, have a duty "to represent the real state of opinion in the field, and that means getting [the author's] own commitments under control so that he can present the full range of opinion in a reasonably balanced way." ' In the term I used, a comprehensive reference work should offer a ((survey)).

John Ellis discusses the selectivity of David Macey in the review:

' ... when the topic is feminism, for example, neither text nor bibliography show any sign of the major critiques by Christina Hoff Sommers, or Elizabeth FoxGenovese, or Daphne Patai/Noretta Koertge, among others. Dozens of books that have had an enormous impact - from Higher Superstition by Paul Gross and Norman Levitt to Dinesh D’Souza’s Illiberal Education - are missing from the world of critical theory as presented by Macey.'

The claim that 'female-sexed' texts have no chance of being published by mainstream publishers isn't true in the least.

It's true that general publishers generally don't publish books with such sentences as this, 'As Judith Butler notes in her discussion of the dialectic of Same and Other, that dialectic is 'a false binary, the illusion of a symmetrical difference which consolidates the metaphysical economy of phallogocentrism, the economy of the same.' But so many academic publishers don't hesitate. (This is taken from Fran Brearton on 'Heaney and the Feminine' in the 'Cambridge Companion to Seamus Heaney.') But general publishers do publish novels by women novelists, biographies by women biographers, poetry by women poets, and of course books by women in other fields - but the books may not in general meet the exacting criteria of radical feminists.

Every one of the books in the 'Cambridge Companion' series which I've referred to contains a chapter which could be described as feminist. It's not true that the 'managing editors, and big bosses' of the Cambridge University Press don't like the true texts of women - female-sexed texts.' What they don't appear to like are texts which criticize feminism. In the 1 000 pages (a little more) of 'The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy' there are substantial entries for feminist epistemology and feminist philosophy, but no entries which are critical of feminist epistemology and feminist philosophy. Above, I quote from the article by the feminist Susan James in the 'Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy.' Again, there are entries on feminism but no entries critical of feminism.

These books in general reflect the vigorous debate in contemporary philosophy. They show the extent to which views are vulnerable to criticism as well as the extent to which they can withstand criticism. They fair-mindedly give the case against and the case for. To give just one from innumerable examples, in the Cambridge Dictionary, on the 'moral implications' of utilitarianism, we read 'Most debate about utilitarianism has focused on its moral implications. Critics have argued that its implications sharply conflict with most people's considered moral judgments, and that this is a strong reason to reject utilitarianism. Proponents have argued both that many of these conflicts disappear on a proper understanding of utilitarianism and that the remaining conflicts disappear on a proper understanding of utilitarianism and that the remaining conflicts should throw the particular judgments, not utilitarianism, into doubt. One important controversy concerns utilitarianism's implications for distributive justice ...'

Feminist essays and articles and feminist works published by academic presses in general either contain no criticism of feminist views at all or the criticism is muted, reflecting none of the vigorous, sustained criticism which exists.

It would be far closer to the truth to say that radical feminism has a stranglehold over academic publishing, with few exceptions, and over universities, with few exceptions, than that radical feminism is shunned, not at all welcome.

Academic publishing

This is Hélène Cixous urging women to write: 'Write, let no one hold you back, let nothing stop you: not man; not the imbecilic capitalist machinery, in which publishing houses are the crafty, obsequious relayers of imperatives handed down by an economy that works against us and off our backs; and not yourself. Smug-faced readers, managing editors, and big bosses don't like the true texts of women - female-sexed texts. That kind scares them.'

Women who are inspired by these words to write may find that the blissful vision fades very quickly. The editors at radical feminist publishing houses don't, of course, accept for publication all the 'female-sexed texts' they receive. The writer may be obviously a committed feminist, a fierce opponenty of patriarchy, but may lack any skill with words, any skill in organizing material.

The essay of Hélène Cixous was published in 'The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism' by W W Norton and Company, a big publishing house based in the United States which is inextricably linked with 'capitalist machinery,' and 'an economy that works against us and off our backs.' It's not true that the managing editors and big bosses of this publishing company 'don't like the true texts of women - female-sexed texts.'

In this book of 2 624 pages there are many, many feminist essays, extensive extracts from such works as Adrienne Rich's 'Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence,' Monique Wittig's 'One is not Born a Woman,' (Monique Wittig is described in the introduction as 'the French writer and radical lesbian theorist,' one who claims that "lesbians are not women"), Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar's 'The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination,' (the extract begins 'What does it mean to be a woman writer in a culture whose fundamental definitions of literary authority are, as we have seen, both overtly and covertly patriarchal?'), Annette Kolodny's 'Dancing through the Minefield: Some Observations on the Theory, Practice, and Politics of a Feminist Literary Criticism,' Donna Haraway's 'A Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the 1980's,' Barbara Smith's 'Towards a Black Feminist Criticism,' Susan Bordo's 'Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture and the Body,' Judith Butler's 'Gender Trouble.' There are no 'masculinist' essays at all. In some of the introductions, there are criticisms, but only of particular points. In the whole massive volume, there are no extracts from some of the very many works of sustained criticism of feminist interpretations which exist. Any readers unfamiliar with these works would never know from reading this book that they do exist.

It's true that general publishers generally don't publish books with such sentences as this, 'As Judith Butler notes in her discussion of the dialectic of Same and Other, that dialectic is 'a false binary, the illusion of a symmetrical difference which consolidates the metaphysical economy of phallogocentrism, the economy of the same.' But so many academic publishers don't hesitate. (This is taken from Fran Brearton on 'Heaney and the Feminine' in the 'Cambridge Companion to Seamus Heaney.') But general publishers do publish novels by women novelists, biographies by women biographers, poetry by women poets, and of course books by women in other fields - but the books may not in general meet the exacting criteria of radical feminists.

Every one of the books in the 'Cambridge Companion' series which I've referred to contains a chapter which could be described as feminist. It's not true that the 'managing editors, and big bosses' of the Cambridge University Press don't like the true texts of women - female-sexed texts.' What they don't appear to like are texts which criticize feminism. In the 1 000 pages (a little more) of 'The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy' there are substantial entries for feminist epistemology and feminist philosophy, but no entries which are critical of feminist epistemology and feminist philosophy. Above, I quote from the article by the feminist Susan James in the 'Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy.' Again, there are entries on feminism but no entries critical of feminism.

These books in general reflect the vigorous debate in contemporary philosophy. They show the extent to which views are vulnerable to criticism as well as the extent to which they can withstand criticism. They fair-mindedly give the case against and the case for. To give just one from innumerable examples, in the Cambridge Dictionary, on the 'moral implications' of utilitarianism, we read 'Most debate about utilitarianism has focused on its moral implications. Critics have argued that its implications sharply conflict with most people's considered moral judgments, and that this is a strong reason to reject utilitarianism. Proponents have argued both that many of these conflicts disappear on a proper understanding of utilitarianism and that the remaining conflicts disappear on a proper understanding of utilitarianism and that the remaining conflicts should throw the particular judgments, not utilitarianism, into doubt. One important controversy concerns utilitarianism's implications for distributive justice ...'

Feminist essays and articles and feminist works published by academic presses in general either contain no criticism of feminist views at all or the criticism is muted, reflecting none of the vigorous, sustained criticism which exists.

It would be far closer to the truth to say that radical feminism has a stranglehold over academic publishing, with few exceptions, and over universities, with few exceptions, than that radical feminism is shunned, not at all welcome.

Feminist and non-feminist chronology

I begin with one date and one event, and then give others, from a little earlier,  with occasional brief comments. The first date and event is the publication of Mary Wollstonecraft's 'Vindication of the Rights of Women' in 1792.

 Although there are  differences of opinion, Mary Wollstonecraft's  book   is still regarded as a very important one by many feminists. I think that radical feminists will be much more united in their attitude to the other dated events I give: a very brief and necessarily very selective list of scientific, technological and other achievements which changed for the better the lives of women, and men and children. The primary question for radical feminists isn't 'Did this change for the better the lives of women, men and children?' or even 'Did this change for the better the lives of women and girls (for many of them, not all, the welfare of men and boys can  be disregarded) but the question 'Was this the work of a sexist? Was this the work of a representative of patriarchy?'

And we're supposed to recognize that arduous, patient scientific work, technological advances achieved against all the odds, including physical danger, amount to very little or nothing in comparison with the superior insights of the radical feminists, whose antennae are uniquely sensitive. In this {ordering}, the radical feminist is given (by radical feminists themselves) the greatest  importance.

In this simple-minded view, it's obvious that a publication by a woman which is concerned with advancing the cause of women must be more important than a development by a man which has no 'gender' implications for the man at all. But just as the unintended consequences of an action may be far more important than the intended consequences, the benefits of an advance pursued by a 'sexist' - or a nationalist, or  some other object of disapproval, rightly or wrongly, a semi-lunatic, for that matter - can be immeasurably more important. But there have been many, many advances by men who led blameless lives, heroic lives, lives of intense difficulty, automatically, mechanically  described as sexist.

Such advances as oral contraception and other modern forms of contraception which have released humanity in part at least from the harsh rule of nature and the Malthusian nightmare in which many are born and many of those born die prematurely, such advances as antisepsis and anaesthetics, are often considered in isolation, with far too much {restriction} of focus.

Each of these advances would have been impossible without, for example,  the genius of  chemists who worked in seemingly remote fields, who put in place the framework of Chemistry, and contributed to such scientific advances as the atomic hypothesis, atomic and molecular masses, the theory of oxidation and reduction, chemical thermodynamics, the isolation of elements, the building of the Periodic Table.

Similarly for non-scientific, non-technological advances. The blighting of the lives of  servant girls who had a child out of wedlock and the blighting of the lives of other women by the harsh code of pre-enlightenment Christianity was dramatically reduced not by claims that this was a wrong or campaigning against this wrong, but by work seemingly very remote. It includes the patient work of scholars such as the textual critics who examined the Pentateuch and other Old Testament writings, and New Testament writings, who put forward abundant evidence that so much in the Bible wasn't at all what it seemed, and that traditional interpretations were certainly or almost certainly mistaken. The authority of the Bible, its hold over law and custom included, was eroded.

The parallels between examination of the Bible and current examination of the Koran are important. Of course, examination of the Koran is resisted very fiercely, but is essential, and is an activity with practical consequences, like the practical consequences which followed the examination of Biblical texts. 

Some of the developments given here illustrate the discussion above (such as the abolition of slavery and serfdom by some jurisdictions, Catherine the Great's work for freedom of religion) and some  extend it, by giving further examples of the complexity of social, economic, technological and humanitarian history: dimensions which are  neglected by radical feminists. The information here gives a little more evidence of the benefits of patriarchy. This explains the inclusion, for example, of Jesse Ramsden's screw cutting lathe of 1770. How could machines which end drudgery and worse, which save lives, which have so many other advantages, have been constructed without screws and other fixings? These are some developments before the publication of 'Vindication of the Rights of Women' in spheres about which she seemed to care little, with few exceptions, notably slavery.

She lived at a time when industrialisation was transforming England and transforming the lives of women, in the longer term very much for the better, in the shorter term generally not, but her neglect of industrialisation, her neglect of the misery endured during this phase of industrialisation, was effectively total. In this regard, she has an instructive cross-linkage with Nietzsche. Later feminists have generally found these matters just as uncongenial. How are people to be clothed? How are textiles to be produced? How is textile machinery to be manufactured and powered? And, of course, many more issues, ones with a far more obvious linkage with human welfare. How are houses to be heated in winter? How is water to be heated? How is sufficient food to be produced to end the risk of famine? Hand tools are insufficient for this purpose? How is agricultural machinery to be manufactured and powered?

The industrial developments mentioned below are also creative acts, stimulated by needs and necessities. Peter Mathias has a good account in 'The First Industrial Nation:'

Once an economy is on the move innovations become cumulative. One innovation breaks an equilibrium in a traditional series of processes, creating a distortion with the others. The flying shuttle created such a demand for yarn by increasing the productivity of weavers that it created great incentives to develop productivity there. Hargreaves' spinning-jenny was born in a flurry of activity to do just this. On a larger scale factory-spinning created the same incentive to develop power-weaving. The distortion, the bottreneck, or the problem created by an innovation could be one of material as well as of the flow of production. When a steam engine was attached to wooden machinery it shook it to pieces and required the innovation of iron machinery. That innovation allowed more complicated, heavier machinery to be built, which created an incentive for a more powerful engine. This lay directly behind Watt's development of the double-acting low-pressure engine. One can multiply such examples without end.'

A closer examination by contemporary feminists of the lives of the poor at this time would, like a closer examination of the lives of slaves and serfs, surely give rise to uncomfortable conclusions. But even a cursory look at the conditions of the poor and the rich would be sufficient. Wealthy  women who had servants had linkages to do with gender with impoverished and malnourished women who lived in  damp cellars and worked an eighty hour week, but other linkages were far more important, the linkages between wealthy women and wealthy men and the linkages between impoverished and malnourished women and impoverished and malnourished men.

 1792
Mary Wollstonecraft, 'Vindication of the Rights of Women.'

Abolition of the slave trade by Denmark. (See my discussion of feminism and slavery above. Less powerful countries have often set an example for more powerful ones.)

William Tuke's reformation of the treatment of the mentally ill at the York Retreat. (Although very wide-ranging pronouncements have their importance, important too are the small reforms - but not in the least small for the people who benefit - which together transform an abuse.)

In France, civil marriage and divorce are instituted. This is a reform which owed nothing to feminist pressure but which obviously benefitted innumerable women trapped in unhappy and disastrous marriages. The reform would not have been possible without the prior work of the thinkers and writers of the age of enlightenment, who undermined Catholic and other Christian views, such as the belief that marriage was a sacrament and indissoluble.

For the earlier period, I begin at 1764. I've made a close study of many of the topics I include below, well before the planning of this page but in compiling the brief list below I've made use of the excellent 'Chronology of the Modern World: 1763 - 1965 by Neville Williams.

1764

Publication of Cesare Beccaria's  'Crimes and Punishments,' (see my brief discussion above, which includes a comparison of the author with Mary Wollstonecraft.)

Invention by James Hargreaves of the spinning jenny, which made it possible for one person to produce simultaneously  a number of wool or cotton threads, using eight or more spindles.There were many more advances in textile technology still to come, of course, but this advance, and the later ones, were essential. Without them, clothes could never be cheap enough for the poor, they brought advantages in health, hygiene and comfort. The textile industry was the first industry to be transformed by the industrial revolution.

1765

Pioneering work by L. Spallanzani - preservation of food by hermetic sealing.

Invention by James Cook of the condenser, leading to his construction of a steam engine in 1774.

1766

Henry Cavendish delivers papers to the Royal Society on the chemistry of gases. Without preliminary work on the chemistry of gases - massive in scale - it would not have been possible to introduce anaesthesia by ether and chloroform and later gases, of course.

Catherine the Great introduces freedom of worship in Russia.

1770

Development by John Hill of methods of obtaining specimens for microscopic study.

Publication of the great mathematician Leonhard Euler's 'Introduction to Algebra.'

Jesse Ramsden's screw-cutting lathe.

1771

Abolition of serfdom in Savoy.

1772

Decision by Lord Mansfield that a slave is free upon landing in england.

Discovery by Daneel Rutherford of nitrogen.

Henry Cavendish: 'Attempts to Explain some of the Phenomena of Electricity. The use of electricity in the mines for lighting and to power labour-saving machinery, its use for countless domestic and industrial machinery and appliances, was a long time in the future, but this is one of the pieces of preliminary work.

Leonhard Euler discusses the principles of mechanics, optics and other branches of science and technology.

Thomas Coke begins reform of animal husbandry in Norfolk.

1773

T. F. Pritchard suggested the building of a cast-iron bridge over the Severn near Coalbrookdale, Shropshire, and later designed it - the world's first cast-iron bridge.

1774

Joseph Priestley discovers oxygen.

K. W. Scheele discovers chlorine. The greatest single factor in disease causation now, as in the past, is unsafe drinking water, including pollution of water by sewage. Chlorination of drinking water has saved more human lives than the collective efforts of all radical feminists.

Construction by John Wilkinson of a boring mill which improves the manufacture of cylinders for steam engines.

1775

James Watt makes very notable advances in steam engine design at Matthew Boulton's works in Birmingham.

 . J. Griesbach's critical reading of the Greek New Testament. Later, he gave rules which reflect the new way of reading the New Testament, not now regarded as an infallible document, produced without errors. His first rule:

'The shorter reading is to be preferred over the more verbose ... for scribes were much more prone to add than to omit. They hardly ever leave out anything on purpose, but they added much. It is true indeed that some things fell out by accident; but likewise not a few things, allowed in by the scribes through errors of the eye, ear, memory, imagination, and judgment, have been added to the text.'

1777

The prison reformer John Howard: 'The state of the Prisons of England and Wales.'

Invention by C.A Coulomb of the torsion balance.

1779

David Hume's ''Dialogues concerning Natural Religion' [Given incorrectly in 'Chronology of the Modern World' as 'Dialogues of Natural Religion.] (See my page Religions: observations and reservations.)

Feminism and dressing up

Many feminists like to dress up and have quite a talent for dressing up:  improving - 'dressing up' - the appearance of naked dogmas. I discuss many of these in other sections. In this section, I present some feminist dogmas in a very clear and simple form:  the Empress Feminism with no clothes.

A  feminist who would agree with another feminist in full flow, arguing a feminist case or seeming to argue a feminist case with an abundance of examples, might find it impossible to agree if the argument were to be presented in its bare essentials.

Attempts at persuasion are often successful because the language used is vivid and forceful. The argument clothed in this vivid and forceful language may be a good one or a bad one. It can be useful to examine the argument in a relatively bare form. The language may be anything but vivid and forceful but theory-laden arguments expressed in academic form may be undeservedly convincing. A claim in academic garb may be readily accepted even though there are strong arguments against it and strong reasons for thinking that it's hoplessely misguided, ridiculous. Again, it can be useful to display it in outline form.

To this end, there are only two basic concepts I use here, 'outweighing' and 'linkage.' As I explain on the page Introduction to {theme} theory, I advocate supplementing natural language with symbolic notation. The symbols I use to present some feminist dogmas here unadorned are very few and very simple.

> is read as 'outweighs.' This symbol, an introduction of my own,  has many, many uses in ethical argument and other argument. It allows many ethical views and ethical differences to be presented very clearly and economically. >> is read as 'very much outweighs.' This is a very simple way of showing gradation, but is often useful.

< > is read as 'is linked with.' The application-sphere is very, very wide (not subject to substantial {restriction} but here all the linkages are between people. The people linked are in square brackets, [ ... ].

I don't give each of the feminist claims I examine on this page in this bare format, but I think it would be useful to do that. All I do is to give a few examples.

So, I'd claim that

(disadvantages of women in present-day traditional Islamic societies) >> (disadvantages of women in present-day liberal democracies).

Does feminism have an international dimension? If so, why do so many feminists neglect issues to do with  Islamism? Unless a feminist believes that no women suffer like women in presend-day liberal democracies.

(sufferings of Jewish men and women as a result of the Nazi  Holocaust) >> (treatment of Nazi women at the hands of 'Nazi form of patriarchy.')

[a Jewish woman during the Nazi Holocaust] < > [a Jewish man during the Nazi Holocaust] >> [a Jewish woman during the Nazi Holocaust] < > [a Nazi woman during the Nazi Holocaust]

The denial that gender linkages are always or usually the most important (in my terminology, have prior-{ordering}.

The introduction to {theme} theory introduces a much wider range of symbols than the ones used here. I explain some of my reasons for using symbolic notation:

'Natural language is recognized as a cumbersome and inadequate means of expressing most mathematical argument,. Symbolic notation very often supplements or replaces natural language in logical argument. The information expressed in tabular form, in rows and columns, is superior to continuous prose as a means of expressing information in many cases, allowing comparisons to be made easily.  Tabular display is used in truth tables, the rows showing possible assignments of truth values to the arguments of the truth-functions or truth-functional operators. Philosophers occasionally make use of diagrams. There are a number of  examples in Derek Parfitt's  'Personal Identity'  (1971). Even so, most philosophical argument is in continuous prose. I think that symbolic notation as well as very concise but non-symbolic expression has great utility and can  often replace or supplement  philosophical prose. 

'The symbolic notation I propose for the expression of some concepts has very little in common with Frege’s ‘Begriffsschrift' (1884) : less rigorous but with  a far wider application-sphere (the examination and generalization of ‘application-sphere’ is one of my aims.) I do share Frege’s ambition, expressed in the Preface to the Begriffsschrift, ‘if it is one of the tasks of philosophy to break the domination of the word over the human spirit by laying bare the misconceptions that through the use of language often almost unavoidably arise concerning the relations between concepts and by freeing thought from that which only the means of expression of ordinary language, constituted as they are, saddle it, then my ideography, further developed for these purposes, can become a useful tool for the philosopher.’ Frege’s ideography was difficult to implement. I have taken care to use only symbols which are typographically ready to hand.' 

Wittgenstein and the monotonous diet of feminism

I need to explain the reasons for  the tedium and monotony I find in general in feminist books, articles and Websites, including the feminist Websites discussed below.

Wittgenstein wrote in 'Philosophical Investigations,

'A main cause of philosophical diseases - a one-sided diet: one nourishes one's thinking with only one kind of example.'

'Eine Hauptursache philosophischer Krankheiten - einseitige Diät: man nährt sein Denken mit nur einer Art von Beispielen.' (Section 593.)

This seems applicable to non-philosophical as well as philosophical expression. I don't stress 'diseases' here. I avoid calling opponents diseased or their writings diseased. Otherwise, I'd claim that what Wittgenstein writes can be applied to so many feminists, whose diet is one-sided, who nourish their thinking with only one kind of example.

There are feminists whose non-feminist achievements are substantial. There are feminist philosophers, for example, whose non-feminist achievement is substantial. There are feminists with a very wide range of interests. There are also feminists whose feminism seems to occupy their attention almost exclusively. Their world is etiolated, the focus terrifyingly narrow. Feminist women who intend to succeed in a demanding field are more likely to appreciate the importance of the knowledge, skill, experience and practice which are essential for success. Feminists who fail to recognize the importance of such things may compensate by giving almost exclusive attention to the 50% demand, to 'putting feminism' at the centre of politics, or education, or whatever field they turn their attention to.

If the feminists who campaign for the 50% norm in politics and aim to put feminism at the centre of political life ever succeed in their objective, then they will find that the honeymoon period is very short. Feminist views are no guarantee of competence in any of the skills needed by politicians, which are obviously very varied and demanding, including taxation law, financial administration, and many, many more. Politics gives harsh lessons to politicians who have no understanding of unintended consequences. If feminist politicians already dominated parliament in this country, it's likely that they would vote not just to withdraw British armed forces from Afghanistan but to end defence expenditure. If feminist politicians in other countries which have forces in Afghanistan did the same, then the result would be the control of Afghanistan by the Taliban and the beginning of a new dark age for girls and women there. But I don't in the least  share the cynical view that all politicians are corrupted by power. Power may be a reality check, consigning to irrelevance the naive views of political dilettantes, including bland and glib dilettante feminists, who think that everything they want should be exempt from criticism and everything they want can be achieved.

The feminists whose main interest in politics is in ending 'gender imbalance' seem to imagine that when gender imbalance has been corrected, then women politicians will spend much of their time passing feminist legislation. Missing is any recognition that in the US,republican women politicians may have fundamental disagreements with democratic women politicians, that the objectives of Israeli women politicians are likely to be irreconcilable with the objectives of women politicians in an Arab country, or Iran, that in this country, Labour and Conservative women politicians may not see each other as sisters. These are elementary observations, often overlooked and neglected, particularly in the euphoria of a demonstration, when people are convinced by simple slogans and believe that anything is possible.

There are feminists who will have nothing to do with democratic politics - unsatisfyingly imperfect, unlike satisfying utopian politics. The demands and responsibilities of practical politics, a generally harsh world, would leave far less time for denouncing and disputing. There's now a feminist political party in this country, the 'Women's Equality Party.'  Feminists will be able to  translate their conviction of the centrality of feminism into the sphere of practical politics, with the objective of getting feminists elected to local government and national government. Can the party  counter the common feeling that in general, feminism isn't a movement which 'gets things done?' Is the party electable?  Unfortunately, for many feminists, there is no such thing as a 'reality check.' If patriarchy can be blamed for almost all the imperfections of the world, it would certainly be blamed for the failure of a feminist political party.

If orchestral music or opera is a primary concern, then the narrow feminist may ignore the staggering riches of the orchestral repertoire and opera and concentrate attention on the music of Judith Weir and other women composers, or may ignore the riches of Mozart's opera scores and concentrate on the misogynist references in the libretto of 'The Magic Flute,' or may campaign for the 50% norm in the appointment of conductors or 'top positions' in different sections of the orchestral world. A feminist who wants to become a conductor has to give most attention to the exacting disciplines of conductor, starting with a thorough study of harmony, counterpoint, orchestration and the rest.

A narrow feminist with a concern for the novel may ignore Flaubert, Kafka, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, in fact all novels written by men. A feminist who claims to be interested in literature may have far less interest in literature than in  campaigning for the 50% norm in various sections of the publishing industry. Even so, feminists who are united in their demand for making feminism central to literature may disagree about feminism and resort to in-fighting. Kwame Anthony Appiah includes a very good account of the troubles of Professor Sandra Gilbert, a feminist who wrote 'The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination,' in conjunction with Professor Sandra Gilbert. He writes:

'Despite their own experience of successful feminist collaboration, the response to their scholarly undertaking hardly confirmed this happy conviction. In later years, Susan Gunbar writes, she has found herself ... lambasted by various "insurgent" critics for various purported sins: she was "essentialist," didn't sufficiently acknowledge black women or lesbians, failed to keep pace with high theory - the list was no doubt long ... To judge from her later book, Critical Condition: Feminism at the Turn of the Century, the experience has been demoralizing. The field of feminist criticism - a field she did much to establish - is now, she tells us, cluttered with alienating jargon and riven by divisive identity politics.'

Kwame Anthony Appiah ends his essay ('Battle of the Bien-pensant,' in 'Theory's Empire') on a relatively hopeful note. His opinion is that at the time of writing,  ' ... mirabile dictu, there are more and more literary critics - feminist and otherwise - who actually devote themselves to ... literature. Susan Gubar's field may well be in a "critical condition," but there are signs that it is on the mend.'

Feminist divisions and in-fighting

Feminist notions of feminist virtue and feminist sisterhood and feminist solidarity are contradicted by reality again and again. From the feminist site 'The F Word,' www.thefword.org.uk  Extracts from an article by Terese Jonsson.  At the time, she was  a  PhD student at London Metropolitan University, whose supervisor was the feminist  Irene Gedalof. She's now Dr Jonsson and a lecturer at Portsmouth University.

'Piercing the whitening silence

' ...  When are the white, privileged, cis-gendered, university-educated, able-bodied women who too often insist on dominating feminist conversations going to actually start listening? And following on from that, when are we going to start changing? Annika addressed many different issues in her article, all important and inter-connected, but right here and now I want to focus on one strand in particular; namely, the ongoing racism and unchecked white privilege in many feminist communities in the UK.

''I should mention at this point that I am a white, middle-class feminist. I'm not saying I have all the answers or that I occupy any moral high-ground on this matter, but I am saying that if we are to build real feminist movements in the UK, if this recent "upsurge in feminist activity" oft-cited in Guardian lifestyle columns is going to mean anything to the women Annika wrote about in her article, white feminists have some serious shit to sort out.

...

' ... Most white feminists these days know how to adopt a superficial language of anti-racism. But that is far from enough ...

'Feminist conferences, demos, Ladyfests, discussion groups, mailing lists... they all-too-often pay lip service to being inclusive. But saying that you provide a welcoming and safe space for all women is not the same as making it so. Like Annika noted, when filling in the monitoring form at the feminist conference, "There wasn't even a box for me to tick! [The writer seems unaware of some connotations of  'box-ticking.' The entry for 'box ticking' in dictionary.reference.com is 'derogatory  the process of satisfying bureaucratic administrative requirements rather than assessing the actual merit of something.']

How is this progress? The lack of a box on a monitoring form may not seem like a big deal, but the problem is such 'oversights' reveal so much more. They reveal a lack of a meaningful anti-racist perspective which takes the intersection of oppressions such as racism and sexism as it's starting point. They expose white feminists' inability, or more correctly unwillingness, to put anyone other than ourselves at the centre of our organising. [This is what I call the autocentric approach, which should be corrected by a ((survey)) which takes all relevant considerations into account, or as full a range as possible. The idea that a black feminist perspective can also be autocentric, centred on the self, wouldn't appeal to the writer at all.]

'I was called out on some silencing behaviour myself recently. I had failed to address the white-centricity of an event that I had been part of organising. [A classic instance of self-flagellation] The most infuriating realisation for me was that I already knew 'better', but had still let the sense of security and safety afforded to me by my whiteness (as well as a feeling of the inevitability of it ending up this way) lull me into complacency, taking the least challenging route. 'I

'In Britain in 2009, when we talk about women's rights, we need to be talking about the anti-immigrant rhetoric and violence against asylum seekers committed by the British state, about militarist and cultural imperialism, about capitalism and the criminal justice system. In the current climate of xenophobia and racism, a white feminism which does not engage with these issues, leaves itself vulnerable to being co-opted by neo-colonialist and racist agendas and will continue to fail non-white women, in being not only irrelevant, but actually harmful.

'So if you are wondering why there aren't any women of colour joining your feminist group, it probably isn't because they're not interested in women's rights, but because what you have defined as your feminist issues don't have much relevance beyond your own white body. When you talk or write about 'women' or how a particular issue affects women, ask yourself, which women are you talking about? How would it affect a woman who is not like you? Do you think that dealing with racism is a 'distraction' from dealing with sexism? Why?

Listen to women of colour
This one seems pretty straight forward, right? It's pretty damn fundamental, but is it happening?

...

'So some questions to ask yourself: which groups or organisations are you involved with or support? How do you interact with women who are not white in your organising? How do you value their voices? If you read blogs, do you follow blogs written by people of colour? If you read feminist books, what ethnicity are the authors of the books you read? What ethnicity are your feminist role models? Why?

'The silence is also caused by the deep-seated fear and anxiety that most liberal white people seem to have in talking about racism in British society. The fear of saying the wrong thing, of offending or being racist, not knowing what to say or how to treat non-white people respectfully. It is the silence that is sometimes penetrated (usually in moments of crisis), but then it returns, until next time. It is the silence that we have to smash, and to keep smashing over and over. The conversations, when we have them are useful, but it's not enough to have a workshop once a year, it has to be a constant and ongoing engagement [to the exclusion of so many other concerns, responsibilities - and legitimate joys and pleasures, for that matter]. And us [sic] white feminists should not be waiting for activists of colour to initiate the conversation.

'A good starting point is to accept that all white people in Western society are racist to some extent – it has been ingrained in us since birth. Let's not pretend we're all squeaky clean, but open up our minds and hearts to honest interrogation and the possibilities of change. Yes, we probably will say something stupid and ignorant - there's a good chance I've done so somewhere in this article - but unless we are willing to expose ourselves, there will be no progress. Unlearning racism is a continuous journey, I don't think it really ever ends. Questioning our own attitudes and behaviour, as well as those around us, has to become part of our everyday thought-process. ['Questioning' subject to extreme {restriciction}. This is 'safe' questioning, the kind that confirms an ideology.]

'Learn how to criticise other white feminists
This is connected to silence, but I think it deserves its own heading because I am realising more and more that this is absolutely key if we are to transform exclusionary white feminism into something which has radical and liberatory potential.

'When a feminist group is white-dominated, the white women have the power to silence criticism by sticking together and denying (or more commonly, simply ignoring) that anything problematic has happened. Us white feminists need to learn how to challenge each other more; to push ourselves to raise concerns about racism when we see it (even if the person you're challenging is your friend!). When we organise together with other white women, we need to set up ways and time to talk constructively about race. So when we write that mission statement with those buzz words 'inclusion' and 'diversity', we need to think about what they actually mean, agree to continuously review how we are or are not achieving those aims. Otherwise there is no point including those words in the first place.

Learn from history
I've already written above about the importance of learning about the histories of activists of colour (a great place to start for recent history is the book Other kinds of dreams': Black Women's Organisations and the Politics of Transformation by Julia Sudbury). But let's also learn more about the lesser known parts of the histories of white feminists.

There is a fascinating field of historical research into white British feminists' involvement in the Empire, which includes work by historians such as Antoinette Burton, who found in her research that British feminists at the turn of the century "enlisted empire and its values so passionately and so articulately in their arguments for female emancipation" that they must be "counted among the shapers of imperial rhetoric and imperial ideologies". [History does destroy so many illusions, including feminist illusions.]

'I'm not suggesting that we should forget about the achievements of these women. I'm saying, let's get real and not ignore the less flattering parts of feminist history. Let's not make historical feminists out to be saints. [Agreed].

...

'So the question I want to ask my white sisters right now is this: what is feminism to you? Is it a lifestyle, a way for you to have an outlet about the sexism in your life, as it affects you? Or is it the ongoing fight to radically transform society, to end oppression against ALL women, and ultimately all people?'

[One of my aphorisms on ethics: 'Working towards the eventual elimination of all human (or animal) exploitation is no more realistic than 'End all human exploitation now!' or 'End all animal exploitation now!' Terese Jonsson seems not to have given much thought, or any thought at all, to any problems to do with the treatment of animals. Presumably, in her utopia, chickens would still be confined in battery cages in a large number of countries - and battery chicken eggs would be bought by women as well as men - sows would still be confined in sow stalls and there would be no need to ban bullfighting. (Feminists would, however, see to it that the 'gender bias' was corrected, so that 50% of the matadors, picadors and banderilleros were female.) See also my page on Animal welfare and the section on this page Feminism and animals: the contracting circle.]

Terese Jonsson gives this information on the Website of London Metropolitan University:

'I am a PhD student researching how contemporary feminists in England represent the recent feminist past in relation to issues of race and racism. My aim is to explore what kind of stories of the feminist past are told (as well as what the silences are), where race and racism is located within them, and the effects these narratives have on contemporary feminist politics.

'My methodology involves analysing historical narratives within academic literature, 'popular' feminist books, newspaper articles, memoirs and blogs, as well as other forms of media. I am also interviewing feminist activists and (ex)students of Women's and Gender studies, to explore the stories of the feminist past which circulate in activist and academic feminist communities, but which may not be written down.

'This historiographical approach is guided by the idea that how we tell stories about the feminist past influences how we understand the feminist present. I am hoping through this research to intervene into recurring patterns of white privilege and marginalisation of feminists of colour within white dominated feminist spaces.'

Blatantly ideological treatments can't be converted into respectable academic treatments simply by using terms such as 'methodology' and 'historiographical,' or by providing citations, which will presumably be given in large quantity in the finished dissertation. If Terese Jonsson's piece in 'The F Word' is any guide to her 'methodology' in writing the dissertation, then all the evidence she accumulates will be used to 'prove' the conclusion, not enhancing in the least the academic reputation of  London Metropolitan University. Terese Jonsson's supervisor is Dr Irene Gedalof, The Website of London Metropolitan University gives this information:

'Irene Gedalof has taught Women’s Studies at London Metropolitan University since 1998 and is currently course leader for Women’s Studies and the MA Equality and Diversity. Her current research is on questions of home, identity and belonging in relation to representations of migrant women and migrant women’s practices of cultural reproduction. Her publications are in the areas of identity, power and female embodiment, and the intersections of gender, race and ethnicity in white Western and postcolonial feminist theory. Irene is a member of the Feminist Review editorial collective.' If Dr Gedalof believes strongly in the value of intellectual honesty, then she will take care to make an adequate ((survey)) and not disregard evidence if it happens to be difficult to interpret in feminist terms, such as the evidence in the section on this page concerned with black slave-owning women. The section includes this quotation: 'The free women of color, for whom we have inventories, often owned significant property, including slaves, houses, lots, and furniture ... It was very common for these women to choose not to emancipate their slaves, and instead to pass them down to children or other relatives ... it is difficult to ignore evidence that free women of color, like whites, engaged in slavery for commercial purposes, and that, in doing so, they prospered.'

An  instance, from the Website of The National Women's History Museum,' 'Racial Divisions in the Progressive Era:'

' ... black women were largely excluded from white women’s reform organizations. Black women and their clubs were largely excluded from the General Federation of Women’s Clubs and the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Other organizations, such as the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and the YWCA, were segregated, with black women forming their own local chapters. In addition, white women’s organizations largely ignored issues of racism, such as lynching or the disenfranchisement of black voters ...

'Examples of cooperation between white and black reformers are few.'

A  University of Michigan page on Lesbian feminism (including, prominently, black lesbian feminism) gives an unintentionally grim and sobering insight into the likely results of a radical feminist triumph in politics: if not a civil war between feminists, dissension and hostility. There are further causes of dissension and hostility not explored by the University's page.

Radical feminism is as unstable as far left politics. A politics which gives almost exclusive attention to radical feminist issues and neglects the material conditions of life, economic, financial and fiscal matters, almost all  considerations except ones which have a bearing on radical feminism, is doomed.

Radical feminist disputes can only be indulged at length because the 'systems of oppression' provide clean drinking water, take away sewage, provide electrical power, provide a guaranteed food supply, and all the other benefits.

Extracts from the page:

'Lesbian feminism largely emerged in response to the women’s liberation movement’s exclusion of lesbians.  As the Second Wave of feminism picked up steam during the 1960s, feminist discourse largely ignored lesbianism.  Some feminists harbored hostile attitudes towards lesbians, however.  Some viewed lesbianism as a sexual rather than a political issue.  Others believed the project of feminism would dismantle strict sexual categories, and would release a “natural polymorphous sexuality,” making lesbian politics irrelevant.  NOW’s leader at the time, Betty Friedan, referred to lesbianism as the “Lavender Menace.”  This phrase referred to her view that incorporating lesbianism in the feminist agenda would undermine the credibility of the women’s movement overall.  

'Alice Echols in “The Eruption of Difference” describes the emergence of lesbian feminism during this time and the creation of a lesbian separatist movement in response to the homophobic sentiments expressed by heterosexual feminist organizations of that era. 

... 

'These activists called for female and lesbian separatism, arguing that “Only women can give each other a new sense of self.” (“The Woman Identified Woman,” 235)   They held that “homosexuality” and “heterosexuality” are categories created by a male-dominated society utilized to separate and dominate women.  Notably, “The Woman Identified Woman” argued that the issue of lesbianism is essential to women’s liberation. “It is the primacy of women relating to women, of women creating a new consciousness of and with each other, which is at the heart of women’s liberation and the basis for cultural revolution.” (The Woman Identified Woman, 236)

'On May 1, 1970, lesbianism became a serious issue at the “Second Congress to Unite Women,” when lesbian activists such as The Radicalesbians chose this conference to educate feminists regarding the political obstacles faced by lesbians.  At this event, the “Lavender Menace” attempted to rush the stage to present lesbian issues and distributed copies of “The Woman Identified Woman.”   Although the lights were doused before the stage was rushed, this action led to pro-lesbian resolutions being passed at the conference’s final assembly.  In 1971, the Radicalesbians disbanded. 

'At this time, many heterosexual feminists expressed discomfort over having sex re-injected into their feminist world, a world they believed to be outside of the androcentric relationships of sexuality.  Echols argues that “...the introduction of sex troubled many heterosexual feminists who had found in the women’s movement a welcome respite from sexuality.”  Perhaps in response to heterosexual discomfort, lesbian feminists distanced themselves from the sexual aspect of lesbianism and assured feminists that lesbianism involved “sensuality” not sexuality.  Thus, Radicalesbians had to persuade feminists that lesbianism was not simply a bedroom issue, and that lesbians were not “male-identified ‘bogeywomen’ out to sexually exploit women” (Echols, 216). 

'In essence, lesbian feminists tried to untie lesbianism from sex so heterosexual feminists were more comfortable.  But they still had to find an effective way to address the accusation that their masculinity was somehow complicit with men and patriarchy.  Lesbian feminists responded by distancing themselves from stereotypes of “masculine roles,” maleness, and patriarchy.  One way they were able to do so was by disentangling lesbian sexuality from heterosexuality and re-conceptualizing heterosexual sex as consorting with “the enemy”.  They capitalized on dominant assumptions regarding female sexuality, including ideas of women’s romantic and nurturing sexuality versus men’s aggressive sexuality.  They were then able to draw a distinction between lesbian sex and heterosexual sex, claiming that lesbian sex was “pure as snow” since it did not involve men.  For example, “…the male seeks to conquer through sex while the female seeks to communicate” and “…lesbians are obsessed with love and fidelity” (Echols, 218). 

'Using this ideology [sic], lesbians successfully billed lesbianism as an ultimate form of feminism--a practice that did not involve men on any emotional level.  In this way, heterosexual feminists were seen as inferior because of their continued association with men.  Lesbians took on a “vanguard” quality as the “true” bearers of feminism.  As radical feminism became more associated with lesbianism, heterosexual feminists left the movement.

'Within the feminist movement, lesbian feminists were often accused of elitism and arrogance, because they considered themselves the “vanguard” of feminism ...
 
Divisions

'For some, the community that coalesced through the many new connections that lesbian-feminism fostered constituted a unifying force—“a whole culture, a camaraderie, a support system, a network, shared understanding, shared vision,” members told sociologist Susan Krieger.  This shared understanding and vision was connected to political acts emanating from personal identity, such as “daring to say the word ‘lesbian’ out loud” or “doing a demonstration in support of a woman who didn’t wear a bra.”  (Krieger, 215-6)  But for others, lesbian-feminist community was characterized as much as by division as by unity—by the forming of politically motivated boundaries demarcating which women, and which ways of being, were superior or inferior.

 Appearance, Style & Sexuality

'For example, in many lesbian-feminist communities younger lesbians were ambivalent about femme/butch culture, viewing it as a pre-feminist anachronism that constituted an ill-advised alliance with patriarchy.  Some Radicalesbians called butch/femme “male-identified role-playing among lesbians.”  One viewed butch women as lacking enlightened community and progressive political consciousness.  She described them to sociologist Barbara Ponse as “rural women, farm women, country women who had no contact with any kind of gay community [and] really thought they must be like men.”  (Ponse, 252)  Because this view conceived of femme/butch roles as irredeemably against feminist struggle, one woman who later identified as butch recalled to Ponse that it was “very hard” to identify as both butch and feminist “back in those days.” 

'Historian Marc Stein has conjectured that this lesbian-feminist disapproval was both racialized and classed, because at this time, both white working-class lesbian culture and African American lesbian culture generally continued to be organized around butch/femme roles. (M. Stein, 350)  Indeed, although lesbian feminists often used language aiming to speak for all women, only a few African American women and a few women over 40 participated in Radicalesbians.  (M. Stein, 344)  In one mainly white and middle-class Midwestern lesbian feminist community, those who lived in trailers, worked on farms, and were not college educated possessed an acute awareness that they were on the community’s margins.  (Krieger, 217, 219)

'Lesbian-feminist disapproval of femme/butch culture was philosophically based on radical feminist assertions that all aspects of everyday life are highly politicized sites of potential resistance to patriarchy.  (Taylor & Whittier, 358)  However, to some, these expectations of lifestyle and of personal appearance became rules demarcating who most merited authentic membership in the community on the basis of her adherence to a proper kind of feminist politics.  This ideal feminist politics frequently saw itself as devoted to the negotiation of new definitions of gender, such as by moving one’s appearance and demeanor toward androgyny. 

  ...

'If, for lesbian-feminists, the style of dress was one site of resistance to patriarchy, what women did in the bedroom became another.  Groups such as the Radicalesbians characterized heterosexuality as a cause of the oppression of women and contended that lesbianism was the revolutionary vanguard of feminist resistance to patriarchy.  (Taylor & Whittier, 356; M. Stein, 354)  One Radicalesbian member wrote, “Why in the name of hell do so many of our Sisters continue to let men use and abuse them to death? […] any woman sleeping with any man on a fairly regular basis is prostituting her mind, her body, and her spirit.” (M. Stein, 354)

'But if sleeping with men amounted to acquiescing to patriarchy, one didn’t necessarily have to engage in sexual relations with women in order to be feminist.  In 1980, poet and theorist Adrienne Rich broadened the meaning of “lesbian,” writing of a “lesbian continuum” that encompassed a spectrum of “woman identification” from “the impudent, intimate girl friendships of eight or nine year olds” to all kinds of “marriage resisters” for whom “women provided the ongoing fascination and sustenance of life.”

' "Woman identification” de-emphasized the importance of the erotic for Rich, to argue that all kinds of connections between women—sexual or not—carried the power to upend heterosexuality’s embrace of the patriarchal status quo.  (Rich, 240-1, 244-5)  Because of the separatist ideology that discouraged sharing one’s bed with a man, some lesbian feminists viewed bisexuality in stigmatized terms as an ideologically bankrupt lifestyle that, in siding with men over women, denied innate feminist potential.  (Ponse, 253) 

  Race

'Along with differences over appearance and sexuality, racial differences, too, became increasingly salient in lesbian feminist, as well as broader feminist, communities.  African American lesbian Anita Cornwell joined the Radicalesbians and began writing for the Ladder in 1971.  Her first Ladder article expressed a hope for cross-racial coalition-building.  But the next year, she wrote that her feelings had changed somewhat when she was attending a conference populated mostly by white lesbians.  It was there that she learned a Black Panther had been shot.  “[T]he moment I or any other black forget we are black, it may be our last,” she wrote.  “For when the shooting starts any black is fair game.  The bullets don’t give a damn whether I sleep with woman or man.”  In a 1974 essay Cornwell recalled that she had joined the women’s movement believing her race would not affect how she was treated.  Just six months after she joined, she said she “faced the truth” that “racism does exist in the Movement […] [i]t was there, however, and is still there.” (M. Stein, 355-6)

'Feelings of exclusion spurred some women of color to break away and create their own organizations.  One of the best known is the Combahee River Collective.  A group of black lesbian feminists created the collective in 1975 because they were frustrated with racism in the women’s movement, sexism in the black freedom movements, and dissatisfied with the recently-formed National Black Feminist Organization’s inattention to sexuality and to analysis of economic oppression.  In a 1977 statement, the collective emphasized that the aims of their intersectional politics followed from an analysis of their own life experiences:

' "[W]e are actively committed to struggling against racial, sexual, heterosexual, and class oppression, and see as our particular task the development of integrated analysis and practice based upon the fact that the major systems of oppression are interlocking.  The synthesis of these oppressions creates the conditions of our lives.  […]  We believe that the most profound and potentially most radical politics come directly out of our own identity, as opposed to working to end somebody else’s oppression.” (CRC, 272-3, 275) 

'The collective acknowledged that the political community they had formed was not necessarily more devoid of conflict than others.  They had experienced internal disagreements and drop-offs in membership, they wrote.  Yet, they voiced hope that “we know we have a very definite revolutionary task to perform and we are ready for the lifetime of work and struggle before us.” (CRC, 281) 

  'Five years later in 1982, this optimism appeared to have been confirmed.  Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press published the pathbreaking book Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology, co-edited by Combahee River Collective co-founder Barbara Smith.  In her introduction to the book, Smith expressed satisfaction with the progress that nine years of women of color organizing had wrought.  She described the publication of the book as attempting both to solidify their hard-won gains and to communicate them to a broader audience.

'Writing that same year, anthropologist Esther Newton observed that although lesbian-feminist rhetoric positioned itself as universalist—as representing all women—“class and race antagonisms” in lesbian communities in fact “may have sharpened since 1970.” (Newton, 161)  Lesbian-feminist ideological hegemony, she wrote, had elided the ways in which lesbian cultures are actually highly fragmented.  For Newton, ideologies of unity could not paper over salient differences between lesbians.' 

There are further causes of dissension and hostility. Feminists who regard themselves as 'mainstream feminists,' with a view of feminism which seems completely reasonable to them, are viewed as marginal feminists by some  groups. Christian feminists disagree with feminists who regard secularism, or atheism, as intrinsic to mainstream feminism. Christian feminism would be regarded as an irrelevance or an embarrassment by many secular or atheist feminists. The Church of England is not worth bothering with and the efforts of feminist Anglicans to appoint female bishops are pointless.

From the feminist site 'The F Word,' www.thefword.org.uk  annotated extracts of a piece by Terese Jonsson.  At the time, Terese Jonsson was a  PhD student at London Metropolitan University, whose supervisor was the feminist Dr Irene Gedalof. She's now a lecturer at Portsmouth University.

Extracts from the superb Website of Students for academic freedom which includes this after the title, 'you can't get a good education if they're only telling you half the story.' The extracts are concerned with academic freedom at Penn State University. Similar concerns about academic freedom at London Metropolitan University can be raised, at least in the case of Dr Gedalof. Is she helping students to think for themselves, does she set forth the divergent opinions of investigators, does she provide education rather than a kind of indoctrination?

'We have discussed two examples of politically influenced and therefore academically dubious courses in American Studies. With Women’s Studies, we encounter an entire program that is itself political rather than academic, and that contravenes Penn State University policy on classroom instruction. 

'The Penn State Women’s Studies Department features a curriculum designed to teach students to be radical feminists, rather than how to approach the study of women in an academic manner.

... 

' ... Because they require students to accept the controversial assumptions of the Women Studies Department and do not subject its viewpoint – radical feminism -- to scrutiny or questioning, the Women’s Studies courses we anaylyzed are little more than for-credit forums for feminist politics.  

Introduction to Women’s Studies
Women’s Studies  001.8.
Instructor, Michael Johnson   

'A catalogue description of Introduction to Women's Studies, taught by emeritus professor Michael Johnson, begins: “Men are privileged relative to women. That’s not right. I’m going to do something about it, even if it's only in my personal life.”

'Professor Johnson explains that he will “spend most of the course on just a few of the ways that men are privileged relative to women. We’ll look at how and why women face more barriers to happiness and fulfillment than do men, and how we might go about helping our world to move in the direction of gender equity.” These contentious propositions are not raised as a potential object of disinterested academic inquiry, but as “truths” students are expected to embrace. The professor commends his course to those students who “want a really full feminist experience.” This is an appropriate invitation to join a political party, not an academic classroom. 

'While Professor Johnson retired in 2005, his courses (there are several -- equally ideological) are still listed in the catalogue). No authority in the Women’s Studies Department or in the Penn State administration appears to have regarded them as problematic.  

'Introduction to Women’s Studies[5]
Section 4. Instructor, Yihuai Cai  

'This section of the Introduction to Women’s Studies course, taught by graduate student Yihuai Cai, focuses on recruiting students to radical feminist causes. To this end, students are asked to consider a number of politically spun “questions” clearly designed to impress on students the feminist claim that America’s democratic society is hierarchical and oppressive:  

• “How do various forms of oppression (e.g. sexism, racism, classism, ageism, heterosexism, and ablebodism) operate to divide oppressed peoples from one another and consequently facilitate the continued oppression of each group?”  

• “Examining your own previous values and knowledge, have you consciously or unconsciously participated in one or more of those oppressive ideologies and discourses?”  

• "What is feminist activism?”  

• “How shall we develop strategies that address issues of power differentials in our society?” 

'These questions – especially the last -- reflect the mentality of a political operative not an academic teacher. 

'Consistent with the stated goal of the Women’s Studies department “to connect theory and scholarship with feminist activism,” students in the course are required to volunteer for organizations that are both feminist and activist.  The activist programs include the “Penn State Center for Women Students,” which is not just a center for women students but an advocacy group that protests “institutionalized sexism, sex-based discrimination, violence against women and other conditions which impede women students' personal and academic development.” “Peers Helping to Reaffirm, Educate and Empower,” another Penn State sponsored organization, conducts campus programs about “healthy body image;” Men Against Violence, a “peer education group” focuses on “gender violence;” the “Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Support Network;” and the pro-abortion group Planned Parenthood are all part of the Penn State educational experience as conceived by the Women’s Studies program and its affiliates. These programs are housed in the Paul Robeson Cultural Center, named after a famous American Communist and fervent supporter of Stalin, American Communist and fervent supporter of Stalin, who is described in the official announcement of the Center’s launch as a “human rights” activist, who became “an eloquent, often controversial spokesperson against racism and discrimination,” and whose only university affiliation was with Rutgers University in New Jersey. 

'Among the organizations students are offered as options there are only two that appear either ambiguous or non-political. These are the HIV/AIDS Risk Reduction Advisory Council, a student organization that focuses on “health promotion and activism” and the Mid-State Literacy Council, which promotes adult literacy programs. No conservative activist groups with interests in women’s issues are included, nor is there any indication or awareness that encouraging political activism in an academic program might be at all problematic. 

'At the conclusion of their volunteer project, students are asked to write a paper that “summarizes the project and makes connections to the course readings and your own learning experience.” Since all of the course readings are written by radical feminists or “critical theorists” sympathetic to feminism, it is evident that the sole function of this course is to turn students into feminist activists. It is precisely this sort of classroom environment that is specifically prohibited by the Penn State rules under HR 64. This is not education; it is indoctrination.  

'Yihuai Cai is only a graduate student, but she teaches this course regularly, which means the course as she teaches it has the approval of the Department of Women’s Studies. The ideological, non-academic nature of the course she has devised itself calls into question the character of the graduate education she is receiving at Penn State.

 Introduction to Women’s Studies
Women’s Studies 006. Instructor, Marla Jaksch 

'Another section of this course, taught by adjunct lecturer Marla Jaksch, is described as “an introductory feminist, survey course.” This merely spells out what the other course descriptions reflect. This is not an introductory course about women in which, in accordance with the school’s academic freedom policy, students can expect a balanced view of the relevant issues; it is, instead, a course in feminism – a sectarian ideology -- with no option for students to take different or dissenting views. Jaksch explains that her motivation is to “examine (and challenge) the nature of power and privilege in our lives and institutions,” a mission appropriate to a political organization, not an academic class, let alone one funded by the taxpayers of Pennsylvania.  

'One of the principal texts assigned to Jaksch’s students is Feminism is for Everybody by radical author bell hooks. Hooks text is required in many courses in the Women’s Studies Department at Penn State. 

'A plodding ideologue, hooks explains to readers that her book is an exercise in “revolutionary feminist consciousness-raising.” More precisely, it is a manifesto devoted to hooks’ well-known extreme views, including the claim that black women are “never going to have equality within the existing white supremacist capitalist patriarchy.” White supremacist capitalist patriarchy is the way hooks habitually describes America’s democratic system. Hooks is credentialed as a Professor of English Literature at the City University of New York. What her academic expertise on capitalism, race or patriarchy is, is anybody’s guess. Penn State students in Jaksch’s Women’s Studies section are assigned no texts that present a different perspective from hooks’ extreme views.  

'It is not only radical views that Professor Jaksch intends to instill in her students. As she also explains, students are expected not only to learn about feminist politics but to practice them. To this end, the course is designed to “create possible strategies for change through appreciation and engagement with many creative strategies that women have employed historically and contemporarily.”  

'What such strategies entail is explained in her course assignments. One requires students to write a biographical paper on a “feminist” artist, activist, or writer. The purpose of the assignment is not to inspire students to think critically about their subject. Rather, it is to “familiarize you with feminist strategies for telling unique and possibly untold stories.” Students are also required to attend events that promote feminist activism, such as a “feminist film.” An entire section of the course is given over to the subject of feminist activism and presented under the title “Social Justice & Global Feminism,” which makes no secret of its underlying political agendas. 

'In common with other professors in the Women’s Studies program, Professor Jaksch states  that she encourages “critical thinking” and “critically examines” the issues discussed in the course. But ample evidence shows that the term “critical thinking” is a common academic usage that refers to Marxist and post-Marxist critiques of capitalism. It is not a commitment to the kind of scientific skepticism and intellectual pluralism within an academic course that Penn State policy requires.

'This section of Introduction to Women’s Studies is precisely a course in “ready-made conclusions in regard to controversial subjects” that HR64 is designed to prevent. The course violates the core principles of Penn State’s academic freedom policy and the academic standards that Penn State faculty are expected to follow. Indeed, the Women’s Studies Department itself describes its curriculum in terms which are political not academic and thus violate Penn State policy as well.

 Global Feminisms
Women’s Studies 502. Instructor, Melissa Wright“

'Global Feminisms” is a politically lopsided attack on international capitalism and the free-market system taught by Associate Professor Melissa Wright. A principal required text for the course is Feminism, Theory and the Politics of Difference by Chris Weedon, which examines the “political implications” of feminist theory. For Weedon, the implications are that capitalist societies are “both oppressive and hierarchical.” They are also racist and governed by racial stereotypes applied exclusively to Third World people: “Irrationality and violence are stereotypes regularly applied, for example, to Saddam Hussein's Iraq and Muslim fundamentalist regimes,” according to Weedon. Racial stereotypes of white Americans don’t count since white Americans don’t qualify as oppressed people.

'A second required text for Professor Wright’s course is Chandra Mohanty’s Feminism without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity. This book is also required in several other courses in the Women’s Studies Department and also features a an unscholarly, polemical attack on capitalism. A radical feminist, Mohanty is frank about her political (and therefore non-academic) goals in writing the book. Proclaiming her “feminist commitments,” Mohanty proposes her text as a “transnational feminist anti-capitalist critique.” Her utopian vision is a world in which “ecological sustainability” and “the redistribution of wealth form the material basis of people's well being.” Mohanty describes her target audience as the “progressive, left, feminist and anti-imperialist scholars and intellectuals” and further outlines her intention to influence pedagogy by “theorizing and practicing an anticapitalist and democratic critique in education and through collective struggle.” 

'A third required text for Wright’s course is The End of Capitalism (As We Knew It): A Feminist Critique of Political Economy. Employing a vulgar Marxist analysis of free-market economies, the authors (who are not economists) assail “globalization” (the liberalization and integration of global trade) and “capitalist hegemony,” and make many extreme (and debatable) claims about capitalist “oppression.” They assert, for instance, that women are “allocated to subordinate functions of the capitalist system,” as though there were no women ceo’s of Fortune 500 companies, or as though two of the last three secretaries of state and the current Speaker of the House – third in line for the Presidency -- were not female. Of the other texts used in this course all but one, Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran, advance a polemical feminist or anti-capitalist agenda.

'The course’s non-scholarly agendas culminate in its final section, which is dedicated to promoting radical activism, specifically the cause of the anti-globalization movement. Titled “World Forums, Women’s Solidarity and the Human Rights discourse” this part of the syllabus is entirely devoted to an appreciation of  the World Social Forum, its agendas and activities. The World Social Forum is an international conference of Marxists and other anti-capitalist radicals, terrorist organizations like the Columbian FARC and anti-American leaders like Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez. The World Forum’s Manifesto states: “We are building a large alliance from our struggles and resistance against a system based on sexism, racism and violence, which privileges the interests of capitalism and patriarchy over the needs and aspirations of the people.” The Manifesto further declares that, “an urgent task of our movement is to mobilize solidarity for the Palestinian people and their struggle for self-determination as they face brutal occupation by the Israeli state.”

'This is not a course appropriate to an academic institution, let alone to a public university funded by the taxpayers of the state. It presses on students ready-made conclusions to controversial questions, exactly what Penn State policy is designed to prevent.

'Feminist Theory
Women’s Studies 507. Instructor, Joan B. Landes  

“Feminist Theory,” taught by Professor Joan Landes, adopts the language of intellectual pluralism while sharply limiting its scope to the idées fixes of the radical feminist Left. According to its catalogue description the course “aims to introduce students to the range of debate among feminist theorists on questions of patriarchy and male domination; gender, sexuality and desire; identity and subjectivity; experience and performance; maternity and citizenship; universalism and difference.” But by narrowly and exclusively focusing on leftwing perspectives, this approach falls decidedly short of an appropriate spectrum for an academic debate. Such disagreements as exist between the “feminist theorists” analyzed in the course pale in comparison to their shared beliefs, or to the views of those who do not share their assumptions.

'To judge by the assigned readings, the feminist theory as presented in this course is inseparable from a political agenda that describes American society and free-market capitalism as racist and oppressive and urges radical resistance to both. This theme is stressed in a number of essays that students are required to read, including one titled “Theory as Liberatory Practice,” by bell hooks. In this essay, hooks explains her view that feminist theory is primarily a political tool that should be used to “challenge the status quo” and the “patriarchal norm” of American society – assuming without analysis that there is such a norm. The feminist writings of conservative and liberal academic thinkers who do not share these views – Professors Christina Hoff Sommers, Daphne Patai and Camille Paglia come immediately to mind -- are simply ignored.

 It should be noted that one section of Introduction to Women’s Studies (WMST 001) taught by Mary Faulkner does meet the test of providing an actual debate on these issues, at least for one lesson.

'Friday, December 1st:  Future of Women’s Studies?

'Readings:  Daphne Patai, “What’s Wrong with Women’s Studies”; Judith Stacey, “Is Academic Feminism an Oxymoron?”; Harry Brod, “Scholarly Studies of Men:  The New Field is an Essential Complement to Women’s Studies”

'Yet this assignment stands out as an exception among the Women’s Studies courses we looked at and merely highlights the failure of others to do the same.

'It bears mentioning that the bell hooks essay, required for “Feminist Theory” makes no pretense to being a scholarly work. It urges readers to engage in “feminist struggle” against the injustices alleged by the author. Similarly, in the required text by Chris Weedon, Feminist Practice and Poststructuralist Theory, the author writes: “Feminism is a politics.” Echoing the theme of the course, Weedon suggests that feminist theory is largely the instrument of a political cause. Specifically, it “must always be answerable to the needs of women in our struggle to transform the patriarchy.” A theory that is answerable to the needs of the “women’s struggle” as defined by a group of sectarian ideologues, cannot  by its nature be scholarly since it lacks the freedom to challenge the assumptions of those engaged in the “struggle” including the idea that the “women’s struggle” has definable “needs” that everyone can agree on.

'The political agendas that make up the course in Feminist Theory find their most explicit expression in its concluding section. Titled “Transnational Feminism in the New Age of Globalization,” this is yet another leftwing critique of capitalism, a subject in which the course instructor has no academic credentials.

'Typical of the readings in this section is a chapter from Feminism Without Borders, a book by the feminist and anti-globalization activist Chandra Talpade Mohanty, mentioned earlier in this report. In this essay, “Under Western Eyes’ Revisited: Feminist Solidarity Through Anti-capitalist Struggles,” Mohanty laments her disenchantment with what she calls the “increasing privatization and corporatization of public life” in the United States, calls for the revival of a more radical feminist movement, and boasts that her “site of access and struggle has increasingly come to be the U.S. academy.” The purpose of a university is not to be a focus of political struggle, nor were the faculty members in the Women’s Studies Department hired to be political activists in the classroom. Yet that is precisely what they are.

 Women, the Humanities and the Arts
'Women’s Studies 003. Instructor, Stephanie Springgay 

'On its face, a course on art might seem to have little in common with the feminist ideology and political activism promoted throughout the department. But Women’s Studies 003 shows that even a subject with no obvious connection to politics can become a canvas for the political agendas of activists posing as academics. '

'While Assistant Professor Springgay claims that her course does not propose a “right answer” for students to accept and encourages them to think “critically,” there is little evidence that she conducts the course in accordance with these appropriately academic standards. As the course description makes clear, students in this course will not simply learn about art. They will also be trained to “challenge the nature of power and privilege as it relates to gender, race, class and sexuality and in particular how it shapes the lives and experiences of women.”  Additionally, they will be expected to “find spaces of resistance within these terms” and to “understand how women have, at times, been silenced by the constructions of gender, race, class, sexuality, and nationality, and how they have also reformulated those constructions through a variety of creative expressions.” The idea that gender may be innate rather than “socially constructed” – a view common, for example, among neuro-scientists -- does not appear to have a place in Professor Springgay’s curriculum. 

'Not the least of the problems with this course it that is unclear what expertise the instructor, Stephanie Springgay, has to lecture about such complex topics as, for example, class, nationalism and globalization, which is the focus of an entire section of the course, based on three feminist instructional texts, two by professor bell hooks whose expertise is English literature. Professor Springgay is listed as an assistant Professor of Art Education and Women’s Studies and earned her doctorate in art education. How is Art Education an academic credential for teaching about class, race, nationality and globalization?

'In violation of Penn State’s academic freedom provisions, Professor Springgay’s course is structured exclusively around the writings of feminist authors. In a typical reading assignment, author Linda Nochlin asks, “Why have there been no great women artists?” Her answer is that the problem lies with “social structure and [the] institutions” of the art world, specifically that they are dominated by white, middle-class, males: “As we all know, things as they are and as they have been, in the arts as in a hundred other areas, are stultifying, oppressive, and discouraging to all those, women among them, who did not have the good fortune to be born white, preferably middle class and, above all, male.”

'While ignoring great artists like Georgia O’Keefe and Mary Cassatt, this argument fails to explain why there have been so many great women writers throughout history, since they experienced the same social restrictions. Sappho, Jane Austen, Emily Dickinson and the Bronte sisters come to mind, not to mention the greatest writer in a famously patriarchal society, Murasaki Shikibu, the 10th Century author of the Tale of Genji, which is regarded as the Iliad of Japanese civilization.

'The few reading assignments that cannot be classified as feminist in this course nonetheless are overtly political. In this category are essays like “The Other History of Intercultural Performance” by the visual artist and activist Coco Fusco. Fusco describes a performance art project in which she took part and explains that its intent was to “dramatize the colonial unconsciousness of American society.” According to Fusco, “our experiences…suggested that even though the idea of America as a colonial system is met with resistance -- since it contradicts the dominant ideology’s presentation of our system as a democracy -- the audience reactions indicated that colonialist roles have been internalized quite effectively.”

'Not only do students learn about the convergence of art and political activism, but they are also required to create their own political art project. One section of the course asks students to participate in a “public art project as a form of student activism on the Penn State campus;” this form of activism counts for 15 percent of students’ final grade. Another section of the course is actually titled “activism.” Here students read essays that encourage them to participate in political -- particularly feminist -- activism. For instance, in her essay, “Bringing feminism a la casa,” feminist writer Daisy Hernandez asks students to consider the following query: “How do you go off to college, learn about feminism in English, and then bring it home to a working-class community where women call their children in from the street at night in every language -- except ‘standard’ English?” Bringing feminism to a working-class community is a challenge for feminist activists, not for students who have signed up for an academic study of women at a major university.'

The 'Students for academic freedom' Website can't be endorsed in every respect. As so often, there are inclusions that seem unwise, such as the recommendation of the site 'John Christian Ryter's Conservative World,' which contains a great deal of good sense but seems to me stultifyingly conservative. Its conservative approach to a whole range of issues takes predictable forms, although nothing like the predictable forms of the average - or well above average - feminist site, I think.  I dislike the 'Students for Academic Freedom' site's use of 'Islamo-fascism,' in 'Islamo-fascism petition,' just as I dislike use of 'fascism' in connection with feminism - for my reasons, see my comments on Steve Moxon's anti-feminist site. I've no faith in petitions as an agent of {modification}, in general. This particular petition opposes various Islamist aims. I think that the aims are identified correctly but the wording is  poor. It would have been better to have dispensed with the reference to jihad, even though jihad is a prominent part of Islamic religious ideology.  At least the petition makes it clear that women's interests are threatened by Islamic religious ideology, a form of wording I prefer to the petition's 'The Islamo-Fascist Jihad is a war against Women.'

Troubled relationships

Some poems of mine on the subject, from the page Poems in Large Page Design.

All of these poems were written with a relationship between a man and a woman in mind, although now that they are in the public domain, some of them can be read as referring to two people of the same sex. They were written at a difficult time and are obviously very bleak poems but none of them reflect my personal circumstances. This isn't autobiographical poetry and it isn't thesis poetry It doesn't reflect my anti-feminist views, I would think, although feminist critics who have unrivalled sensitivity in the detection of 'sexism' (without necessarily having great sensitivity in other areas) might well think differently.

Friendly fire: criticism of anti-feminist Websites

Causes are  coalitions, as I see it, supported by people with a common linkage, opposition to X, but significant differences.  The causes I support on this site, amongst them opposition to feminism, religion, bullfighting and the death penalty, are coalitions of this kind. The coalition of people opposed to feminism may be made up of people who support religion or oppose it, who support the death penalty or oppose it. This is to recognize the importance of cross-linkage, according to which allies in one sphere may even be enemies in another.

A person who agrees that X should be opposed may, perhaps, have completely unrealistic ideas about the tactics for opposing X. I agree with this person's views only in part. The person may have very sound ideas about opposing X but there may be a superficiality and a glibness in X which is impossible to ignore. I see no reason to exclude these complexities from this page, which is why I make some brief criticisms of  some anti-feminist blogs and Websites here: only a small number, but enough to make clear my views. Anti-feminist blogs and Websites are sometimes badly mistaken, very badly mistaken, but don't generally  come anywhere near the smugness, duplicity, and dishonesty of the average feminist site, let alone the deranged views of many feminist sites.

'Friendly fire and hostile fire' - the allusion refers to friendly amendments and hostile amendments at meetings. (I've listened to quite a number of them at Annual General Meetings of Amnesty International) as well as military fire.

Angry Harry

www.angryharry.com

A very flawed site, with useful information and some interesting insights but often glib or grating in its tone and generally lightweight: a 'tabloid blog.' Tabloid newspapers sometimes  get it right - often get it right. A tabloid style, 'concise and often sensational' (Collins English Dictionary) may well be used to condemn falsity. A scholarly style, with footnotes, references and quotations from some French feminist philosopher or other can be used to defend falsity.

 Angry Harrry's high spirits are in evidence, but often lead him  badly astray, leading him to publish high-spirited rubbish. One of these  errors of judgment, for example is the inclusion of this quote from Winston Churchill, or its inclusion and uncritical endorsement, without any accompanying comment:

'The women’s suffrage movement is only the small end of the wedge, If we allow women to vote it will mean the loss of social structure and the rise of every liberal cause under the sun. Women are well represented by their fathers, brothers and husbands.'

Extension of the vote to women was a reform of fundamental importance. Too often, Angry Harry seems to have the grossly misguided conception that to be an anti-feminist involves opposing all reform which benefits women, or supporting measures which disadvantage women. This is a shameful example from his site. Any anti-feminist who gives such support to Iran (or Saudi Arabia or similar tyrannies) should be ashamed.

'Iran Clamps Down On Women Going To University 36 universities have announced that 77 BA and BSc courses in the coming academic year will be "single gender" and effectively exclusive to men.

Positive discrimination! Affirmative action!

LOL!'

Another example. If he intended this caption underneath a photograph of a baboon's face

Angry Harry's Missus

(On a good day.)

to be whimsy and humour rather than fully intended, then it's a bad misjudgment of another kind.

He includes this quotation from Hilary White: 'Feminism, because it is essentially dishonest, childish and self-serving, will never own up to the logical conclusions of its premises.' He ought at least to eliminate all the tiresome childish parts of his own Website, such as 'LOL!' or this:

 The Dickhead Song - YouTube - to be sent to all feminist poodle boys - LOL!

The song has no linkage with feminism or anti-feminism. It's simply a rubbishy and sub-juvenile piece which includes this (notice the rhyme):

'You're a dickhead,
I hope you'll soon be dead.'

Anti-feminist Theory of Feminism, Male Sexuality, Men's Rights

www.theanti-feminist.com

This is far from being a 'Liability Site' - it has many strengths - but has a tendency to exaggerate on occasion. (At least it's without the facetiousness and glibness of Angry Harry's blog.)  Take this heading, 'British Museum Glorifies Feminist Criminality and Terrorism.' What kind of terrorism would this be? Terrorism involving beheading, suicide bombing, massacre? Only 'terrorism' which is the subject of a British Museum exhibition.

A photograph is provided with 'VOTES FOR WOMEN' stamped on it, and this text from the British Museum: 'In the early 1900s this British penny was defaced to promote the suffragette cause. This bold criminal act catapulted the movement for women’s right to vote into the political limelight.  The penny stands for all those who fought for this monumental change.'

'This coin – a perfectly ordinary penny minted in 1903 – was part of this civil disobedience. Stamped with the suffragette slogan “votes for women”, it circulated as small change, and spread the message of the campaigners. At the time, defacing a coin was a serious criminal offence, and the perpetrators risked a prison sentence had they been caught. We don’t know when the slogan was stamped on this coin, but stamping it on small change rather than a silver coin meant that it was less likely to be taken out of circulation by the banks. The message could have circulated for many years, until the law giving women the same voting rights as men was passed in 1928.'

The Website makes this comment:

'It is now widely recognised by historians that the suffragettes were regarded as an ‘Al Qaeda’ type terrorist organization, which conducted numerous violent outrages and even plotted to murder the British First World War Prime Minister David Lloyd George.' This is gross exaggeration.

I recognize no historical law or law of nature  which guarantees that  opponents of feminism - and any Websites they may -  let alone all men, are be innately virtuous and incapable of stupidity, just as there's no historical law or law of nature which guarantees that  women are the innately virtuous beings of many feminist writers and campaigners.

Writing about the poet Geoffrey Hill and the poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy in 'The Guardian,' Lemn Sissay made this misguided comment: ' ... at a lecture in Oxford, Hill likened Duffy to a Mills and Boon writer. Hill demeans himself. After 350 years of male dominance. Duffy is the first female poet laureate. Hill's comparison of the language of Duffy to Mills & Boon is like a man in the 1950s comparing the first female managing director to a jumped-up office angel.'

Bob Flowerdew wrote a book called 'The no-work garden' - a misleading title, which should obviously have been something like 'The less-work garden.' Lemn Sissay seems to be following the principles of a 'No-work journalism,' or rather 'Less work journalism' here. It's much less work to point out some circumstance or other than to attend to the poetry or the music or the politics, which involves attending to metaphor, metre and so much much else, or modulation, orchestration and so much else, or many of the painstaking skills of a professional historian. Giving just one phrase from the lecture - the comparison with a Mills and Boon writer - is hardly any work at all. (Geoffrey Hill goes on to praise some lines of hers.)

To suppose that a poet's poetry should be exempt from criticism ({restriction}:- criticism) on account of any such circumstances, or that Dame Ethel Smyth's compositions should be exempt from criticism on account of the fewness of acknowledged women composers or that Margaret Thatcher's political policies should be exempt from criticism - it would be 'like a man in the 1950s comparing the first female managing director to a jumped-up office angel' - is a disastrously misguided instance of {substitution}. If a 'Men's Movement' Website uses poor arguments, they have to be challenged. In this case, the linkage claimed between the suffragettes and Al Qaeeda is grotesque.

Fidelbogen's The Counter-feminist

http://counterfem.blogspot.co.uk/

 (See also, on this page, Julian Real's radical pro-feminist attack on Fidelbogen.) Fidelbogen is a very inconsistent, a very unreliable authority on feminism and anti-feminism. He's capable of writing  rubbish, or  rubbish mixed with sense, dross amidst material much more valuable.

This is his advice to feminists: naive, simple-minded rubbish.
 
' ... for your own sake, take control of the situation NOW, and get the hell out of feminism while the getting is good. You will find honor and dignity for yourself, and achieve a level of heroism, if you come clean and come out. But you've got to do it right soon. Don't wait. If you stall for time too long, your time will run out and you will be caught in the stampede toward the jam-packed exit doors along with all the other desparate fools. And I can assure you there will be no honor, no dignity, and no heroism for you on that day!

So get the hell out of feminism right this very minute.

 You can even drop me an e-mail and tell me about it, if you wish:

fidelbogen@earthling.net

 Be a feminist hero. Just do it!'

The 'NOW' is completely unrealistic, of course, but the passage has many other faults.

This is Fidelbogen  on the extension of the franchise to women - an essential step, an inevitable step. To 'take no stand on the question' is just about as bad as opposing extension of the suffrage. But he's right to draw attention to the complexities, which include the misguided tactics used by some suffragettes and the vastly differing attitudes of women at the time. He writes,

'The following short book, published in 1916, contains a series of essays by Massachusetts women who opposed the vote for women. While I personally take no stand upon that question, I am bound to admit that some of their reasonings are cogent. I share this book now in the spirit of historical scholarship:

http://manybooks.net/titles/various3568935689.html

"Feminism got women the vote" has always been a trusty standby for feminist apologists who wish to pull the spotlight away from feminism's crimes and toxicities. For them, the fact that women formerly didn't have the franchise serves as Exhibit A that "women were oppressed." But the women's voices in this book would very much beg to differ. These women didn't even want to vote in the first place. Not only did they not consider themselves oppressed by not having the vote,  but they would have considered themselves oppressed if they did have it! And that throws a very concerning light on feminist historiography, don't you think so?

'You will enjoy the window into the past which this book provides, and it will amuse you to learn how very little certain matters have changed in nearly a century. Feminist women, and feminist politics, were virtually indistinguishable from what we know today -- we are dealing with the same people, the same behaviors, and the same timeless scenarios, now as then!

'We have all heard that if women controlled the world there would be no war, right? Well check this out, from 1916: 

"The essential dogma of the Woman's Peace Party (none but suffragists admitted!) was that the adoption of woman suffrage was a necessary and effectual step toward abolishing war. "If women had had the vote in all countries now at war," said Mrs. Catt, "the conflict would have been prevented." But history shows women at least as much inclined to war as men--a fact illustrated in the French Revolution, in our Civil War, in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, and in other instances too numerous to mention."

Moving along in the same vein, we read of violent feminists:

"The incongruity of suffragists attempting to pose as a peace party is obvious to anyone with a memory and a sense of humor. Before the war broke out, American suffrage leaders were applauding, feasting, and subsidizing the British virago who instigated the setting on fire of 146 public buildings, churches, and houses, the explosion of 43 bombs, the destruction of property valued at nearly two million dollars (not including priceless works of arts), and many cases of personal assault. In 1912 they justified the destruction of the Rokeby Venus; in 1914 they professed horror at the bombardment of the Cathedral of Rheims. Is this insincerity or hypocrisy, or mere aberration of mind?"

'In the following, we catch an early glint of those radical feminist fangs we presently know so well. Note especially the bits about "personal and political" and "emotionalism", the reference to "complete social revolution", and the prescience of Mr. Gladstone:  

"The confusion of social and personal rights with political, the substitution of emotionalism for investigation and knowledge, the mania for uplift by legislation, have widely advertised the suffrage propaganda. The reforms for which the founders of the suffrage movement declared women needed the vote have all been accomplished by the votes of men. The vote has been withheld through the indifference and opposition of women, for this is the only woman's movement which has been met by the organized opposition of women. Suffragists still demand the vote. Why? Perhaps the answer is found in the cry of the younger suffragists: "We ask the vote as a means to an end--that end being acomplete social revolution!" When we realize that this social revolution involves the economic, social, and sexual independence of women, we know that Gladstone had the prophet's vision when he called woman suffrage a "revolutionary" doctrine."

'By way of counterpoint, here is Miss Edith Melvin describing exactly how oppressed she feels by not having the vote. She was no fluke; women like her were everywhere:

"I have never seen any point or place where the power to cast a ballot would have been of the slightest help to me. For myself I should regard the duties and responsibilities of thorough, well-informed, and faithful participation year after year in political matters as a very great misfortune; even more of a misfortune than the certainty of being mixed up in the bitter strife, the falsifications, and publicity often attendant upon political campaigns."

'Again, for the record, I am stating no personal opinion about the issue of women's voting rights. Let the fact be well noted, that I have said nothing either pro or con upon that subject.'  

His failure to state a personal opinion, his failure to support the extension of the franchise, has to be criticized severely. He's right about many things but misguided about others.

His anti-feminist blog  recognizes the importance of 'intra-criticism,' criticism within the anti-feminist group (criticism of feminists by anti-feminists is inter-criticism. Too bad that he's almost completely lacking a talent for self-criticism.) This alone would give it great interest. The military recognize that not all action against an enemy is good, not all action should be immune from criticism (as I put it: granted exemption.) There's such a thing as irrational, badly thought out, badly planned, badly executed action, action which is absolutely inadvisable, disastrous.  The sharing of a common goal is no excuse. (But whatever may be the flaws of anti-feminist sites, the flaws of so many feminist sites, and not just the lunatic radical feminist sites, are of a different order.) 

These are some comments of Fidelbogen, the writer of the blog. This, or something like it, needed to be said. The phrase he uses below, 'the so-called "men's movement" ' for example is a  healthy corrective. Using the word 'movement' can give a spurious impression of purposive action and activity and achievement. I'd add that it can give a spurious impression of agreement, of unanimity. But I'd add that anti-feminists can never hold  'any kind of governing philosophical worldview.' I don't endorse all his views, as expressed here. Anyone who gives some time to this page and other pages on this site will be able to arrive quite easily at the disagreements I have, so I don't give them here.

Fidelbogen writes,

 'The so-called "men's movement" is a complete train wreck. It is not proceeding efficiently toward any goal. There is nothing of discipline or policy or strategy about it, let alone any kind of governing philosophical worldview. Wise heads do not prevail, and braying jackasses dominate the field everywhere you look.

'I am frankly bored spitless by most of the yakkety-yak I am hearing among our ostensible comrades-in-arms. On and on they go, flogging the same old dead horses. On and on they go, natttering about the same old dreary, unimaginative garbage. Round and round they go, stepping in the same old pitfalls, the same old pisspuddles, the same old dog shit, time after time after time. [some examples would help his case.]

...

'For the record, there has never been a revolution without a vanguard of some kind. Without a central cadre of some kind. Oh very well: without an elite of some kind. There, I said it!

'To balance the gloomy picture, I will admit there IS an inner circle of philosophers and strategic thinkers -- in fact, several such. I have sat in on some of their tete-a-tetes, and can report that my time was well spent. But such occasions are very much an exception to the general hee-haw, jackassery, and time-wasting bullshit that you will find in our visible realm of public rhetoric.

'Very well, I shall proffer some words to the wise which ought to be sufficient. The vanguard forms HERE. Yes, I hereby appoint myself  dictator and preceptor-general of the non-feminist project, and invite all who have the right stuff to gather in the vicinity. There, I said it. 

'Yes, I know. Nobody wants to be the guy with the big ego, but then again, sometimes that's the only way to get things done. Nowadays, sadly, you are required to apologize like hell for even having an ego at all. This is considered "trendy". You are expected to shrink your ego to the size of a pinto bean and hide it in a drawer, like an unclean secret, under meaningless clutter and old papers that should have been thrown out long ago. 

'Away with all of that! Death to all of that! I don't mind saying that I have an ego of robust and healthy dimension. In fact, I contain multitudes, stretching to the limit of the known universe. . .and even beyond! That is precisely how big my "ego" is, and I wish others could encompass a similar magnitude. I really do. 

'But enough about me.

This is not about me!

'We do not mix the personal with the political, so when I speak ex cathedra as preceptor-general of the non-feminist project it is not about "me", or about any singular personality, or about the personal dimension of reality. It is about powers and principalities, thrones and dominions, forces of nature, forces of history, and other such goodies. In a word, it is about politics in the largest way you can imagine. And that requires the aggrandizement of my ego, and yours, until it breaks through to the other side and . . . pouf! It disappears!

'The enemy wants to rid you of your ego by reducing it to the infinitessimal -- that is, by sucking the life out of it. I, your humble preceptor-general, want to rid you of your ego by ballooning it to the infinite -- that is, by filling it with life in superabundance! Hell's bells, why be a "petty Napoleon" when you can be an  infinitely large one, eh?Pettiness is is the last thing we need around here. Urbanity and collegiality are the order of the day, my friends! And trust me, those things are deadly weapons.'

Whatever view is taken of Fidelbogen's claims to leadership or guiding of the anti-feminist cause (I don't think it's in the least likely that a leader will be accepted, and it's not desirable either) he's to be commended at least for opposing any model in the least similar to the one followed slavishly by the mediocrities (most common in politically-correct circles, perhaps) who believe in a perfect equality of discourse: the mentally lazy should have exactly the same right to be heard, to be listened to with respect, as those who have thought hard, proven incompetents to have the same right to be heard as those who have shown that they are vigorous, alert and hard-working.

Fidelbogen should be commended for this further refusal to tolerate idiocy. He writes, 'The following comment has appeared on the post immediately prior to this:

"Women of today are actually easy to deal understand - if her mouth is open for more than pleasuring a man, she's lying. Just accept that she will lie, cheat, and everything else - so your job is to out-smart her. It isn't difficult she's a female and lacks your reason, and ability. 

"Use your advantage. And never make the mistake of thinking of a woman as more than someone who will lie, cheat, steal, and murder to get what she wants because she has been taught that she is OWED what she wants... 

"Your job is to not give it to her, and use her for your pleasure - they can be trained, but will turn on you if they ever sense fear..."

'And I responded to that comment in the following terms:

Your rhetorical style is not politically efficient, and your declaration of sentiments is not in line with the policy of this blog. Nevertheless, you are quite welcome to your opinion, and I will not censor you. 

However, I would refer you to the four points of rhetorical discipline, which are:

1. Discreet utterance
2. Tonal mastery
3. Narrative frame
4. Message Discipline

One needs to be firing on all four of these cylinders. You lack fire altogether on cylinder no. 1, and partly on cylinders 3 and 4.

The complete manual of rhetorical discipline is available at the following link, and I recommend that you study it: 

 The Practice of Rhetorical Discipline'

The wording isn't to my liking (Fidelbogen is sometimes a clumsy writer) but the sentiment is very important: there are good tactics and bad tactics (and disastrously bad tactics.) Anyone who thinks that outrageous statements can be excused on the grounds that anyone who opposes feminism should be supported is badly mistaken.

Fidelbogen spoils it by going on to speculate that the comment may have been made by a 'feminist provocateur. It's not impossible, but it's far more likely that it was made by an anti-feminist moron - there are such people, after all.

So many feminists have the illusory belief in the inherent virtuousness of women. Anti-feminists should never cherish the belief that men are inherently virtuous. A concern for realities and strict fact should lead anyone to conclude that men, not a few men but many of them, are and have been vile, violent, trivial-minded, deeply flawed, just as a concern for realities and strict fact should lead anyone to conclude that the overwhelmingly important achievement in science, technology, mathematics, philosophy are overwhelmingly due to men and that men have created far more masterpieces in visual art, music and literature than women. The harshness of reality, reality's refusal to follow such illusory principles as 'equal achievement,' is graphically revealed here. Anyone who wants to contest any of this and to engage in debate about high achievement (such as the achievement of, for example, Sylvia Plath, George Eliot, Elizabeth, Lady Wilbraham, the designer of Weston Park in Shropshire, Marie Curie, G E M Anscombe), underachievement and lack of achievement, or any other aspects of this issue, is very welcome to contact me, as in the case of anything else which infuriates or gives rise to disagreement on this page, whether the objections are from a feminist, non-feminist or anti-feminist perspective.

An example of Fidelbogen the very clumsy writer:

'A compendium of foundationally important matters. If you transmit this stuff over and over, it may grab hold in a critical number of minds. These minds, in turn, may crystallize into a community that will function as a seed, and grow.'
But he's sometimes capable of heightened expression which is impressive. I don't endorse everything in the section of his blog, 'Cutting Off Feminism Abruptly,' in particular the wording of some parts, but I like his surging expression of the reality principle and the ability of harsh realities to shatter a distorting ideology. Extracts:

Steve Moxon's blog and Website

http://stevemoxon.blogspot.co.uk

 http://www.stevemoxon.co.uk/

Steve Moxon is an anti-feminist whose observations on feminism and feminists are sometimes valuable, but whose perspective is undermined by a  disastrously misguided reductionism, and disastrously misguided recklessness.  He's capable of writing this, for example (from his blog, with my emphasis):

From the abstract of the essay What is wrong with reductionist explanations of behaviour? (S. Rose, of the Biology Department, Open University. (Novartis Symposium, 1998;213:176-86; discussion 186-92, 218-21.)

 ' ... the worst problem arises when reductionism becomes an ideology, especially in the context of human behaviour, when it makes the claims to explain complex social phenomena (e.g. violence, alcoholism, the gender division of labour or sexual orientation) in terms of disordered molecular biology or genes. In doing so, ideological reductionism manifests a cascade of errors in method and logic: reification, arbitrary agglomeration, improper quantification, confusion of statistical artefact with biological reality, spurious localization and misplaced causality.'

 Rather than offer amplification here, setting out the arguments against, I recommend an internet search of materials giving arguments against reductionism - and arguments in favour, of course. Raymond Tallis's writing on the issue is one source: : www.raymondtallis.com

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has a technical discussion of reductionism in biology and some of the scientific and philosophical issues, with an extensive bibliography :

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reduction-biology/

Steve Moxon lives nearby. He's someone I know, although not well. His blog is about immigration as well as feminism. He's the author of 'The great immigration scandal,' an impressive investigative book which gave evidence of the laxity of the authorities and their underhand dealings in the management of immigration, measured, painstaking and fair-minded.  He's also the author of 'The woman racket,' which I haven't read as yet. Whatever its strengths, or its strengths and weaknesses, the title of the book isn't a good one. Anyone who wants to buy it at a bookshop is going to present it at the counter or order it at the counter, perhaps from a female assistant or manager or owner and the title may well be an embarrassment at the time. Why deter readers and customers from buying the book and bookshops from stocking it? Steve Moxon didn't think things through, it should be obvious, unless the title was imposed on him by the publisher. (I criticize  the title, whilst endorsing the view that there are some aspects of feminism which do amount to a racket.)

His blog is sometimes off-putting in its style. A general study of  Rhetoric, 'the art of persuasion,' might be beneficial, perhaps. He should at least give some thought to  better and worse ways of attempting to persuade.  He could avoid dire phrasing such as this, for example: 'his vision of civil conflict over the elitist-separatist contempt for and indeed hatred of the mass of ordinary people by the political-media-education uber-class seems all too prescient' (in connection with 'the ironies of Anders Breivik') and, a different kind of fault,' "Got it wrong" on immigration?! You HATE us all, you lying tosser.'

His anti-feminist pieces are undermined for me by a common mistake, his misuse of 'fascist' again and again, as here (in a piece on George Galloway and the rape laws): ' ...the ridiculous sex laws in the UK (as other places in the PC-fascist West).'  He could easily appeal to usage, the fact that 'fascist' has come to mean not much more than 'bad.' The same could be said of the word 'Nazi,' another word often used by anti-feminists. I take the view that usage isn't the ultimate court of appeal. A common usage can be misuse. If glue-sniffing became overwhelmingly common, this would still be misuse of the substance. So I persist in arguing that these are misuses of words, and underlying the misuse a hideous obliviousness to realities and to crucial differences.

Any good or even adequate anti-feminist site deploys arguments and evidence. Steve Moxon has abilities in scholarship, to an extent, but his critical standards are sometimes abysmal, as in this badly-written worse than routine piece, where good sense goes hand in hand with nonsense, 'Rotherham Council exemplifies PC-fascism (November 24, 2012).  I don't attempt the thankless task of disentangling the two here in any detail. I'm sure that my view of what's better and what's worse will be clear enough.

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According to feminist ideology, feminists are strong - but also weak, hideously exploited or suffering from the scourge of 'everyday sexism,' documented by Laura Bates and her volunteers. Laura Bates seems to see women as passive, helpless, unable to make a robust response at the time when 'sexist' language blighted their happiness, their only hope that distant time when society has been transformed, when male offenders no longer exist, thanks to the work of the 'Everyday Sexism Project.'