Fantastic analysis. The insertion of Pluckrose, Lindsay and Boyce into the conversation has been bothering me for a long time. I think of them as the stupid person's intellectual.
They never miss a chance to blame feminists or discredit our work. At the same time if you even scratch the surface it's clear they know nothing about feminism, why it exists or the history of the movement.
I don't know abut you, but if I'm going to publicly take a stand on something I'm going to make sure I'm educated on the topic before I sound off. The reason I think they don't is due in part to misogyny. They feel it's beneath them to actually do the work and learn. Their contempt for women extends even to that.
The fanatics have destroyed the word nuance in order to use it as a weapon. Don't like the rules or the reality of life? Just throw the word nuance in and presto! Instead of nuance one can use "natal" to achieve the same result. I'm a hardliner on language and refuse to let everything become one big mush. For me, women's rights movements are about equal protection and equal opportunity under the law, and the right of both men and women to have separate sports and private spaces. Both Pluckrose and Lindsay openly displayed their misogyny and with the name calling, displayed a nasty emotionality irt to women. Glad I found your substack!
Thank you for this. I am only familiar with Helen Pluckrose from reading her work in the book "Cynical Theories" a couple of years ago when I first began to get up to speed on the gender-insanity. I must say that what you shared about Helen's comments about the status of women really surprised and disappointed. Thanks for rounding out the picture for me Edie. I came to your blog through Kara Dansky reprinting this article.
The "trans" lie is the ultimate manifestation of "woke" (ask these idiots to define that). Telling a mentally ill man that he's actually a woman and letting him into women's jails, sports, spaces? These degenerates are not marginalized. Anyone who defends them is moronic because "trans" does not exist.
If women can't even stand in public and tell men to stay the f*ck out of our spaces because we exist outside of their stupid delusions and imaginations, then that is the ultimate oppression because we can't even say we exist.
I don't mind saying being a TERF is radical (I love the term) because male stupidity and violence is so radical that to oppose it is, by definition, to be radical as well. The level of insanity from males has become so extreme that they literally cannot believe lowly females are telling them NO and drawing boundaries. Their lack of shame and self-awareness makes us necessary.
Crying about fEmInIsMs while men enter women's swimming competitions and act like happy pigs when they win. This is pathetic. This is why we'll never give up.
I’m sure you’re right. But the problem with feminism is still the one identified in Lysistrata and it can’t be overcome.
All political movements have to be prepared to defend their position with violence if necessary, but a movement of women will always be, by definition, impotent.
We can’t defend the women being stoned or tortured in barbaric societies because words don’t work against violence. The patriarchy can only be fought after men as a class have agreed not to use violence against us, which is a situation most women of the world don’t share. If women are truly a class then why are we only motivated by self-interest rather than being prepared to fight and die for women and girls in horrifying situations.
Women in the west should be able to use our education and advantages to stop millions of ten year old girls being ‘married’ to men, but the fact is, only men can change certain things. It’s a feature, not a bug. And we should try to work in a way that brings out the best in both our nature’s rather than demanding they be something other than men but definitely not women.
Anyway, I’m not sure I agree anymore. Feminism may be a force for good, but it’s not enough to effect real change on its own.
That’s bullshit because feminism is the only thing that has changed things for women in western liberal democracies. You’ve been listening to too much nonsense theory
Feminism has been the driver of advancement of women's rights and status within the Western cultural realm, and this was possible only because the substrate political culture was sufficiently liberal and open to allow such activism (to exist at all then eventually to succeed). It is not a coincidence. It is the result chronologically of the enlightenment, the scientific revolution, development of social democracy etc. That is precisely why the cultural relativism of the pomo-left is troubling since it claims imposition of Western (feminist) values on other cultures is colonial/oppressive/whatever buzzword.
In reply to Michelle - violence will not change this but political/economic pressure from the developed world and within multicultural societies the abandonment of the softly-approach and hard crackdown on abusive cultural practices like FGM. Violence isn't required, just soft economic and cultural power is more than enough - but we have been constrained from using it by the cultural relativists.
Do you enjoy the right to vote? To buy, sell and own property? To drive a vehicle? To birth control and abortion rights? To the custody of your children? Historically, and still in many places, women have none of these rights. Women (and some men) advocated for these rights by taking to the streets, and lobbying not only male legislators, but also male relatives and friends who did have the right to vote to support legislation to secure these rights for women. The 19th amendment was finally ratified in enough states when the a state legislator's mother wrote to him and told him to vote for women's suffrage! Now that we have the vote, and turn out to vote in greater numbers than men do, we can make changes beneficial to women and children without having to resort to violence. Although withholding sex also sometimes is useful. lol
Do you honestly think violence is the only thing that can change things?
How did we get this far? Did we beat men out of education, voting, property rights? The ONLY thing that works is consistent non-violent work. I'm sure you've heard of Gandhi, you sound very well-informed.
Btw Islam at a certain level is simply non-reformable. Under Islamic law, men can legally marry 9 year old girls because that's what Muhammad did and his life is a source of law for all time. Unless Islam is wiped out, that cannot change. Twenty years of the US in Afghanistan couldn't teach that male trash to change, so what can be done? Women going around the world to convince men not to be the worthless garbage they are? At some point you have to deal with reality here.
Countries with Muslim majorities and those where Sharia law is actually in effect are definitely much more resistant to recognition and protection of the rights of women and girls. But that does not mean that women in those countries cannot make incremental progress, including using the privacy of the home to educate girls, share birth control information, and more. In Iran, women have temporarily lost the freedoms they had before the ayatollahs took over, but they have not forgotten what it was like to be free and young women born after the country came under mullah control are resisting it, as we know when some are arrested by the religious cops. What I think it crazy is that Western democracies welcome young male refugees from Muslim countries, when it is really the women most in need of refuge, and now many those young men are refusing to assimilate and embrace liberal democratic values, including that women have rights they should be respecting. So Western European countries are being dragged down by male Muslim immigrants.
Very well argued, Edie. I couldn’t agree more with your analysis. Thank you.
Fantastic analysis. The insertion of Pluckrose, Lindsay and Boyce into the conversation has been bothering me for a long time. I think of them as the stupid person's intellectual.
They never miss a chance to blame feminists or discredit our work. At the same time if you even scratch the surface it's clear they know nothing about feminism, why it exists or the history of the movement.
I don't know abut you, but if I'm going to publicly take a stand on something I'm going to make sure I'm educated on the topic before I sound off. The reason I think they don't is due in part to misogyny. They feel it's beneath them to actually do the work and learn. Their contempt for women extends even to that.
Yeah so many social media “personalities” have lazy analysis. Although the personality of those three is also a bit of a mystery to me.
The fanatics have destroyed the word nuance in order to use it as a weapon. Don't like the rules or the reality of life? Just throw the word nuance in and presto! Instead of nuance one can use "natal" to achieve the same result. I'm a hardliner on language and refuse to let everything become one big mush. For me, women's rights movements are about equal protection and equal opportunity under the law, and the right of both men and women to have separate sports and private spaces. Both Pluckrose and Lindsay openly displayed their misogyny and with the name calling, displayed a nasty emotionality irt to women. Glad I found your substack!
Thank you.
Thank you for this. I am only familiar with Helen Pluckrose from reading her work in the book "Cynical Theories" a couple of years ago when I first began to get up to speed on the gender-insanity. I must say that what you shared about Helen's comments about the status of women really surprised and disappointed. Thanks for rounding out the picture for me Edie. I came to your blog through Kara Dansky reprinting this article.
The "trans" lie is the ultimate manifestation of "woke" (ask these idiots to define that). Telling a mentally ill man that he's actually a woman and letting him into women's jails, sports, spaces? These degenerates are not marginalized. Anyone who defends them is moronic because "trans" does not exist.
If women can't even stand in public and tell men to stay the f*ck out of our spaces because we exist outside of their stupid delusions and imaginations, then that is the ultimate oppression because we can't even say we exist.
I don't mind saying being a TERF is radical (I love the term) because male stupidity and violence is so radical that to oppose it is, by definition, to be radical as well. The level of insanity from males has become so extreme that they literally cannot believe lowly females are telling them NO and drawing boundaries. Their lack of shame and self-awareness makes us necessary.
Crying about fEmInIsMs while men enter women's swimming competitions and act like happy pigs when they win. This is pathetic. This is why we'll never give up.
Superbly crafted prose.
thank you for your strong clear words.
I’m sure you’re right. But the problem with feminism is still the one identified in Lysistrata and it can’t be overcome.
All political movements have to be prepared to defend their position with violence if necessary, but a movement of women will always be, by definition, impotent.
We can’t defend the women being stoned or tortured in barbaric societies because words don’t work against violence. The patriarchy can only be fought after men as a class have agreed not to use violence against us, which is a situation most women of the world don’t share. If women are truly a class then why are we only motivated by self-interest rather than being prepared to fight and die for women and girls in horrifying situations.
Women in the west should be able to use our education and advantages to stop millions of ten year old girls being ‘married’ to men, but the fact is, only men can change certain things. It’s a feature, not a bug. And we should try to work in a way that brings out the best in both our nature’s rather than demanding they be something other than men but definitely not women.
Anyway, I’m not sure I agree anymore. Feminism may be a force for good, but it’s not enough to effect real change on its own.
That’s bullshit because feminism is the only thing that has changed things for women in western liberal democracies. You’ve been listening to too much nonsense theory
Feminism has been the driver of advancement of women's rights and status within the Western cultural realm, and this was possible only because the substrate political culture was sufficiently liberal and open to allow such activism (to exist at all then eventually to succeed). It is not a coincidence. It is the result chronologically of the enlightenment, the scientific revolution, development of social democracy etc. That is precisely why the cultural relativism of the pomo-left is troubling since it claims imposition of Western (feminist) values on other cultures is colonial/oppressive/whatever buzzword.
In reply to Michelle - violence will not change this but political/economic pressure from the developed world and within multicultural societies the abandonment of the softly-approach and hard crackdown on abusive cultural practices like FGM. Violence isn't required, just soft economic and cultural power is more than enough - but we have been constrained from using it by the cultural relativists.
Do you enjoy the right to vote? To buy, sell and own property? To drive a vehicle? To birth control and abortion rights? To the custody of your children? Historically, and still in many places, women have none of these rights. Women (and some men) advocated for these rights by taking to the streets, and lobbying not only male legislators, but also male relatives and friends who did have the right to vote to support legislation to secure these rights for women. The 19th amendment was finally ratified in enough states when the a state legislator's mother wrote to him and told him to vote for women's suffrage! Now that we have the vote, and turn out to vote in greater numbers than men do, we can make changes beneficial to women and children without having to resort to violence. Although withholding sex also sometimes is useful. lol
Do you honestly think violence is the only thing that can change things?
How did we get this far? Did we beat men out of education, voting, property rights? The ONLY thing that works is consistent non-violent work. I'm sure you've heard of Gandhi, you sound very well-informed.
Btw Islam at a certain level is simply non-reformable. Under Islamic law, men can legally marry 9 year old girls because that's what Muhammad did and his life is a source of law for all time. Unless Islam is wiped out, that cannot change. Twenty years of the US in Afghanistan couldn't teach that male trash to change, so what can be done? Women going around the world to convince men not to be the worthless garbage they are? At some point you have to deal with reality here.
Countries with Muslim majorities and those where Sharia law is actually in effect are definitely much more resistant to recognition and protection of the rights of women and girls. But that does not mean that women in those countries cannot make incremental progress, including using the privacy of the home to educate girls, share birth control information, and more. In Iran, women have temporarily lost the freedoms they had before the ayatollahs took over, but they have not forgotten what it was like to be free and young women born after the country came under mullah control are resisting it, as we know when some are arrested by the religious cops. What I think it crazy is that Western democracies welcome young male refugees from Muslim countries, when it is really the women most in need of refuge, and now many those young men are refusing to assimilate and embrace liberal democratic values, including that women have rights they should be respecting. So Western European countries are being dragged down by male Muslim immigrants.