Through the Looking Glass to Truth.

Feminist advocacy research is a political tool.  It's used to support social fictions to create the circumstances necessary to fund non-profits.  These non-profits depend on these falsehoods for survival.  That doesn’t mean that the “research" part of feminist advocacy research is totally worthless.  In the social sciences, the value of research is determined by whether it states valid truth claims that accurately predict future phenomena.  What we have in much of the advocacy research is not research that results in accurate truth claims, but instead, the mirror image of the concept.  Their conclusions often state the exact opposite of legitimate social science evidence.  For economic/political reasons, advocacy research is used to mitigate and contradict inconvenient valid social science conclusions.

For instance, let’s harken back to the esteemed AAUW’s infamous “research” in “The AAUW Report:  How Schools Short Change Girls”.  We know now, these many years later, that the report told the exact opposite of truth.  The AAUW constructed a fiction that painted girls as victims of a hostile educational establishment.  This happened at the very time in our history when girls had surpassed boys in most education indexes.  As former undersecretary of education Diane Ravitch stated, "That [1992] AAUW report was just completely wrong. What was so bizarre is that it came out right at the time that girls had just overtaken boys in almost every area. It might have been the right story twenty years earlier, but coming out when it did, it was like calling a wedding a funeral.... There were all these special programs put in place for girls, and no one paid any attention to boys." 

Although Ravitch thought it “bizarre”, it only seems that way when one doesn’t understand the purpose of the “research”.  With advocacy research, politics trump truth.  In fact, in the aforementioned instance, it totally contradicted truth.  With the onset of the “boy crisis”, the secret got out that the AAUW report was balderdash.  No problem.  The AAUW just conjured up another report.  Entitled, “Beyond the ‘Gender Wars’: A Conversation About Girls, Boys, and Education”, the AAUW ironically attempts to end the very gender war it ignited.

If we assume that advocacy research is used in this way, that is to trump truth by blatantly contradicting the obvious, we can use it to describe the exact opposite of their reported conclusions.  In the above case, the AAUW’s reports stated that girls were having an education crisis, when in fact; it was a developing boy crisis.  The purpose, of course, was to mitigate the results of the truth, and thereby prevent the funding of necessary boy programs at the expense of girls.

The same exact thing happened when the California Chapter of the National Organization of Women created, from whole cloth, (http://www.thelizlibrary.org/liz/CANOW-Report_v2.pdf) a report entitled, Family Court Report 2002.  The astounding punch line of the report; “After significant research, CA NOW finds the present family court system in California to be crippled, incompetent, and corrupt. The bias in the system results in pathologizing, punishing, and discriminating against women.”  Of course, that report is now viewed as a political fabrication. 

What can we gain from the report’s conclusion?  Placing a looking glass in front of report and reading it, metaphorically backwards, we see that the truth about California Family Courts is that they discriminate against men.  Why, you ask, would CA NOW create this fiction?  Again, it is to mitigate against the truth, so that family courts don’t change toward equality, thereby benefiting women.

Such looking glass research brings to my mind the Sokal Affair:

“The Sokal affair, also known as the Sokal hoax, was a publishing hoax perpetrated by Alan Sokal, a physics professor at New York University. In 1996, Sokal submitted an article to Social Text, an academic journal of postmodern cultural studies. The submission was an experiment to test the publication's intellectual rigor and, specifically, to learn if such a journal would "publish an article liberally salted with nonsense if it (a) sounded good and (b) flattered the editors' ideological preconceptions…" (citations omitted)

“…Sokal reasoned that, if the presumption of editorial laziness were correct, the nonsensical content of his article would be irrelevant to whether the editors would publish it. What would matter would be ideologic obsequiousness, fawning references to deconstructionist writers, and sufficient quantities of feminist and socialist terminology.” (emphasis added)

The punch line here people is that the process of scientific inquiry is irrelevant in much of feminist "scholarship," because in the “personal is political” world of activist professors and advocacy research, the ends justify the means.  Even if that means one has to hold up a mirror to feminist conclusions to find truth.

Off to Burning Man...

...See ya in a week. :)

Advocacy Research and the Creation of Urban Legends

There are some pretty fantastic urban legends in the femos-phere; 1 in 4 women are raped; 3 out of 5 women in the U.S. will be battered in their lifetime; domestic violence is the leading cause of death among women; domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women between the ages of 15 and 44, ect. ect. ect.  Much of the demonization of men and masculinity is a result of the perpetuation of fraud that profit the "non-profit industrial complex."

In a piece that contains, what can only be described as stunning admissions, feminist academics Mary Haviland, Victoria Frye, and Valli Rajah, wrote a paper entitled, “Harnessing the Power of Advocacy-Research Collaborations: Lessons From the Field” (hereinafter “Advocacy Research paper”)  about the methods they used to conjure up an earlier paper, “The Family Protection and Domestic Violence Intervention Act of 1995: Examining the Effects of Mandatory Arrest in New York City” (hereinafter “Mandatory Arrest paper”)

The impetus for the research for the ladder paper was that New York States domestic violence law, The Family Protection and Domestic Violence Intervention Act of 1995, incorporated a mandatory arrest policy that ended up with the unintended consequence of too many “victims” being arrested.  As they wrote in the Advocacy Research paper:

“[A]lthough the law seemed to be working (domestic violence arrests in New York City rose by 140% between 1993 and 1998), it also had some unintended consequences, such as increased victim arrest. Victims were being arrested at the scene of a domestic violence incident as one party to a “dual arrest” (when both parties claim a crime has been committed against them and both are arrested) or as the only party arrested as a result of a complaint by the abuser.”

Besides the use of Orwellian language in the paragraph, any academic should be horrified at their research methods.  Here are some excerpts:

“Feminist scholars point out that lack of objectivity is not synonymous with inaccuracy.”  (Advocacy Research, page 256)

“The advocacy–research partnership has been identified as a key method of conducting the feminist and activist research that is important to domestic violence.” (Advocacy Research, pg. 247)

“[P]articipatory action research (PAR) principles played a smaller yet substantive role in our methodological choices… proponents of PAR underscore the importance of social change as a major goal of advocate researcher collaborations and, therefore, integrate an element of activism into the research design (Reinharz, 1992; Small & Uttal, 2005)." (Advocacy Research, page 249)

“[H]istoric tensions between advocates and researchers have affected the practice of such collaborations. The quantitative population-based studies that find an equal prevalence of violence perpetrated by men and women in intimate relationships may have hampered attempts at collaboration (Edelson & Bible 1999; Gondolf, Yllo, & Campbell, 1997; Schechter, 1988).”  (emphasis mine) (Advocacy Research, page 250)

In other words, they weren’t getting the answer they wanted with “quantitative population-based” studies, so in order to collaborate for social change, they needed to use different research methods.  This pretty much puts the lie to the statement that “…lack of objectivity is not synonymous with inaccuracy.”

In a subsection unfortunately entitled, ENSURING GOOD RESULTS, the “scholars” admit:

“Defining what the end results of the research endeavor should be is crucial to a successful collaboration… [T]he goal of influencing policy and practice was paramount, particularly in our initial formulation.” (Advocacy Research, page 268)

As any good researcher knows, although I wouldn’t be surprised if the concept flew over the heads of our three acolytes, one must define one’s terms.

So, what are good results for advocacy research?  For our "scholars," the answer seems to be the acquisition of funding for non-profits.  How else is a Women’s Studies major, or a Sociologist supposed to make a living?  For those not familiar with San Francisco, the concept of the “non-profit industrial complex” permeates our local politics.  Much of the work that should be done by government is outsourced to San Francisco’s non-profits.  As I’ve written before, non-profits and their activists in our fair city take money from the County of San Francisco, and then become activists against the very government that funds their programs.

You may have read my piece entitled, “Advocacy Research and Junk Science - For Fun and Profit”, which talked about a piece in the San Francisco Weekly which described how an organization called the “Women’s Funding Network” brought in a fake research team, The Shaprio Group, to conduct a “study” on human trafficking.  The Shaprio Group are not academics, but instead political consultants.  Needless to say the “research” was garbage; “It's now clear it used fake data to deceive the media and lie to Congress.  And it was all done to score free publicity and a wealth of public funding.” (Pinto, Nick; Weird Science, SF Weekly, March 23-29, 2011).  But, in the end, it did exactly what it was intended to do – get public funding for the organization.

“[T]he woman who commissioned the Schapiro Group study Kaffie McCullough first approached the [Shapiro] group about conducting a study of juvenile prostitution in Georgia in 2007 when, as director of A Future Not a Past, she realized that having scientific-sounding numbers makes all the difference.”

"In early 2007, McCullough approached the Georgia Legislature to ask for money for a regional assessment center to track juvenile prostitution. ‘We had no research, no nothing. The legislators didn't even know about it,’ she recalls. ‘We got a little bit. We got about 20 percent of what we asked for.’"

"McCullough touts the fundraising benefits of the study whenever she can…’I would say, 'The research costs money, but we've been able to broker — I don't know what it is now, I think it's over $1.3, $1.6 million in funding that we never would have gotten,' she says.”

Which brings me to the Violence Against Women Act.  I’m not going to discuss the Act.  It is a huge document that is problematic for many, MANY reasons, starting with its title.  But, what did feminists say about it?

The quotes below are taken from this ACLU website.

The National Organization for Women (NOW) published an article by Pat Reuss and Courtney Aguirre in Spring 2005, titled ‘VAWA 2005: New Prevention Initiatives Address the Needs and Fears of Young People and Work to Break the Cycle of Violence’.: 

“VAWA impacts so many women because it allocates vital funding to a variety of programs—everything from research grants and legal assistance to community initiatives and assistance for immigrant families.”

The National Sexual Violence Resource Center newsletter Spring/Summer 2004 issue published an article by Susan Lewis, PhD, titled "Ten Years of VAWA, Strengthening Anti-Sexual Violence Work," which stated:

"According to almost everyone associated with victim services or prevention of violence against women, the passage of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) in 1994 made an enormous, positive difference. This landmark legislation provided new life to small struggling rape crisis centers and shelters by offering a major transfusion of lifeblood in the form of federal funding."

Joseph R. Biden, Jr., JD, Senator (D-DE), stated in a June 8, 2005 press release, “Biden, Hatch, and Specter Usher Violence Against Woman Act into 21st Century with VAWA 2005”:

"We broke tremendous ground in 1994 and 2000. We wrote new domestic violence laws. We outlawed marital rape. We distributed over $3.8 billion dollars to states and towns to train and support police, lawyers, judges, nurses, shelter directors and advocates to end domestic violence and sexual assault…”

A footnote to the afore-cited Advocacy-Research paper is telling; “Although the coordinated community response approach to domestic violence may have become less prevalent as the movement has institutionalized, it is still a very important concept in the field of domestic violence. Another example would be the collaborative relationships required to receive Violence Against Women Act funds.”

“In our case, we concluded that to be more effective in achieving some of the recommendations of the report, the team needed greater resources and staff time dedicated to the achievement of the action goals. Raising funds to pursue policy changes is a challenge. Many federal grants do not allow expenditures for lobbying and many private sources frown on allocating resources for such purposes. In addition, not-for-profits can jeopardize their tax-exempt status by lobbying. We suggest a loosening of some of these proscriptions as well as increased awareness of the importance of dedicating resources to these activities.” (Advocacy Research, page 270)

In the Mandatory Arrest paper, they write, “There is a need for funding of training programs for domestic violence service providers in assisting victims of domestic violence who are affected by the mandatory arrest law, particularly those who are arrested.” (Mandatory Arrest, page 80)

Conclusion

The distribution of public funds cannot be predicated on junk science by propoganda whores who willingly lie to support their ideology.  Much of rape, domestic violence, and sexual harassment discourse is based upon fictions, in order to get funding to create propoganda, to get more funding, in a vicious cycle that has real victims.  It needs to stop.



This is why I love men.

Tasha's "Epic Put Down of Hugo Schwyzer"

July 22, 2011, Tasha wrote a comment over at No Seriously, What About the Menz, that has been called, an "epic putdown (sic) of Hugo Schywzer."  I quote it, in relevant part, because Tasha succinctly describes in a couple of powerful paragraphs what is so evident from Schwyzer's own writing.

"RE [Hugo Schwyzer]….Im so sick to death of this ineffectual turd. He’s built this image of himself *to* himself and thus completely deluded himself into the belief that he’s this reformed, yet still tragically conflicted, worldly, romantic, saviour of (always young and impressionable) women (who I think he probably culls from his classes…ethics?). The overarching feel, at least for me, is that he sees himself as some kind of Machiavellian daddy who envisions himself as the gentle, yet inherently sexually appealing, guiding hand of these poor wayward and deceived by the patriarchy girls. He strikes me as the type that uses some kind of ass hat line like “let me show you, baby, how a *good* man can love you” *barf*

You take all that, and add it to this latest pseudo scandal (which, you’ll notice, he generated HIMSELF) and Im only left to believe that this was a very deliberate revealing of hubris on his part with the intention of adding to his image of a *good* man – he can point to himself and say “See? I have faults, I’ve sinned, I’ve been a ‘bad-boy’ and seen the light! Ive had my day of enlightenment through feminism, and now Im like an effing prophet sent down from on high to guide the little (no doubt attractive, young, impressionable, sexually available, easy to impress) lambs away from the big bad (similarly aged, way more appropriate, probably without hidden agenda for self promotion) wolves and, hey, if they see me as some sort of sexual svengali, well shucks its not my fault”

I recently had a brief twitter correspondence with Schwyzer.  So, I am going to tone down the rhetoric, like replacing weird, with eccentric and the like.  I recently did a scanning survey of his old blog, hugoboy.blogspot.com. There can be no doubt that Hugo Schwyzer is an eccentric dude.  I won't say creepy, because I think that is an unfortunate gendered term thrown at men to socially isolate them.  But, he is eccentric.  He is man who got himself circumcised at thirty-seven (37) as a gift to his future wife:

“…when I met the woman who is now my wife and fell in love with her, I began to wish that I could offer her something radically new about me.  And it occurred to me one day that getting circumcised would be something tangible I could do to provide an outer manifestation of my sexual rebirth.   My wife would thus be the only woman with whom I had made love with that particular penis, as it were…”

His vanity is evident by the number of times he posts about "ratemyprofessor.com", and how very personally he takes the comments there.  He informs us:

"It’s been nearly two years since I “won” the honor (however dubious) of being named “America’s Hottest Professor” by the Ratemyprofessors website." 

He reminds his readers no fewer than four times over a two year period about his hotness award.  By his own calculation, he's written, either directly or tangentially, about ratemyprofessors.com, nineteen times. He writes that his wife can probably beat him up, and that he's suffered mental illness.  He writes at least three times about people's perceptions that he is gay.  He writes a lot about religion and the youth group he mentors, All Saints.  He's done sex-ed presentations with the children of All Saints.  He's written about "boy crushes" and "man dates."  He wrote about the odor of boys at camp:

"...I've spent a lot of time sleeping in cabins (and on the floors of our youth center at church) with boys all around.  As any male youth leader will tell you, there's nothing quite like the scent of a boys' bunk house first thing in the morning on the second or third day of a retreat, when most of the guys -- including the youth leaders -- have not bothered to shower!   (It's amazing, really, the odors that pour forth from eleven sleeping male bodies in one cramped space!)..."

When he was younger, he generally went to gay bars in West Hollywood.  He hates pornography, loves running and boxing, and his position on MRA's has evolved from disagreeing with them but "admiring" their fight, to outright hostility. These are all interesting, I suppose.  But the most telling repeated topic he writes about is directly relevant to Tasha's post.  Although, he spends a significant part of his old blog telling his readers that he isn't sexually attracted to his students (although he "falls in love" with some of them) he has, by my own count written on the topic of "older men/younger women" no less than eleven (11) times, the last being April 1, 2011.  These posts are uniformly formulated so that Schwzyer can reassure us that such relationships are improper.  But, that's not always how it comes across.

Tasha writes:

"...The overarching feel, at least for me, is that he sees himself as some kind of Machiavellian daddy who envisions himself as the gentle, yet inherently sexually appealing, guiding hand of these poor wayward and deceived by the patriarchy girls..."

This is the feeling I get from reading some of his "older men/younger women" blog posts.  Here are some examples:

"...I'm convinced that young girls badly need the presence of loving older men who are not parents or relatives, but who are still fundamentally safe..." (Link).

"And I'm not sure it's reasonable to ask all men to refrain from exploring romantic relationships with women who are significantly younger...Kate's letter reminds me that it's even more unreasonable to ask all young women (provided they are legally adults) only to date men who are no more than five years older than themselves...I've seen many, many disastrous relationships between young women and much older men.  But to be honest, I've also seen a few such relationships that were marvelous, sparkling, honest, mutually rewarding, and long-lasting." (Link)

"...And part of closing those doors is loving younger women as our daughters, not as gullible potential partners who offer us the chance to believe in our own immortality just a little longer..." (Link)

"...Given this culture of young male immaturity...where else can a Scarlett look save to older men?...While some older men she will encounter may have a sexually predatory agenda, and others may be looking for someone who won't "call them on their crap", some may indeed be ready and willing to give her what she needs in every sense and receive from her what she has to offer..." (Link)

To be fair, these quotes are taken out of context.  But, looking over Hugo Boy's former blog, there just seem to be too many posts on youth and sexuality; the sexuality of his students; flirting; and how to deal with students who have crushes on him.  I write a blog that is almost explicitly sexual, and not once since 2006 have I written about the sexuality of young people.  I think Tasha may be on to something.

The Auto-Biology of Heluva Goodtyme

A mini autobiography I wrote just got published with a compilation of personal transgender stories in Tranny Tales: Personal Stories of Gender Transition, also available at amazon.com.

Great work Marsea and Shannon!

What Hugo Schwyzer Needs is a Good Dominatrix

In a stunning display of outright hypocrisy, Hugo Schwyzer, a noted castrati,* argues within the span of nine days (that’s right, nine days) that men have an obligation to inform the women in their lives that they use pornography and then to dutifully suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous neo-Victorian fury appropriate to such delicate feminine sensibilities; yet, on the other hand, women have no obligation to tell their partners that they’ve been fucking other men, resulting in said men having been cuckolded (“I may have a son, but I’ll never know for sure”)

As I’ve written before, Schwyzer is anti-porn crusader.  I’ve already argued that, having appeared in adult films and done sex work, I find his crusade condescending.  Regarding men and pornography, Schwyzer argues:

“…Of course, not every single man uses porn or buys sex in other forms. But a great many do, as Newsweek reminds us, and they do include husbands and boyfriends, brothers and fathers, bosses and teachers, coaches and co-workers. That so many women are unsettled by that reality is as much a reflection of what they don't know about the men in their lives as what they do… (<<--I love this sentence.  Please keep it in mind when reading his take about things that men don't know about the women in their lives that make them "unsettled.")

…I've heard from many guys who tell me that they lie about porn (and the other kinds of sex they may buy) because, as one put it to me, "women go ballistic when you tell them the truth." But it's not women's job to ratchet down their anger in order to make it safe for men to get real. We owe it to the women we love — and to ourselves — to have the courage to name what it is we're doing and how often we're doing it.”  (Link Cite)

As Dan Savage succinctly put it in his discussion about our castrati:

“So... husbands and boyfriends, brothers (!) and fathers (!!), bosses (!!!) and teachers (!!!!), coaches (!!!!!) and coworkers (!!!!!!) have a responsibility to be honest with the women in their lives about their porn use. But women can't be asked to 'ratchet down their anger' when they're told the truth—indeed, they have a right to be furious, and you should stand there and take it, you sex maniac. You tell the truth, she goes ballistic—got it, guys?

Sometimes I'm so glad that my wife is a man.”  (Link Cite)

At a time when rape victims are having to pay child support to their rapists (Link Cite), Schwzyer crows that he has happily, though not assuredly, allowed another man to raise his child and thereby relieved himself of any responsibility because, “I wasn’t in love with Jill and wasn’t ready to be a parent.”  Not only that, he boasts, “I may or may not have other children ‘out there.’”  Let’s put this into context.  Schywzyer is taking responsibility for NOT ONE child that he may have fathered outside of his marriage.  He is content to wax revoltingly, “The solution is to remember that it is love, not sperm, that makes a great dad.”  His excuse is that, if another man is raising some progeny of his, that’s really okie dokie with him.  For him to have argued otherwise would necessarily implicate himself as a piece-of-shit, which is exactly what he would be if any of his stories contained a grain of truth.  His argument also misses the point that if any of these potential children of his don’t have other men taking care of them, then his own failure to support them is not being mitigated by the unwary, and so suffer the little children.  What about them, Schwyzer?  “Fuck them” is obviously his answer.  This means that he is a piece-of-shit anyway.  Of course, the truth is that there is almost assuredly no Jill, or Ted or Alastair, or any other kids, as I argue below.

In his ridiculous follow-up to “I may have a son,” Schwyzer acknowledges that being cuckolded is a “profound” fear for some men.  He then goes on to dismiss such fear by saying that he has “nothing but contempt” for such men. (Link Cite)

This of course contradicts his analysis of women getting angry about pornography, “…it's not women's job to ratchet down their anger…”

All that having been said, the true purpose of this piece is not to discuss the too easily demonstrated hypocrisy, and straight out mendacity, of Hugo Schwyzer.  He is obviously a fraud of an intellectual and a pseudo professor at a community college.  Instead, my purpose is to pose (then answer) the question, “How can Schwyzer possibly reconcile his two obviously contradictory arguments, in the name of equality?”

The answer is that he cannot.  I hypothesize that it is not even really his purpose to do so. My argument is that Schwyzer and his purported world view, and in fact his entire self described philosophy is based NOT upon equality, nor even feminism, though he uses that euphemism to cloak his own little fetish.  Hugo Schwyzer is a submissive, whose fantasy includes female domination.

I have had a great deal of experience in the BDSM scenes in both San Francisco and New York.  I have experienced both men and women.  I have met a lot of people into a lot of kinky stuff.  Although personally not a masochist, it certainly has given me a new perspective on life having been whipped into semi-consciousness, or having sustained real injuries from the lifestyle.  I hypothesize that Hugo Schwyzer is a submissive, whose shame prevents him from exercising his fetish, and therefore it manifests itself into his work as he describes a world he wished existed; a female dominated society.  Although Schwyzer argues that masculinity has to be changed, what he is really attempting to do is convince women to behave is such a fashion to satisfy his kink.  Such behavior in the BDSM community is called "topping from the bottom."  Because he is anti-porn, he cannot indulge his fantasy (and temporarily cure his self-described erectile dysfunction) with the aid of the much maligned and ubiquitous fantasy material so easily available to we sane people.

My opinion is also based upon my perception that he has profoundly low self esteem.  Looking at his “I may have a son” scenario, and in fact his whole “I am a recovered addict” shtick, you’ll notice that his stories of self actualization describe his prior life with examples of traditional success as a man, including bedding scores of broads.  He wants us to believe he was “the man,” that men should envy.  It also serves as a message to women who buy his bologna, “Yes, I am an exciting bad boy under this new found sheen of enlightenment.”  He attempts to imbue himself with a type of masculinity that gives romance novels their punch-lines; a bad boy reformed by the mysterious ways of women.  The problem is that his self-description is a façade.  In reality, it is much more likely that he is a conformist whose internal conflicts would better be handled by a good dominatrix.

* Castrato, as Schwyzer points out, is actually the singular form.  And he should know.

When Kloo speaks...

For a movement that has been described as “…almost completely inactive.” (David Futrelle, “Dismantling the Men’s Rights Movement,” March 9, 2011), feminist gender warriors spend a hell of a lot of time trying to down play the effectiveness of the Men’s Rights Movement (MRM) and Men’s Rights Advocates (MRA’s).  Futrelle asks, "Where's the activism?"  I do believe they doth protest too much.

Who are they trying to convince?

Needless to say, such sentiments did not convince Thomas Ball, who set himself on fire because he was “done being bullied for being a man.”   The self immolation was done in protest of the justice system. (linked citation).    Ball was described as “…sweet, gentle person, just in a lot of pain…” by a lady friend of his.  Being a sweet, gentle man who was in a lot of pain didn’t score any points in Ball’s favor with the “women firsters.”  (linked citation) 

Amanda Marcotte, a prime example of foul mouthed self promotion, actually wrote disdainfully about Ball, metaphorically spitting on him after he died.  This is a much different reaction given by, not only mainstream feminists, but many average women regarding the Catherine Kieu episode. 

Let’s put this in context.  Catherine Kieu, with malice aforethought, calculatingly drugged her husband, restrained him on his bed, waited until he woke up and only then, when he was conscious, proceeded to castrate emasculate him.  She picked up the appendage, walked over to the garbage disposal, and with malice aforethought, liquefied his penis.  Her husband’s crime?  He sought a divorce.  When the police arrived, Ms. Kieu informed the police that her now emasculated and hemorrhaging, soon to be ex-husband, “deserved it.”

Hardly a thing can be heard over the deafening sound of crickets emanating from the feminist echo-chambers about Ms. Kieu.  In fact, the main refrain of women based internet prose ask, (paraphrasing), “What in the happy couple’s history could have forced Ms. Kieu to take such drastic, yet possibly appropriate measures?”  In the parlance of feministas, feministes and feministings everywhere, the rapid turn to victim blaming is strong in this one.

Kathryn Joyce wrote in a Double X article (November 5, 2009), “’Men's Rights’ Groups Have Become Frighteningly Effective.   They’re changing custody rights and domestic violence laws.”  She touches on the evolution of the MRM  “…[L]ately they’ve become far more polished and savvy about advancing their views.”  (linked citation)

This effectiveness was displayed recently when Men’s Rights Activists forced the hosts of CBS’s “The Talk” to apologize for imprudent comments (and laughter), celebrating Catherine Kieu’s premeditated, brutal castration of her drugged, immobile husband.  The hosts, with the exception of Sara Gilbert, and the audience cheered on Ms. Kieu and her filleting ways.  The show aired on Thursday, July 14.  On June 15, MRA’s Krazie316 and Chapin’s INFERNO posted videos on youtube attacking the segment.

On July 16, a moderator (“Kloo2yoo”) of the Men’s Rights forum (called a sub-reddit –or- r/mensrights) on the social news website Reddit submitted a link to vlogger Krazie316’s video, which discussed the July 14th clip.  This was the event horizon that focused the power of the men’s right crowd toward the singularity of action that resulted in the aforementioned apology.  From the time of its posting, outrage from redditors was focused on  CBS and The Talk.  “The segment was posted to Reddit, and from there was picked up by the blogosphere. Several blogs, including, ‘No, Seriously, What About Teh Menz,’ has asked readers to write to CBS to show their displeasure.”  (liked citation)

Besides the growing and ever more sophisticated power of MRA’s, what this little episode shows is that r/mensrights is more than just a forum.  It is the focus point of much of today’s MRA information.  Women on Reddit read r/mensrights.  Feminists read r/mensrights.  David Futrelle reads r/mensrights.  It is a compiler of diverse voices in the MRM.  r/mensrights informs much of the MRM, and sets the tone of the opposition.  r/mensrights matters. 

PS:  The "apology" segment starts at 1:20 on this video.  Thanx Troll King for bringing that to my attention.

Big Sister Speaks

Sister Speak (also see Newspeak) – the deliberate impoverization of language by gender warriors of the feminist persuasion.  In an effort to wield social/political power, the aforementioned gender partisans attempt to simplify language by restricting vocabulary. The aim of such feminist thought leaders is to deflect adverse opinion and silence critics.  The enforcement mechanism ranges from the formal institutionalization of sanctions, to social ostracism.  The aim is to make any alternative thought, such as “sexism”, “ableism”, “ageism”, “heterosexism”, “classism”, “lookism”, “cis-ism”, “phallicism”, “fatism” and a profoundly long list of silly words (ending in “ism”)  ”thoughtcrimes" or "crimethink."  The concepts don’t stop at the “isms,” but continue with concepts that promote “heteronormativity.”   With the depletion of language, ideologically disallowed thoughts and expression will be impossible, by the process of removing any words or possible constructs which describe such disallowed ideas.

FUCK! Well, it happened...

Fucking Porn Wiki Leaks has my real name and my industry name, and they fucking published it.  This fucking sucks.

Profile: Michael Kimmel

Michael Kimmel is to scholarship what intelligent design is to science - a false parity of the process of inquiry.  It’s not intellectual curiosity that motivates him.  He is not interested in investigating phenomena or acquiring knowledge.  Like all people of faith, he already knows the answer.  Kimmel’s answer?  Feminism.  Feminism, with all its faith-based tenets, is the punch line to all his “scholarship.”  Yet, it is not Kimmel’s blind faith in his ideology that is disturbing.  It is that he enthusiastically vilifies a relatively powerless group of society - young men.  

Kimmel’s contempt is palpable when he writes about Doug Anglin, a former high school student who sued his high school on the premise that schools discriminate against boys.  (Kimmel, “A War Against Boys?”; Dissent Magazine, Fall, 2006.)  Kimmel writes, “And though it’s tempting to parse the statements of a mediocre high school senior…Anglin’s apparent admissions angle is but the latest skirmish of a much bigger battle in the culture wars.”  You can almost feel the hostility oozing out, as if the old man seriously considered matching wits with a seventeen year old “mediocre high school student.”  That says more about Kimmel than it does about Anglin.  What is it about Doug Anglin that is so contemptible to Kimmel?  It is enlightening to realize that Anglin shares something in common with other victims of Kimmel’s academic aspersions.

In his paper, “Global Masculinities: Restoration and Resistance” (Gender Policy Review)  Kimmel quotes sociologist Erving Goffman:

In an important sense there is only one complete unblushing male in America: a young man, married, white, urban, northern, heterosexual, Protestant, father, of college education, fully employed, of good complexion, weight, and height, and a recent record in sports.

Too young to be married, a father, or fully employed, Doug Anglin is a young, white, urban, northern, heterosexual (assumedly), of good complexion, an athletic built young man that played sports (baseball and soccer) and who sought a college education.  This, I suspect, is the real problem Kimmel has with Anglin.  Although Kimmel perfunctorily attempts to mitigate his obvious distain for his chosen subject with polite references to diversity, it is only window dressing.  Why does Kimmel spend time talking about a demographic he obviously despises?  Calling Kimmel an authority on boys and men is like calling Joseph Mengele an authority of human anatomy - even if it were true, the thought is repulsive and the pronouncement unconscionable. 

Look at his work, “Guyland; The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men.” It’s an attack on people like Anglin.  Go to the official website of Guyland.  The first image you will see is five (four on the book cover) good looking white boys who appear to be young, white, urban, heterosexual, Protestant, college kids. 

Why don’t any of these kids have stereotypically Semitic features?  I guess Jews don’t dwell in Guyland.  The image of these men appears to have been photo-shopped to feminize their lips by coloring them an unnatural, lipstick-esque, shade of red.  This is symbolically exactly what Kimmel wants for our young men, the feminization of masculinity.

In fact, Guyland is a racist assault on white young men.  “The guys that populate Guyland are mostly white, middle-class kids…Guyland rests on a bed of middle-class entitlement, a privilege sense that you are special.” (Kimmel, Michael; "Guyland; The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men," HarperCollins Books, New York, NY, 2008, pg. 8-11.)  It’s as if Kimmel is looking at these all American types and lashing out at them for being popular.  Picture Kimmel in high school; a weak, awkward, obediently studious, creep who resented the popular boys for nailing the girls of whom he would fantasize while under the covers, masturbating.  One can imagine him muttering to himself in sulky celibacy; “Don’t these girls know that still waters run deep?  If only I could get them to see my genius…”  He writes:

“What boys ‘need’… [are programs] that both honor the actual diversity on boys’ experiences – including those who are shy, like school, and/or who study hard – and interrupt the facile connection that is made between academic disinterest and masculinity.” (Kimmel, “Boys and School:  A Background Paper on the ‘Boy Crisis”, 2010, pg. 34.)

What he is saying is that we need programs to honor people like Michael Kimmel.  He appears to be the male manifestation of the quote, "There are a lot of homely women in women's studies. Preaching these anti-male, anti-sex sermons is a way for them to compensate for various heartaches -- they're just mad at the beautiful girls." Add to this frustration an unhealthy dose of mother-worship, and you may just have the adolescent cocktail that served as the impetus for his subsequent career. 

His ramblings demonstrate a man with the ego of an elephant, but the self-esteem of a cockroach.  Go to his website and read his “biography.”  The funny thing about his biography is that - it isn’t…a biography.  You learn nothing about the man, or where he comes from, or what life experiences contributed to his work.  His “biography” is a listing of his accomplishments in a sort of “I’m smart, not like everybody says” exercise in self-aggrandization.  One is stuck with the image of a balding, post middle-aged man with a creepy smile and no context with which humanize him. 

According to Kimmel, “[Y]oung men typically enter Guyland before they turn 16, and leave in their mid to late 20s…Guyland lies between the dependency and lack of autonomy of boyhood and the sacrifice and responsibility of manhood.”  (Kimmel, Michael; "Guyland; The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men," HarperCollins Books, New York, NY, 2008, pg. 8) What Kimmel is stating is that grown people of the male persuasion are not men until they “sacrifice” and take “responsibility.”  You would never expect him to say that people of the female persuasion are not women until some vague event.  He just assumes all people of a certain age with vaginas have matured into full human beings.  He does not gift the same benefit to our young men.  What does he think of young men?

The baseline from which Kimmel approaches boys is that they are sub-human.   “The most depressing four words in all educational circles these days are ‘boys will be boys.’…what we’re saying when we say ‘boys will be boys’ is boys will be violent, rapacious animals.”  I don’t know what boys he’s been hanging out with.  Those aren’t the boys I’ve seen.  God forbid we allow boys to be boys.  A central tenet of his faith is that there is something fundamentally wrong with men and manhood.  So, his work is based upon the question, “Why can’t a boy be more like a girl?” 

When Kimmel defended feminism in the context of the “boy crisis” he, like the American Association of University Women (AAUW) and Sara Mead of the Education Sector, ironically attempts to shift the focus away from gender. “Why don’t the critics acknowledge these race and class differences?” he pouts.  (Kimmel, A War Against Boys, Dissent Magazine, Fall, 2006.)  This is the same refrain put forth the AAUW and Sara Mead:

"...What has happened is that women's organizations, in an attempt to viciate the call for the fair distrubtion of resources, have played the race card and said, 'Oh, don't worry white middle America, your sons aren't doing that much worse that white girls, its only the blacks and Latinos who are woefully behind -- no problem here.' The argument is racist and patently untrue for both the interpretation of the research and the actual facts. Boys -- ALL BOYS -- regardless of income or race fare worse than girls, a reversal of fortunes that has specifically been ignored by both the media and academics, because boys are not as sypathetic as girls..."

Look at Kimmel’s own focus. He levels his distain toward one group, white boys,.  “[O]n most measures boys—at least the middle class white boys everyone seems concerned about—are doing just fine, taking their places in an unequal society to which they have always felt entitled.” (WEEA Digest, Nov. 2000).  Why doesn’t Kimmel deal with race and class?  The answer is that if the fabric of society were complex, the notion of “patriarchy” goes out the window.  “Patriarchy” is the simple minded polemic used to assign false causation to complex social phenomena, championed by gender war partisans. 

More telling than his shuck and jive with gender and race, is that fact that Kimmel is just patently dishonest.  He writes, “[Scott Adams argues] that women have overtaken men in college attendance and if the situation were reversed it would be considered a national emergency. No, it would actually be considered the Ivy League in 1965.  It wouldn't be considered anything.  It would be considered normal.”  (Salon.com interview of Kimmel, Mar. 29, 2011, “Is the Men’s Rights Movement Growing?”)  This statement ignores the fact that Harvard went co-ed in 1977; Princeton, 1969; Dartmouth, 1972; Cornell, 1870 (no, that’s not a typo); Brown, 1971; Yale, 1969; Columbia, 1983, and UPenn, fully coed by 1954; all in response to perceived inequities between the sexes.  In a 2000 version of Kimmel’s  aforementioned polemic “A War Against Boys?” for Tikkum he writes:  “And while some college presidents fret that to increase male enrollments they'll be forced to lower standards…no one seems to find gender disparities going the other way all that upsetting.”  Of course, this is flatly bullshit.  Kimmel purposefully overlooks the fact that Title IX was passed specifically because there were disparities in the education of girls.  He overlooks it because it conflicts with his disengenuous conclusion.  It’s as if the existence of Title IX never enters the equation.  When girls were down, we blamed the system and passed Title IX.  When boys are down, Kimmel blames the boys, and we’ll pretty much do nothing.

Marvin Harris argued in his work, “Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches; The Riddles of Culture,” that it is women who determine how masculinity is expressed.  “It is within their power of selective neglect to produce a sex ration heavily in favor of females over males.  It also lies within woman’s power to sabotage the development of ‘masculine’ males by rewarding little boys for being passive rather than aggressive.”  It is also generally accepted that women tend to favor masculine men.  So, what responsibility do the ladies have?  According to Kimmel, none.  Kimmel doesn’t discuss them, except to paint them as weak victims.  Although he talks a great deal about men’s “privilege," he never addresses women’s “privilege.”  My position is that being yourself is not a privilege, since I cannot control how other people treat me because of some immutable characteristic, just like it's not my fault if someone discriminates against me for the same immutable characteristic.  That being said, Kimmel’s doesn’t consider women’s macro-societal behavior, because in Kimmel’s world, women have rights, while men have responsibilities. 

Kimmel laments that college men idealize “Athletes, rock stars, and film actors who are in action movies.” (Think Tank with Ben Wattenberg transcript, July 29, 2000.)  He doesn’t tell us why they are idealized.  The answer is that athletes, rock stars and film actors tend to attract the favor of women, which gets them laid a lot.  Which brings us to the question, “Why doesn’t Kimmel discuss the sexual dynamic between young men and women?”  The answer is that, to do so, would necessarily implicate women’s complicity, or outright control, in determining what it is to be a man.  It would require an examination of the behavior of women.  Remember, Kimmel’s narrative is that men and masculinity are fundamentally flawed.  He wants to change what it means to be a man.  So ergo, according to his logic, we must change men, and do so without implicating women as a variable in the equation. 

Kimmel describes himself, thus; “I’m a sociologist and an activist who supports gender equality.”  The conflict is that he is an activist.  He is not a disinterested party.  He has an agenda.  His work is not scholarship, but propaganda based upon a collection of ridiculously ideological missives presented as science.  In the previously cited interview with Ben Wattenberg (Michael Kimmel, Christina Hoff Sommers, and the AAUW’s Susan Bailey), Kimmel begins his argument by admitting that he believes that boys and the “ideology of masculinity” are not politically correct.  He is then eviscerated by Sommers, with whom he spends the entire program agreeing, until he states, “The place where we disagree is not the observation about boys, the place where we disagree is that Christine’s book is not about boys, it’s about feminism. It’s about how feminism has distracted us, diverted us, whether willingly or not.  And that's where we disagree.”  That’s because Kimmel does not care about boys.  He cares about feminism.  Boys and men are just the victims of his applied faith.

Kimmel’s work is celebrated in feminist circles, not because it is profound (it isn’t), and not because it is interesting (it’s not), but because his propaganda confines itself within the walls of an already established belief system – a belief system so devoid of curious inquiry that false statistics, advocacy research and outrageous statements, predominately slandering men, are common place in gender discourse.

And, thus, Kimmel can argue without irony; “It’s feminists who are really ‘pro-boy’ and ‘pro-father’ – who want young boys and their fathers to expand the definition of masculinity and to become fully human.” (Kimmel, “A War Against Boys, Dissent Magazine, Fall, 2006)  Besides the fact that Kimmel is reiterating his theme that men are not fully human, this statement is troubling for its sheer dishonesty.  To have Kimmel, who spent much of his career slandering young men, tell us that he and his ilk are pro-boy is laughable. 

So what is his agenda?  Kimmel is perhaps the most esteemed of the pro-feminist male “women firsters.”  Although he talks a lot about boys and men, his real agenda is to promote women.  He writes:

“Thus any initiative to improve the condition of women must include efforts to involve men…Of course; most initiatives toward gender equality must, and will continue to focus on women’s empowerment.”  (Kimmel, “Global Masculinities: Restoration and Resistance,” Gender Policy Review)

“If Guyland could prepare young men to be better fathers, they’ll spend more time at home.  Which will free women to balance work and family.”  (http://www.guyland.net/interviews.htm)

It has been said that; “If something has a direct benefit to an individual or a class of people, and a theoretical, abstract, or amorphous benefit to everybody else, realize that the proponent’s intentions are to benefit the former, not the latter, no matter what bullshit they try to feed you.”

To apply that to Kimmel’s bullshit; If something (feminism) has a direct benefit to an individual or a class of people (women), and a theoretical, abstract, or amorphous benefit to everybody else (men), realize that the proponent’s (Kimmel’s) intentions are to benefit the former (women), not the latter (men), no matter what bullshit (feminism) they (Kimmel) try to feed you.

So, we understand that “changing the definition of manhood,” and all that entails will result in freeing and empowering women, but, what is the benefit for the guys?  He never articulates it, because he doesn’t care.

To illustrate, let’s mosey over to Kimmel’s “Why Men Should Support Gender Equity”: 

“But why should men participate in the movement for gender equality?  Simply put, I believe that these changes among men will actually benefit men, and that gender equality is not a loss for men, but an enormous positive thing…” 

He goes on to spend eleven pages not talking about any benefits for men.  When he finally does address the actual issue of the paper, he does so thus:

“We, as men, should support gender equality – both at work and at home.  Not because it’s right and fair and just – although it is those things.  But because of what it will do for us, as men.  At work, it means working to end sexual harassment, supporting family-friendly workplace policies, working to end the scourge of date and acquaintance rape, violence and abuse that terrorize women in our societies.  At home it means sharing housework and childcare, as much because our partners demand it as because we want to spend that time with our children and because housework is a rather conventional way of nurturing and loving.” 

It is obvious that Kimmel wants to shape boys into his own image; weak, studious, and uninspired.  “…boys can be raised to be competent and compassionate, ambitious and attentive, and that men are fully capable of love, care and nurturance.”  (Kimmel, “A War Against Boys?”; Dissent Magazine, Fall, 2006.) In other words, boys should be molded into neo-males,  "...a bland, conformist, and unimaginative group of males, for which the term “man” is too strong a word."

Thus, he tells us that the benefit to men of feminism is that men can promote women, which just so happens to be Kimmel’s aforementioned agenda.

White Female Privilege? Blame the patriarchy. (This is my last post - at least for a while)

This is my last post on the Good Womyn Project.  Although attacking inequality is fun, it is too much work for me.  I am going to go back to my navel gazing on my blog, fauxwhore.com.  If you have any questions, drop a line. <3 xoxoxoxoxox. 


Andrea Plaid posted a piece over at the blog racialicious in which she argues that there is such a thing as White Female Privilege.  Needless to say, that went over like a lead Zeppelin in certain circles.  The canvas on which she paints her argument is the inappropriate, though I would argue excusable, tirade of Alexandra Wallace.  As a side note, I would have made it a "teachable moment" for Ms. Wallace, instead of delivering death threats.  But, of course, I'm an adult.  As Edward Lee, Professor of Law at Chicago-Kent School of Law, wrote, "...While Wallace has no one to blame for the notoriety from her offensive video except herself, we do have to remember that she is a college student. There's perhaps no other population that is as prone to saying or doing inappropriate or embarrassing things as college students..." 

Andrea Plaid bullet points a number of examples of said "privilege".  Of course, I argue that being yourself is not a privilege, since I cannot control how other people treat me because of some immutable characteristic.  I have no more obligation to "check my privilege" than I do to apologize for myself - which is none at all.   That being said, Ms. Plaid quotes Arturo Garcia as stating, "After all, there’s a certain sector who’s perfectly willing to forgive/accept her views because she’s ‘hot.’"  I argue that the vitriolic reaction Wallace received was a result of the fact that she "...visually presents as the physical and sexual ideal of the 'all-American' blonde white girl-next-door..."  In other words, this is the exact opposite of White Female Privilege.  This is the White Female Burden.

Alexandra Wallace got metaphorically raped BECAUSE she was a pretty white girl.  It's the same phenomenon that happened to Carrie Prejean when she stated during the 2009 Miss USA pageant that she was against gay marriage.  When progressives are confronted with an opposing opinion, and that opinion is delivered by a person like Wallace, or Prejean, the sparks fly.  Because beautiful blondes are so sympathetic, it enrages those who oppose their opinions.  It's a form of jealous revenge - to tear down those whose lives seem so much better than our own for offending us, or saying something with which we disagree.

The reason I am writing this piece is not to be a Wallace apologist, but to point out the funny comments that occur after the Plaid piece on racialicious.com and on feministe.us, where the piece is discussed.  In those venues, the concept of "White Male Privilege" is not controversial.  But, Whoa hoo!!!!  White Female Privilege?

Luke Blue (racialicious):  "...I definitely see the ways this privilege functions/manifest *differently* for white women than for white men, but I think that difference is often about women in general having lower status in society than men due to patriarchy/misogyny etc....I equally firmly believe that dubbing a use of white privilege into which is enfolded a big fat submission to male supremacy (check out all those dumb little girl "like"s and don't-hurt-me-i'm-fragile giggles) is counterproductive and fogs a clear vision of where power really rests in our society. "

Sara (feministe & racialicious):  "Here’s my question:  Why call it “white female privilege?” White men also have a sense of entitlement when they’re saying crazy shit.  I’m not sure the tendency to “forgive”/ignore her views because she’s “hot” is a form of privilege. It seems like the same phenomenon we see when progressive views are “forgiven”/ignored in favor of attention to the speaker’s body."

LoriA (feministe):  "I’m with you, Sara. White privilege is absolutely a thing and every white person has it regardless of gender. But any sort of female privilege is just benevolent sexism that actually functions to hinder women and further the patriarchy. There were several examples of this that Plaid listed in the article that had me shaking my head like crazy..."

And LoriA again, as LoriA89 (racialicious):  "...Look, I'm all with you on the existence of white privilege, and I have that even though I'm female. But a specific kind of white female privilege? It makes exactly as much sense as the MRA-authored female-privilege lists, which repurpose benevolent sexism as something that actually benefits women. That is to say, it makes no sense."

Bellereve (feministe): "Agreed – it’s white privilege, not 'white female privilege.'"