You know what I haven’t done for a while? That’s right — rip some MRA’s screed to shreds. To be fair, I’ve been busy, what with the election, and the fact that MRAs have that deep well of anger that makes each one of their posts into a billion-word screed, which is daunting. Still, these articles aren’t going to fisk themselves. So let’s see what’s on Men’s News Daily….
All right! Here’s a good one by the aptly named Angry Harry. It’s sheer genius, if by sheer genius one means the most crazy thing I’ve read since I read the transcripts of Sarah Palin’s interview with Katie Couric. Its title?
Why Governments Love Feminism
Stop laughing — young Master Harold’s argument is that governments actually love feminism, which explains why the Bush Administration has embraced pro-woman policies like limiting access to birth control and banning D&X abortions. Because governments love feminism!
But why? Why do governments love feminism so much? Well, first, let’s define feminism as something it isn’t.
Feminism has very little to do with equality between the genders, and it also has very little to do with the rights of women.
That’s right, feminism is actually a brand of skin cream. Who knew?
First and foremost, feminism is about various groups seeking to acquire power and money, and to build huge self-serving empires in which millions – literally millions – of people nowadays have a vested interest – a vested interest that is, in fact, highly detrimental to those societies in which these people operate.
To be fair, this is true. Approximately 150 million women in the United States alone have a vested interest in feminism allowing them to have a rough level of legal equality. And it’s detrimental to the society as a whole, except the opposite.
But why does the government love this crazy system of working to allow men and women to choose their own destinies? To understand, let’s engage in an overly simplistic and easily refuted thought experiment:
To see how their game is played, I just want you to imagine a society – a somewhat idealised society – wherein the women are happy to spend their days being closely associated with their homes and their children, while the young men and the fathers are reasonably happy to troop off to the workplace – wherever this might be.
And, further, I want you to imagine that most of the people in this society are mostly quite content with their situation.
In other words, it is a reasonably happy place.
And then I’d like you to imagine that the people who aren’t content with their situation are simply beaten until they shut up. And since nobody’s complaining, everything’s wonderful!
And now the question that I want you to contemplate very deeply is this one.
What’s in it for government?
Well…accepting arguendo that the fake world you describe ever could exist, I’d say that the government benefits by having a relatively stable and orderly society, which will work well to churn out workers for the coal mines and soldiers for our nation’s glorious armies, which will crush our licentious enemies.
How can government – and government workers – benefit from having to exist within a society of people who seem to be quite happy and at peace with each other?
Uh…they don’t have to break up fisticuffs?
On what grounds can the government say to the people, “You need more government. Give us more tax money.”
Oh! Well, let’s see, they would use it to build roads, fund police departments, raise armies, educate children, provide health care and social services, build parks, fund the judicial system, build jails, fund libraries, and, you know, do all the other things that governments do.
All right! Well, we’ve answered Harry’s question, so now…
Well, clearly, in such an idyllic society, it would be very difficult indeed to persuade the people to part with more of their own resources – acquired through their own labours – in order to fund ‘more government’.
However, if this reasonably happy society can be disrupted by some force or other – some force that induces ‘disharmony’ within the population – an increase in crime, say – then the government will find it much easier to extract a bigger piece of the society’s pie. For example, if there is an increase in crime, the people will far more readily agree to fund a bigger police force. If the men and women start fighting against each other, and begin to split apart, with married couples getting divorced, then the government can justify extracting further resources from the people in order to create a larger social services workforce to look after the women and children who are now on their own.
Aha! So feminism is the cause of all evil in society, no matter what! Because everyone knows that crime didn’t exist prior to the 1960s. Indeed, no government existed at all before evil ol’ feminism caused divorce, but evidently didn’t allow women to work because…something.
And the point that I am trying to get across here is this.
You’re a complete moron?
Governments benefit not by the people being at peace with each other, but by them being at war with each other in some way.
Wow, man, that’s deep. And incredibly, incredibly stupid. I know MRAs have this big crossover with libertarian douchebaggery, but in reality, governments are instituted by people, at least in liberal democracies, of which America is one. And those governments have a vested interest in not having to do too much, because the people, bless our flinty hearts, have a tendency not to want to pay too much in taxes, you know, ever, which leaves our government perpetually cash-strapped. Except for the Pentagon.
Of course, governments can benefit from many other things too, but the point here is this. Governments clearly benefit from what I shall henceforth simply call ‘disharmony’ – societal disharmony; such as crime.
And again, there was no crime before feminism! Damn you women and your two pillars of feminism. Basic equality with men — okay. But that long part where you advocate committing crimes — that’s been nothing but trouble.
And because governments have massive power in comparison to ordinary individuals, they will tend to use this power to create more and more societal disharmony – with much success. Of course they will do this. Why? Well, because governments, and millions of government workers, benefit from disharmony, and they are not going to use their huge collective force to undermine themselves – which reducing ‘disharmony’ would do.
Which explains, among other things, why police routinely encourage murders, why schools teach our students that violence solves everything, and why the EPA poisons people.
Well, actually that last one might be happening under the Bush Administration, but you get my point.
At the very least, government workers do not want to lose their funding, their jobs, their security, their pensions etc etc etc. And so they need to be perceived to be needed.
Better still for them, are bigger empires with bigger salaries, and much more status and power.
After all, in this respect, they are no different from anyone else!
And, collectively, by hook or by crook, these government workers can, and will, create the most monumental force in order to get these various benefits for themselves; a force that the people simply cannot counter.
Indeed, it would be bordering on the preposterous to believe that such an enormous body of government workers would not exert a force in a direction from which they, themselves, would benefit.
After all, these people are not gods. They are human beings!
And by human beings, Harry means that they’re evil, and that they choose to go into government service and get those lucrative five-figure salaries and all the stock options that the government usually offers, all so that they can systematically destroy society from within. It’s all coming into focus now.
In a nutshell: These government workers want bigger empires with bigger salaries and bigger pensions. They want more status and more power. And, collectively, they will exert such a huge force that no-one can actually stop them from getting these things; as the monumental growth in government over the past 120 years or so in the west has clearly shown. (Central governments have grown more than one hundred-fold over the past 120 years.)
The last 120 years? Why, you’d almost think growth in central government had nothing to do with feminism, but instead things like our radically higher standard of living and radically larger population! But no, it’s probably all about the government using feminism to build torture centers at Guantanamo Bay.
Now, because the main aim of feminists is to create as much disharmony as possible between men and women in order to fund their own empires, governments just love them; because, remember; for governments, the more disharmony, the better.
Wait — because I’ve been lulled to sleep by Harry’s rambling, repetitive tripe, I missed the part where he showed that feminists were actually out to create disharmony. You know, with any statements or evidence or stuff. Let me go back and read here…
Well, I’ll be darned — there isn’t any evidence! Why, it’s almost as if Harry’s just come up with some random strawfeminist jackholery to serve as the perfect foil to his fictitious government that doesn’t act like any government on earth. But I’m sure Men’s News Daily wouldn’t publish something like that! Not with their high standards!
So let us return to our rather over-simplified society, and see what happens when married couples with children within this reasonably-happy place start more often to divorce and to separate.
Well, typically, the men will go off and live on their own somewhere, but they will continue working. The women, however, will have to choose some combination of going out to work and staying at home with the children.
Because obviously, men wouldn’t want to raise the children, and women wouldn’t let men do that. And men and women never would do something as crazy as work together to adjust schedules so that kids were taken care of. That’s impossible!
If the women decide to stay at home, then they must be given a source of income by the government. This means that the government must take away money from others in order to fund them. And, already, this means creating a whole system of laws involving lawyers, judges, administrators, social assessors, financial offices and various allied bureaucratic systems.
In other words, divorce and separation provide a whole plethora of benefits for governments and their workers.
This is, of course, true, except for the majority of cases where women do in fact work, because, you know, they live in a society where women are allowed to work full-time. It’s strange, I wonder how that happened?
Furthermore, of course, no-one in the population wants to see women and children left destitute, and so government now gets the benefit of some further popular support for its endeavours. Thus, the government also wins on this score.
And, of course, the women who are put into this position with their children are now at the mercy of the government.
In other words, they become dependent on the government; which is also great for government.
“If you women do not vote for us, then you will get a smaller income from the government!”
This, in turn, explains why the rest of society is happy to keep voting for this bizarre, threatening government that doesn’t let women work, because of feminism.
Now, of course, women who have divorced – whether or not they have children – might instead decide to go out to work; in which case the government wins yet again – because it now has more workers from whom it can take money through the tax system.
In other words, encouraging divorce and separation is a winning strategy for government.
Indeed, it is win-win all the way.
Exactly, because no woman would choose to work while married; that never happens, am I right, ladies? And the government will need that tax money to pay for all the women who aren’t working, because they are working and now they have money to pay for them not working so they can get the money from their work and now I’ve gone cross-eyed.
And, most importantly, this remains true whether or not the women have children, and whether or not they go out to work. It is the growing division between men and women that is the key to the government’s winning strategy.
And government loves division between men and women, given that the government is an entity much like the Yeti or the Blancmange, completely alien to humanity, and not, in fact, a large and diverse organization made up of human beings.
In summary, therefore, government has an enormous amount to gain by increasing the divide between men and women, because this enables government workers to justify the creation and the controlling of many large empires, they can more easily extract higher taxes, they can tax more people, they can make more people dependent upon them, and they can gain themselves some extra popular support.
Wow. That’s just an incredibly stupid article, one that has no rational basis, one that invokes that most famous of philosophical arguments, “If A=B, and B=C, then A=Feminists are Evil.” And I’m just glad it’s done.
But this is just the beginning.
Wait — what?
Many, many further benefits accrue to the government when the close relationships between men and women are broken apart. For example, the negative social consequences of not having strong fathers around their children are positively huge. These tend to impact most directly on boys, but the repercussions reverberate across the whole of society – for decades. For example, youngsters – both girls and boys – without fathers in the home are far more likely to …
… live in poverty and deprivation, … be troublesome in school, … have more difficulty getting along with others, … have more health problems, … suffer from physical, emotional and/or sexual abuse, … run away from home, … get sexual diseases, … become teenage parents, … offend against the law, … smoke, drink alcohol and take drugs, … play truant from school, … be excluded from school, … behave violently, … give up on education at an early age, … make poor adjustments to adulthood, … attain little in the way of qualifications, … experience unemployment, … have low incomes, … be on welfare, … experience homelessness, … go to jail, … suffer from long term emotional and psychological problems, … engage only in casual relationships, … have children outside marriage or, indeed, outside any partnership.
Indeed, a whole cascade of social problems – i.e. a great deal of ‘disharmony’ – is generated by the effects of youngsters not having fathers around.
Oh my God, he’s not done, is he? He’s still arguing the same claptrap he was before, only moreso.
But, clearly, governments benefit fantastically from this; because governments can use these enormous problems to justify even further increases in both taxes and power.
After all, the people want to be protected from all the negative social consequences of fatherlessness – and, of course, the victims themselves could clearly do with a bit of extra help.
It’s not fair — he’s now leapt into an insane universe where the breakdown of society is good for government because a broken society makes government bigger, and hey, government isn’t part of society, right? And in a democratic society, the breakdown in society wouldn’t lead government to, say, lose badly in the next election, because…who knows? He’s now completely jumped the rails of reality and gone off into another word entirely.
I’ll save you the 3500 (not kidding) more words in which he spins his obviously insane argument into proof that feminism is the cause of global warming, immigration is a secret government plot, and governments are actively working to make marriage more difficult. Okay, that last one may have some merit when talking about California, but I don’t think Grumpy Harold is talking about gay couples.
All I know is that feminism is far worse than I ever thought it could be. Here I thought it was a philosophy that said men and women should have equal opportunites. Little did I know that it also was the lynchpin in making ours a communist society. You might have mentioned that, ladies. Oh well.
Oh No! HE CAUGHT US!
/snark
and now I’ve gone cross-eyed
I almost fell out of my chair laughing at this.
But y’know Jeff, its kinda unfair to do this to these poor MRAs. They obviously have zero handle on reality or logic. Its like kicking a no legged dog just because he’s got a biting problem.
I recommend muzzles.
That was horrifying, yet fun. The blancmange really made it sing.
And now I must go back to wreaking disharmony on society by being not only a feminist but…a government worker! (Married, with kids. Not sure how that makes me more evil, but it must somehow. )
Thanks for that! The MRA cult leader of reddit.com, pn6 submitted that article to the “egalitarian” section of reddit. What a hypocrit.
So I’ve submitted this article in response. Here’s the opening comment I’ve placed along with it.
I think this sort of thing was what initially caused me to become very, very confused by libertarians; that is, I took them at their word when they talked about government being bad. But it’s just the standard libertarian technique of redefining your terms to fit your goals. See, when Bush did all that, he wasn’t actually running “the government”. Same with the torture and disappearances. It’s only “the government” when he disagrees with it; I’d wager that it’s “America” when he’s enjoying its actions.
I just want to say i love the voice in your writing…it’s pointedly sarcastic, yet effective in countering the idiotic points of an obviously ignorant man (and you use this against other morons, and i love it).
but seriously, i did not know we were so evil. no one told me that believing in equality would also be the downfall of civilization, and probably also include the kicking of puppies and the eating of unborn fetuses.
brain…about…to…explode. Ah, there we go. Must get back to my empire-building as a highly paid public employee. Must maximize power and status. As a woman, it’s my own special way of living off the government.
Jeff, I want to say this in the politest way I can, but I simply don’t think this post and those like it are up to the standard I’ve come to expect at Alas. Some of the best posts on, for example, MRAs here have begun by taking the best arguments MRAs have made and then tried to pick them them apart critically. When I read this, I feel that you’ve deliberately chosen a weak, ridiculous MRA post in order to ‘rip it to shreds’. I understand the urge to take this sort of tack; I’ve felt it myself. But I think it isn’t helpful. I think that where a lot of your posts are coming from is a position of absolutism – you see nothing but a huge chasm between ‘our’ (progressive, leftist) opinions and ‘theirs’ (MRAs, Republicans, free marketeers). But what I’ve tried to make myself realise is that such a stance eliminates both logical nuance and empathy, and those aren’t things one wants to be in the habit of setting down when they become burdensome.
Part of this is a question of audience, and part of it isn’t. It seems to me that this and many others of your posts are talking to an ‘in’ group, to people who already agree with you in large part. This post isn’t written for MRAs to read and realise where they’ve gone wrong. It’s for those who identify as non-MRAs to read and feel pleased that they are not employing such weak arguments.
Now, this site has a long history of posts and discussion that are intended for a particular audience primarily. But compare this to another post where comments are marked feminists/womanists only. Those posts are valuable because they allow feminists/womanists to focus on the differences between them – to say all right, we agree on these basic things, so let’s not argue about them or waste time defending them but get right on to thrashing things out at a further level of specificity. This post, by contrast, invites feminists/womanists to experience the unity of being in the in-group rather than the out-group. We’re to be pleased that we are not them. And the pleasures of not being one of them are seductive but very dangerous.
I’m sure if I ever get around to writing more than the odd blog comment this comment will come back to haunt me. But I hope it does. Political writing does carry responsibilities, and something I’ve always liked about this blog was that it seemed to have a culture of being mindful of those responsibilities. That’s comparatively rare in the blogosphere, and it would be a great shame if it were to change.
Harold spins out a vision of a universe of the all vs. Harold, filled with courts and social workers and (gag) women, all out to trip him up in their rules and demands and disharmonious tendencies to harsh his mellow.
There is always the possibility that when everyone seems to be against you, it’s because you’re a tremendous asshole. But we can’t have that thought.
Oh dear, after reading that and his diatribe on how feminists cause global warming I have to say that it sounds like his wife left him, got the money she deserved and he just can’t wrap his head around why.
I really find this argument both silly and unfathomable. It’s okay to respond to people, but only the best people. Otherwise, you’re an intellectual bully.
This argument usually seems to be brought out against atheists when we say “but, the evidence clearly is against a prayer-granting God.”
“Oh, that’s an unsophisticated argument,” come the retorts, “Argue against something sophisticated, you know, like this thing that no one actually believes in practice, but which holds up better under logical scrutiny.”
Like it or not, this dude’s ideas are out there. They probably represent more than just his ideas. Are they stupid? Sure are. Does that mean one should simply pretend he and his ideas don’t exist? Why would that be beneficial?
And you’ve highlighted the reasons why being “not one of them” are dangerous, but neglected to note that feminists are a group because we share similar beliefs. It should be inevitable that periodically this would be reaffirmed.
*
On another note, the concept of “the standards of Alas.”
Let me put it this way: Jeff Fecke is generous in his willingness to participate in our community. When he accepted our invitation to post on the blog, he didn’t agree to alter his posting style or his sense of humor or meet any standards. Jeff has as much role in defining the standards of Alas, as this point, as Barry does. So I’d appreciate it if you’d disagree with what he does on its own merits, rather than comparing his actions to a non-existent authority.
I totally have to disagree with Acheman on this one. I’ve been reading alas for almost two years now (beginning with an assignment in my intro to women’s studies class at Adrian College that required all of us to follow a blog for a semester, and i’ve been hooked ever since), and i look forward to all the posts. jeff fecke is a wonderful writer, and as a writer he is allowed to choose what to write about, and how to write about it. from my perspective, he finds something that pisses him off, and writes about it. his style and voice are used effectively to make his point, and it’s certainly entertaining to read. keep doing what you’re doing, Jeff.
Mandolin is breaking my heart. I mean, I’m glad you don’t feel a burning desire to argue against everybody’s religion. But you’re basically giving no believer anywhere credit for any sophisticated thinking ever. And current practice by a lot of believers around the world, not to mention a lot of historical thought, really does refute that.
I recognize Acheman’s arguments as having merit in many contexts, but I don’t think they in anyway prove that Jeff shouldn’t shred stupid arguments on this blog.
If the poster had made a good argument we could debate it. We could look specifically at certain practices related to child support collection and see how they don’t serve society as intended. Maybe. Hypothetically. But this argument is is made out of holes, so we can’t have that discussion. We shouldn’t only attack our weak opponents. We shouldn’t only attack our strong opponents. We should attack all of them as best we can.
Mandolin, I don’t think Jeff is being an intellectual bully, nor do I think it’s necessary always to respond only to the very strongest arguments. But I think it’s important to be aware of why you’re writing. Sometimes, for example, it’s necessary to respond to weak arguments which come up again and again or to weak arguments which were made in such prominent places that people may mistake them for strong ones. And often it’s necessary to respond to weak arguments that are made to you directly. But I don’t really see what purpose this rebuttal serves other than to draw the line between an us and them. Jeff made it clear during the election that he thought that was about teams, and making sure your team won, whatever it took. I’m uncomfortable with that, and I’m even more uncomfortable seeing it extended to feminism.
I agree that it’s sometimes really important for feminists to focus on what they share, and there have been some great posts on Alas which really seemed to me to accomplish that – your wonderful ‘Feminism is not your expectation’ post springs to mind as a very fine example. The difference is that those posts talked about what was important to feminism/womanism itself, not on the unity that comes from seizing upon our opponents’ weaknesses and magnifying them.
I’m sorry that I didn’t phrase my remark about the ways in which Jeff differs from other members of Alas more carefully. Part of the problem is that this is, at bottom, a values-and-priorities question; I think certain things are of great importance, and in the past I’ve found this to be one of the few places on the internet where those things are also held to be of great importance. Jeff thinks that they are important too, but not as important as other things. My things might be roughly described by terms like ‘respect’ and ’empathy’ and ‘openness’ and ‘having a critical stance’. The things he places above them could probably be roughly described by terms like ‘passion’ and ‘togetherness’ and ‘certainty’. I’m aware that this is the kind of difference that it’s difficult, though not always impossible, to have a rational discussion about. For me at least, I believe, it’s more than a mere preference, but I don’t really think I’ll have the space or the time here to present it other than as a mere preference.
Acheman,
But I don’t really see what purpose this rebuttal serves other than to draw the line between an us and them.
Any rebuttal serves the purpose of demonstrating why someone’s argument is wrong. If it is not a true rebuttal, but instead a battle against a strawman version of someone’s argument, it lacks purpose. But I don’t think this is a strawman version of the argument; Jeff seems to be quoting from almost the entire thing.
I admit that extended sarcasm isn’t my idea of the best way to rebutt someone, but then again most people find me excessively earnest, while several Alas readers think Jeff is funny, and there should be a place for humor in political argument. The Daily Show and Colbert Report often take a sarcastic attitude toward a political argument, yet are effective in rebutting it by demonstrating how absurd it is. I tend toward a more literal, legalistic attitude (sarcasm in legal practice seems to be reserved mostly for judges), but I don’t consider others’ attitudes to be of less value in an informal discussion space such as this blog.
This actually tends to be what I’m interested in, too.
Barry, on the other hand, is very interested in arguing with people whose beliefs are the total inverse of his — which I find deadly dull. I don’t see much point in arguing with a hard-and-fast MRA or anti-feminist, for effectively the same reason I don’t want to argue with a neo-Nazi. There’s nothing to discuss — no movement, no new ideas, no consciousness cracking open — just a lot of demoralizing naysaying.
On the other hand, I’m very interested in discussing things with other feminists who I disagree with. I feel like I learn a lot from those discussions, and occasionally also come closer toward establishing positions that are good for people who want to be allies to each other.
That’s sort of what I “get off on” in terms of intellectual discussion. I’m not a radfem, but I love reading Twisty Faster. I love reading the positions that are not-quite-mine — and part of the reason I love it is because I think that often the differences between things like branches of feminism/womanism are created not by actual concrete gaps, but by simple shifts in the way people are looking at / emphasizing things. I strongly suspect that both anti-porn and sex-pos feminisms can be integrated under the same theoretical construct, if only someone can get a distant enough point of view to figure out what that construct should be.
Anyway. That’s me, and that’s what my primary interest is in blogging — which is probably why I spend more time reading than writing, and then tend to make my comments late in any discussion or blogwar.
But I’m also very much a fan of the idea that there *should* be multiple ways of doing any sort of political action, and that the only way political action can be acheived is with a sort of constellation effect of different techniques and personalities and preferences. I support environmentalism, but it’s not my focus; that’s why I love my friends who are going back to school so they can help implement new green technologies. Together, with our different focuses, we provide a stronger coalition.
I want to talk to other feminists. Barry wants to talk to people with opposing viewpoints. Our preferences clash — particularly in terms of blog moderation, since it tends to be the case that when you have more of the opponents around, the feminists tend to wander off to other climes, which means I don’t always get the discussion I want here — but I still think that, together, our different focuses do strengthen each other.
And likewise, sarcasm and snark strengthens a place that focuses on academically toned arguments. So think I.
“Mandolin is breaking my heart. I mean, I’m glad you don’t feel a burning desire to argue against everybody’s religion. But you’re basically giving no believer anywhere credit for any sophisticated thinking ever. And current practice by a lot of believers around the world, not to mention a lot of historical thought, really does refute that.”
I was short-handing. I acknowledge that I short-handed in an offensive way, which I was more or less aware of at the time I pushed submit.
More or less, there may be any number of people who believe in sophisticated god-concepts, and I’m pleased you’re out there — really, I am — but most people in the US at least do seem to believe in an interventionist God, and so I always find it weird when the response to “we can reasonably expect at this point that there is no interventionist God” is “stop picking on the people who say there is one. After all, they’re making illogical arguments.” Well, but… the illogical arguments are still out there, and still carry a lot of weight and force in various arenas.
As, unfortunately, the idea that the nuclear family is the definition of awesome still persists, and still carries a lot of weight and force.