We've had some shocking
examples of misogyny and hatred towards women just recently.
There was the mayor of
the Japanese city of Osaka, Toru Hashimoto, mansplaining his way
through a cock-eyed argument of how the (awful) WWII system of
“comfort women” employed in Japan was “necessary”. Right
dude, so it was OK to force a bunch of women into sex slavery to
please an army of barbaric nationalists who didn't know when they
were beaten? I don't think so. Japan, for such a progressive country,
actually has quite a bit of misogyny, it is surprising to me.
The city of Oxford in
the UK (worryingly close to where I live, it is scary!) has just seen
the conviction of a group of Asian Muslim men for running a horrific
paedophile sex ring, exploiting young white girls for their own
illegal pleasures. And we have the Muslim preachers who are enabling
them with their attitudes, then once they are convicted, do a 180 and
suddenly say it's all so wrong and how ashamed they are of these
guys. Sorry if I don't feel too credulous of that, dudes. In fairness
though, the author of the piece below is a more sensible Muslim Imam
and he makes a lot of sense.
I feel fairly secure in
stating that Ariel Castro is a vile misogynist who we should lock up,
and throw away the key. This is the douchebag who kidnapped three
young women and held them prisoner in his home in Clevelend, Ohio,
for 10 years, beating, abusing, starving and raping them. One of the
women even bore his child. I shudder to think of all the things he
must have done over those 10 years. He could have raped them hundreds
of times! It is just too sick to even think about. Thankfully his
victims, Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight, amazingly
survived the ordeal. But they may never fully recover. I really hope
they “throw the book” at this Castro bastard. But his arsehat
lawyer is typically blinkered and only sees how his client has been
“misrepresented”. Sheesh.
All dreadful cases of
abuse towards women, by men. And this is after the ongoing Operation
Yewtree has revealed a seemingly never ending legion of “famous
faces” (read: privileged white guys) who systematically sexually
abused women and children (boys and girls) at their own leisure.
Some things never
change, although they plainly need to. Hence Feminism.
But not according to
some people. No, “geniuses” like Justin Vacula of Skeptic Ink in
the US and Tom Robbins of the Bristol Tab newspaper in the UK, want
to allow this sort of thing to continue by arguing that women are
doing feminism all wrong and ruining equality. In fact, I'm not even
sure these guys want equality at all.
How dare he. How dare
he have the arrogance to make such an assertion? Let us examine his
“logic”. He claims that laws are the answer to equality, and
wanting to change attitudes is “silly”. Apparently:
- Laws comes first - This argument assumes that the motivation for the required change already exists amongst the lawmakers. But generally, these people are so disconnected from the lives of normal people that they only see the need to act when there is a large weight of opinion (the Zeitgeist) intent on change, directed at them from people they listen to.
- Attitudes only change over the course of generations. I have to assume that the guy has never heard of the Zeitgeist! This may be true at the societal level, but a normal individual could change their mind based on a single experience. And convert enough individuals, and you affect society and the Zeitgeist. The thing is, even if he were right, and he isn't, it would STILL be worth fighting to change attitudes to garner benefits 10s of years down the line.
So “laws” are the
answer to everything right? Wrong. I've heard similar arguments from
privileged guys before. There are plenty of examples of where the law
is inadequate (loopholes) or even wrong (where to start?), and even
more importantly, it is privileged individuals who affect what laws
are adopted, not society as a whole. Sometimes you need to do what is
right, even if it's not within the letter of the law. This is where
the spirit of the law, and the spirit of justice and change come into
play.
The House of Lords
ultimately controls new laws hoping to be passed into statute. But
among the Lords, (a pretty un-diverse group, mostly men by the way)
are the type of privileged individuals who are unlikely to ever let
laws that feminists would like to see, be passed by their House:
either because they don't benefit from them, or they can't see the
bonus from their ivory towers.
His example of the
Civil Rights movement in America taking 44 years to elect a black
President, therefore laws lead to attitude change, is only
superficially convincing. Sure, long exposure to a new way of living
enforced by law helps, but there has to be enough of a catalyst
strengthened by indignation at bad treatment (in this case, slavery)
to set up the desire for the law to change in the first place. I
suppose we are meant to think that the racist discrimination was so
bad that there were no viable black Presidential candidates for 44
years. But it may not just have been civil rights that caused this,
but money. You need a lot of it to succeed in politics in America,
and getting your long-deserved rights doesn't necessarily help
financially. I think pressure into equalising wage structures faster
for black people, may have resulted in a black President sooner, if
that is to be our measure of success.
So Au contraire,
Robbins. Changing attitudes to a certain tipping point is a necessary
precursor to changing the law where that desire does not already
exist. And it doesn't, because of the Patriarchy, which Robbins is
demonstrably a part of.
Robbins just doesn't
“get it”. If he wants to learn how to help equality, he should
listen to feminists, not give opinions as a man and expect to be
listened to. Such a classic example of mansplaining I have
rarely seen.
By the way, for more
hilarious examples of ridiculous mansplaining, see here
And that guy Vacula the
“brave hero”. He is now saying:
“I fail to see how refusing to believe in God leads to the ‘logical conclusion’ of abandoning the belief that women exist to serve men.”
What can I say? I was
going to launch into a tirade of sarcasm about how awful that last
statement is, but it would be pretty incoherent (“OK so what's new
there”, I hear you say) as I'm just so lost for words! I'll just
settle for saying the notion that “women exist to serve men” is
BLATANT MISOGYNY. Wow.
In the film Star Wars
Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith, one of my favourite scenes is where
Palpatine is talking to a young Anekin Skywalker, before he becomes
all Darth Vader-fied. Discussing the gifts of the Dark Side,
Palpatine expounds “The Dark Side of the Force is pathway to many
abilities some consider to be unnatural”. Anekin then asks “Is it
possible to learn this power?” and in a classic movie line reply,
Palpatine simply answers: “Not
from a Jedi” in an incredibly creepy way.
I think there might be
a parallel here: between The Dark Side, the deluded mansplainings of
Robbins and the kind of Bronze-Aged “Skeptic” Masculinity that
Vacula offers. I'll let you piece it all together. But in this
analogy, feminists are Jedis, and allies their apprentices. Now that
is a very cool thought.
No comments:
Post a Comment