The most fascinating part of feminism is when you boil it down how incredibly vacuous it is. It is an unthinking grab for power, a mindless reaction against a nameless discontent. A recent article in The Huffington Post demonstrated this perfectly. Cute Kid Note Of The Day: Why Being A Girl Is Wonderful An eight year old girl was given a writing assignment:
Being a female is a great gift to the universe. Here are a few wonderful things about being a girl…
The girl’s father was so proud of her response that he scanned it and uploaded it on Reddit*. I can only imagine that he wept tears of girlpower joy while he did so. I haven’t interviewed him, but if I did I’m guessing his response would be something to the effect of**:
You try to teach your kids right, but you always wonder… Does she know she has a vagina? And boobs? That she is smart and can get a job? That these things give her power and make her a gift to the universe? When something like this comes along it is so incredible because now you know, yes, she really does!
Proof of the vapidity of feminism is the Huffington Post description of the girl as “One very wise 8-year-old”. What wisdom? I don’t fault the girl; she did a great job parroting back what has been fed to her, and boiled feminism down to essentially a set of bullet points. It isn’t her fault that when one does this it looks suspiciously like a manosphere parody of feminism. To be fair, what else was she supposed to say? What else is feminism preparing young women for but to be just like men (even though they can’t be), only with vaginas, boobs, and the ability to become pregnant?
*Reddit often has some very funny comments. I thought the first two responses in this thread were particularly good.
**For the satire impaired that was not an actual quote from the 8 year old girl’s father.
What would be better for a daughter in the long run:
Actively attempting to counter-act her feminist indoctrination from the beginning (she’s 3, and I have custody 50% of the time) or,
Waiting until she’s older and has a better understanding of things to attempt to change her mind once she’s capable of seeing the wrong in what she’s been taught?
I would almost feel bad for girls if it wasn’t for this kind of attitude most of them have.
Stupendous! Raising the next generation of entitled princesses.
It’s a spoof – both the heading and the body are (I’d say) written by the same person – the body is far too well written for an eight year old.
Two things:
1. I’m stealing “satire impaired” for a new UMan disclaimer.
2. Had an 8 year old boy written something similar about being a man, he would have been sent to the school shrink and possibly put on academic suspension.
Takes me back to the woman at CF whose tag line was, (any mistake in quote is mine)
“I define being a woman however i want to and its awesome to be a woman”
I have yet to understand how one can perceive their gender as something they accomplished.
Professor Mentu, I liked your post comparing a relationship with a partnership.
Don’t marry a woman who won’t be an asset to you.
The only reason the little she-brat gets to write that is that everybody knows it is really just tripe. Including her asinine father.
At a get together a couple of weeks ago, the mother of a good friend of mine was telling me that when her daughter was in school she was asked to write about what she wanted to be when she grew up. She wrote that she wished to be mother and stay home and take care of her kids. The school called in her parents as they were appalled at her answer. Weren’t they teaching their daughter that she could be anything she wanted to be?
They later moved and when they went to the new school system, the mother discovered that her daughters answer to that little essay ended up in her permanent record.
In 22 years time I fully expect her to write an article on why being a female sucks and isn’t fair. And it will go…. “men men men men men men men men men men… where have all the good men gone? waaaaaaaaaaaaa and I’m not haaaaaaaaaaaaapy! Hear me rawrrrrr and MAN UP losers!”.
Obviously in 22 years time, there probably won’t be a market for peddling that hamster bullshit anymore, as the markets would have crashed and hopefully feminism with them but still…
Frightening how a father can imprint in his daughter that all she need to do, all she need to aspire to, all she has to accomplish in her life is simply refer to her genitalia.
Humans are capable of great great things and a parent robbing a child of the will, even the mindset itself, to do so should be scorned not praised.
“In other words, feminist theory cannot be accurately regarded as a competing or rival account, diverging from patriarchal texts over what counts as true. It is not a true discourse, nor a more objective or scientific account. It could be appropriately seen, rather, as a strategy, a local, specific intervention with definite political, even if provisional, aims and goals. In the 1980s, feminist theory no longer seems to seek the status of unchangeable, trans-historical and trans-geographic truth in its hypotheses and propositions. Rather, it seeks effective forms of intervention into systems of power in order to subvert them and replace them with other more preferable. Strategy implies a recognition of the current situation, in both its general, structural features (macrolithic power alignments), and its specific, detailed, regionalised forms (microlithic power alignments)…
As a series of strategic interventions into patriarchal discourses, feminist theory doesn’t simply aim to reveal what is “wrong” with, or false about patriarchal theories – i.e. at replacing one “truth” with another. It aims to render patriarchal system, methods and presumptions unable to function, unable to retain their dominance and power.”
http://web.maths.unsw.edu.au/~jim/arts.html
I get a book end perspective on this with a 21 yr old and a 6 yr old. Have things changed much in that 15 years? Yea, sort of, but not with the “you are special” crap that infects all children and educators these days.
As a coach I really see the spectrum as well, I coached the boys through 13 yr old baseball, and now I coach little girls soccer. The boys moved away from the coddling faster. I cant say about the girls soccer yet. But the schools have changed in that as an older parent we have seen and done all the theories and what not and having 28 yr old moms lecture me on parenting is enough to make me vomitate a rainbow.
They had to make a huge policy announcement at the elementary, and hand banners all over saying that just because a kid gets a lower grade doesnt suggest a lack of fairness.
I saw that as a tiny step in the right direction.
That quote was from a famous article by the late Australian philosopher David Stove. This is another telling passage:
“Then there is feminism. If one looked just at “the women’s movement” itself, who could possible resist the conclusion that women are intellectually inferior to men? The feminists have yet to produce a single piece of writing, devoted to their cause, which any rational creature could attach
importance to. Their writings only serve to show that the authors, after having enjoyed for most of a century advantages which no women ever enjoyed before, and which few or no men have ever enjoyed in any greater degree advantages of freedom, education, wealth, and health – still have nothing more to draw upon than a boundless conviction of their own brilliant merits, merits which the world, by some equally boundless wickedness, has failed to appreciate.”
The article appeared in Quadrant, the Australian conservative monthly, which is still going strong.
On self-esteem, I have never fed my daughter this drivel. She is now 18, and has plenty of confidence and common sense.
Glad you covered this as I saw the article yesterday.
I like this quote from “Professor Wagstaff” at HuffPo:
“Hmmm… Now if an 8 year old boy wrote “we have stuff that makes girls get pregnant, we have penises, we have power”, etc…would anybody think it was cute? ”
A good point.
Come on this has to be a parody. It can’t possibly be real can it?
You are right this looks like a manosphere parody. If it is genuine then feminism is truly utterly bankrupt and probably beyond parody at this point. Although I agree that feminism is intellectually bankrupt as an ideology, still it can’t really be this pathetic can it?
Someone for the love of god reveal this to be a joke. Please.
[D: The thing is if it is a parody Huffington Post couldn’t tell the difference, and neither did its feminist readers.]
Lgrobins…I am sure professor wag staff was pilloried by the leftards on HP. I have absolutely had it with that place and their truly narrow minded conformed thought. I have exorcised that place fully after comments on a story Bout a
N 11 year old boy who died at a bible camp (tree fell on cabin) religiousized his death. Absolutely bottom feeding society there.
Progressives compete on how well they can deny reality. But that little girl will still have to face reality one day. It is not kind to give anyone illusions.
Ouch! If this is not a joke the HuffPo missed, it is a shockingly valid condemnation of our society, the cancer is getting thick. I hope it is not too late to just cut off the cancerous parts (feminism) rather than kiling the whole organism?
Someone in the imgur comments pointed out the uniformity of the m’s and w’s as being a sign that it is a fake. As Dalrock said, it still says something about Puffington Host, as the estimable James Taranto calls it, that they bought it without question.
To be fair, I consider myself a gift to the universe because of my peenus and because it’s powerful and can impreanate vaginas.
I’m not convinced that it is a parody, but I wouldn’t rule out the possibility. As I wrote in the post it certainly looks like one. Either way, what this proves is that feminism is so absurd feminists wouldn’t be able to distinguish the difference. To feminists, this is the end goal they have been working towards for so long. If I simply claimed this, no one would believe me. It would seem that I had created a straw man. Yet the reaction from feminists is right there. They are downright giddy that an 8 year old girl would write such a thing. It is some sort of feminist triumph. I linked to the reddit comment where the person expected the girl to run for president once old enough because of this. Reddit is filled with this kind of celebration, as is the Huffington Post comment thread. Just recently there was this one:
Professor Mentu – ”Had an 8 year old boy written something similar about being a man, he would have been sent to the school shrink and possibly put on academic suspension.”
My question would have to be, were the boys given the assignment to write about: ”Being a male is a great gift to the universe. Here are a few wonderful things about being a boy…”, or did they get eth same assignment to write about: ”Being a female is a great gift to the universe. Here are a few wonderful things about being a girl…”
And, really, her father was proud of her work. I’d put my 6 year-old grandson’s work up against her collection of misspellings anyday. I can guarantee that my grandson at least knows how to spell “smart”.
We’re in agreement on the broader conclusions to be drawn from the responses, D. And I don’t think parody is the right word. If it is fake, I don’t think it was intended to be funny.
I hadn’t considered that Ulysses. You are suggesting it is a forgery by a father eager to earn his feminist merit badge if I’m understanding you correctly.
Jason – “You are right this looks like a manosphere parody.”
Upon taking a second look, I’m now convinced that the writing appears to have been done by an adult trying to make it appear as though it were written be a child.
If an 8 years-old could spell “creative”, she would not be expected to spell “boobs” as “bobes” (maybe, just maybe “bubes”, but not “bobes”) and certainly not “smaft”.
Let us not forget that the Huffington Post is run by that menopausal, perfectly coiffured, self-publicist Arianna Huffington (Daddy’s money?). Is there an internal HuffPo joke here in what is the most obvious of hoaxes (I say) – when you see it, it is obvious.
You’re understanding me correctly.
“Most awesome thing I have read in a long time.”
——————————————————————————–
Such low fruit for derision……have at ’em boys
My question then is if you were a feminist, given the very public celebration that this “essay” has evoked from feminists, including the Huffington Post, which is the most embarrassing?
1) The essay is real.
2) The essay is a parody.
3) The essay is a forgery from a father eager to prove that feminism is working and that he is a successful feminist father.
Parody would likely be the most embarrassing in my opinion.
Knowledge + EXPERIENCE = Wisdom
Today’s parents are idiots.
Well, whether it was the girl or her father that wrote it, the writer got two things correct – the first sentence, and the last sentence.
The rest of it could have been left out without changing the meaning of the response.
da berankes bernankes are winningz! lzozozl http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN05DHO9bJw
The fact that they respond, unguarded, as if it could not possibly be a parody speaks to the hegemony of their belief. They are not accustomed to opposition. This calls to my mind the attitude of Pope Leo X in declaring that he had searched Christendom far and wide for enemies of the Church, and found none. Exactly three and one half years later (a time, times, and half a time) on 10/31/1517 Martin Luther posted his 95 thesis. Hegemony has massive blind spots (pride), thank God.
Really someone should tell the poor grrl she doesn’t have the power to impregnate herself.
That is unless she’s a self impregnating hermaphrodite.
Funny how feminisms always leave out the seminal part of semen.
Talk about a boat w/o an anchor!
I guess men are just faceless machines that produce sperm and money and muscles and blood) for women use,not real people at all.
I noticed in the comments, someone said, “both genders” only to be corrected with, “ALL genders.” It’s just gold there, baby. Gold!
The fact of the matter is, I feel, we need to stop regurgitating what they do back at them. I think the easiest way to compete with feminism in our society is to fight “culture with culture.” Our “culture,” being masculinity and the leadership it represents, is what they are trying to emulate for defraudment and tax payer funds. For example: Me personally, if those of us in the US stopped wasting money on illiegal immigrants, closed our loopholes, and started pouring our culture into Mexico at a significantly reduced rate; although we would curse the populace down there, I think we would turn the whole thing around. The same goes for feminism; rather than fight them, give people our alternative, and they should flock to us. They paint us as weak, because they know how strong we can be! One of the many facets in any war is propaganda, and as much as the negativity that word has deserved, there is no denying it’s potency as an effective weapon. Just as many illegals, an those who are here legally have adjusted to life here; they have set up their own cartoons, TV networks, EEO laws, and the like. Ultimately, in a fair fight, feminism cannot beat us just like the countries to our south would want to face us in open confrontation. Neither can beat their opponent in an open war or debate. Why should they though, when you can make your opponenet defeat themselves, and work your way into ownership and control without the single loss of a life? I think that is why our media, and government go after them with culture now, it si a smart way to do things than a “war on drugs.” But I digress, sorry.
This might be a bad example, but my point is: We are going about it the wrong way outside of the manosphere, we need to standardize our message, and get it out to everyone. We all hate activism I know, but pick your poison; the message of this article about our kids, or getting sanity back into our lives?
This little girl is going to end up like my sweetheart from university. 39, fat as fook, slept with everything in sight, unmarried, no husband, no children, desperate enough at her lack of prospects to be advertising herself on okcupid as bisexual, but looking for a man to have a relationship with. No doubt the stress on her bi-sexuality is a fruitless attempt at upping her market value. Ironically she’s a radical feminist and loathes men. So which is it darling? She’s using a close up of her face, which looks as if it’s been bashed in with a cricket bat, and has only just healed. This is no doubt so that she can hide the real surprise awaiting any beta male foolish enough to answer her profile: an arse exceeding the width of an axe handle.
What’s so terrible about the text? I dont get it. I do expect to see this coming from boys:
Being a boy is a great gift to the universe. Here are a few wonderful things about being a boy…
We have dicks. We get jobs. We are dominant. We have stuff to impregnate. We have semen in our balls. We are smart. We have power.
Suck that.
If you are reading HuffPo, how did you miss this one? :
Women In Their 40s Are Having Great Sex… Just Not With Their Husbands
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/samantha-parent-walravens/women-in-their-40s-having_b_1670101.html
Well, something was written on the notepage preceding, you can see the pencil marks on her essay. Perhaps someone with some image processing/forensics background can bring them to light and get to the bottom of this controversy.
“In 27 years, I will be expecting her name as an option on the ballot to vote for President.”
Why wait? She seems to be channeling her inner B.O. right now. How much worse could she be?
My question is, where are all the feminists decrying the fact that she has reduced herself to her sex organs and “mommy potential”?
I kind of see this as just being more of the same from the generation that gave us the cult of self-esteem (thanks, baby boomers). You should get a trophy for participation (not for accomplishment), you’re a special flower just because you’re you (even if you’re unemployed and leeching off the public teat), etc. Boys get it too, it just seems like having a vagina is the special flavor of the month.
As parents, I think it’s important to give our kids specific praise, not generalized “zomg you’re so adorable because you have a vagina” praise. I praise my kids for doing good…defending someone smaller, demonstrating a good work ethic, being willing to sacrifice to accomplish something, being kind, taking care of each other, etc.
I love this article by Lori Gottlieb about the problems with the cult of self esteem parenting. Parents of girls (and boys) should read it.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/07/how-to-land-your-kid-in-therapy/8555/
My question is, where are all the feminists decrying the fact that she has reduced herself to her sex organs and “mommy potential”?
It’s called “sex-positive feminism”.
They’re not sluts, they’re “women exploring their sexuality”.
They’re not “single mothers”, they’re “liberated women raising children”.
Again, you’re PhD in Manosphere Studies awarded to you by the U of Man is just as legitimate as any “real” doctorate in women’s studies awarded by “accredited” universities.
At the recent Adobe Conference at London’s Battersea, keynote speaker (on day one) perfectly coutured HuffPo boss Adriana Huffington addressed the largely male attendees and her key point was [drum roll] that at HuffPo the most read part is the Divorce section, to which Uncle Elmer above refers. If Adobe software is so good, I wonder, why do they need a conference to advise of such a banality: why not do it all on line – or are these junkets all about being seen and wasting corporate finances?
Feminists have low self-esteem. Taking comfort from the purported essay of an 8 year old shows how pathetic they are. Always the empty boasting …
As I said before, men as a sex have had real achievements. Women just keep promising to do it all, one day. Feminists sound like 8 year old girls. That is the real joke.
Man, just yesterday I was having lunch and had the opportunity to eavesdrop on a woman and her son indoctrinating the 13-ish year old daughter. Telling her about how someday she’ll be attracted to boys/men, to beware, and that all men are bad. They brought up the teacher that was featured in the news and got a posting on Roissy’s about how he seduced his student and got with her after he graduated while divorcing his wife and leaving his kids. That he was a very bad man and that most men are the same.
Meanwhile the mother was obviously single, the son and her went on to talk about the girls he was interested in, and the 13 year old was then ignored the rest of their lunch. Not to mention the girl was in shorts short enough I almost couldn’t tell she was wearing any and a tight shirt. Obviously extra servings of moxie have been added to her meals in preparation for career grrrrrrl futures. Or something more along the lines of babies and divorce if she follows the example set by mother dearest.
“That quote was from a famous article by the late Australian philosopher David Stove. ”
And the quote was verbatim from a now-famous feminist. The rot in academia had set in far earlier.
‘The most fascinating part of feminism is when you boil it down how incredibly vacuous it is. It is an unthinking grab for power, a mindless reaction against a nameless discontent. ‘
It is a fake. Look at the adult writing at the top and compare the letters, specifically the b, e, and r’s with what the child supposedly wrote. Someone is pulling a fast one here, or at least is trying too!
@Dalrock,
Hi Dalrock,
I’m not sure what would be worse of truth/parody/hoax but the whole thing kind of reminds me of the Sokal Affair (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair). I don’t think it matters which it is, the worst and most embarassing part for feminists is how they are gushing over it. The ideas expressed are so simple minded, and yet the concepts embodied in it are likely too advanced for an eight year old to really understand. If it is true, your observation that she is simply regurgitating what she has been fed would seem the obvious conclusion.
As to why the gushing over it is so bad, as noted a boy would never be celebrated for writing this. It nicely shows everything that is wrong with feminism as an ideology. Actually it just occurs to me, perhaps they are gushing over it because it is such a perct representation of what feminism seeks to be, and they love that an eight year old gets it do fully. Failing to notice that even if the 8 year old does get it (assuming it is real, I am still skeptical she understands it), this suggests that feminism as an idea is pretty simple minded drivel. Now I doubt any ody here will disagree with that sentiment but feminists have a deep investment in the idea that they are smarter than average and their ideas are revolutionary and world changing even though in truth their ideas are simple minded and based in abject nonsense (actually it kind of reminds me of Richard Dawkins when ever he tries to do Philosophy)
From Uncle Elmer’s Huff Post link
Notice how it says its the heart or ego that prompts a middle aged wife to cheat and not her libido. Hmmmm, I dunno ’bout that!
[D: Please avoid extended quotes of copyrighted content. Readers should see the article on Huffington Post instead.]
David Collard says:
July 23, 2012 at 4:23 pm
Feminists have low self-esteem. Taking comfort from the purported essay of an 8 year old shows how pathetic they are. Always the empty boasting …
I think its not so much a self-esteem issue as much as it is a mental development issue. Once upon a time, there was a difference between a woman and a girl. However, feminism has stunted the mental development of girls. Nowadays, “woman” typically means “older girl”.
@pugsfugly: my opinion would be to not actively counter the feminist teachings – it’ll be too confusing to her. Instead, teach her the meaning of responsibility and accountability.
They’re not sluts, they’re “women exploring their sexuality”.
They will always be sluts, as men’s view of female promiscuity defines the situation. Men do not want marriage to them, and never will. This is built-in to men and is not going away.
They’re not “single mothers”, they’re “liberated women raising children”.
Typically not so liberated from government aid I do think. Perhaps they should be liberated in this respect also.
@TFH
Have you considered using “hamster apocalypse” instead of “popping the misandry bubble”?
Envision feral hamsters waddling around like zombies.
@TFH
Traditional customs worked hard to conceal the rather undesirably reality of female nature.
I think the traditional customs channeled women to where they would be the most productive and happiest. This is perhaps the flip-side of your assertion.
Talk about feral girls. Check this story out.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2176750/13-year-old-girl-nose-broken-punched-face-attack-Americas-violent-public-swimming-pool.html
Then check her facebook page.
@Strawberry Fields: Notice that all of those ‘reasons’ for women cheating are really excuses (rationalizations). I think the real problem is society telling women that they can have it all when hardly anyone can really have it all. It’s kind of like how powerful men think – the power makes them believe that they are beyond reproach. Women have been given this power in their own minds. Not all women, but way more than the number of men that think this way. It’s “you go girl” taken to it’s end game.
@Strawberry Fields Forever
She ends with whatever the reasons a woman cheats, it’s ultimately her need to heal because her trust has been violated in some way, including her husband losing his job. Dude gets laid off and somehow she’s the victim who should get revenge.
And the comment about women in their 40s getting their pre-baby figure back. Laffable. The whole essay seems computer-generated.
Just more dumb-asses. Who gives a shit?
The father of daughters is the most dangerous person to the rights of men, followed closely by the husband.
The father of daughters will ALWAYS look after daddies little girl first, and will abandon any movement at the moment it would harm the image he has created in his head of the helpless infant girl of his memory
I know I am repeating myslef again and again. But the meme of women good/wise/strong…, men bad/stupid/weak… is the centerpoint of matriarchies. All those few (old) which exist on Earth.
Feminism is not different. When you look at feminism and result of sexual revolution you can clearly see patterns of matriatchies.
I agree that many male feminists are interested in advancing their daughters and are happy to promote feminism for that purpose. I suspect they sometimes do this because, with smaller families these days, they are less likely to have sons as well. Also, many men project their own careerism and competitiveness onto females, and think that what is good for the gander must be good for the goose. Moreover, it is something to boast about to other men. And it signals hipness and having the PC mindset, which can be useful in some contexts.
FWIW, I don’t do that with my daughter. I encourage her, but I don’t expect her to live out my fantasies of career success. Let me be the first to coin a new acronym, NAFALT. Not all fathers are like that.
They’re also heavily reliant on a system in debt and continually disregarding civil liberties. So be it.
For anyone interested here’s the blog about the Mens Rights Movement and Marxism
http://www.avoiceformen.com/feminism/mrm-marxism/
“All those few (old) which exist on Earth.”
What matriarchies exist on earth?
It is strange about Ariana Huffington. She wrote one of the first anti-feminist popular books, The Female Woman, under her maiden name, Ariana Stassinopolous.
@Strawberry
I’ve searched it for you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_matrilineal_or_matrilocal_societies
The list does fully represent matriarchies as for example Jews, though matrilineal, cannot be considered matriarchy in the meaning of female rule.
The most know example are Mosuo. Then there should also be societies in Indochina, Indonesia, India, Africa, etc.
BTW, there should be around 50k of Mosuos.
Professor Steven Goldberg disputes all claims of matriarchies, including among the Mosuo:
http://www.debunker.com/texts/Claimed_Exceptions_To%20Patriarchy.html
@David Collard
Debunker says very little. Related to it I have found: http://thedamnedoldeman.com/?p=1157 . And there should exist ethnographic studies of Mosuo.
TFH,
The daughter is a friend of mine. This happened 20-25 years ago. My friend’s mother told me that she saw her record and then told the new school district that she was removing that piece of information herself. She took the file and removed in then and there. I believe the original school district was a private school and the policies of the school may have been one of the reasons they left.
Goldberg says that the Mosuo are not a matriarchy, and moreover there are no actual cases of matriarchies. He relates this to testosterone driving men to dominant positions in all societies, in larger numbers than women. At the time he wrote that note, there were apparently no ethnographies of the Mosuo, but his female contact said they were not matriarchal.
I read the reference you gave. It sounds a bit like one of those African societies in which the mother’s brother takes on a paternal role. A lot depends on spin, but I note that the men and women perform fairly traditional tasks. It sounds a bit like some African societies in the sexual mores as well. I also notice that men perform ceremonial tasks. And trade and farm.
I remain unconvinced. Goldberg has debunked a number of supposed cases of matriarchal societies.
@David Collard
There have been far more contacts. I think one of them was even Michel Palin in his travel guides. And they do not approve claims of that one woman.
From what I have found on Mosuo it can be compiled to:
– Women have significantly more power than men.
– Women are very promiscous. Paternity is often not know and considered unimportant.
– Men have very few rights.
– Men do not work hard, in fact they work very little. They simply do not care.
etc.
As a side note, Mosuo should have very low birthrate and essentially dying out.
Yes, it sounds like many African societies. Women do all the real work and men laze around. I would bet money the men don’t think it is a matriarchy.
@David Collard
So, how would you define matriarchy? If above description fails.
A matriarchy would be a society in which the prestigious and powerful positions are mostly held by men. I don’t think a society of overworked housewives like the Mosuo is a matriarchy. The men aren’t interested in being fathers because they never become husbands. Hence the role for “mother’s brother”. It is like a ghetto, except, unusually, located in rural Asia.
Wikipedia articles often lean towards PC, but even the article on this group says they are not a matriarchy: “political power tends to be in the hands of males”.
Whatever men do is seen as prestigious in all societies. Which is why Western feminists are interested in getting more women into male occupations, even not obviously glamorous ones like engineering. And why feminists want to get into men’s clubs but men are not interested in joining women’s groups.
David Collard, here in South Africa, white men do all the work, pay all the taxes, produce all the food, create all the jobs, keep everything ticking along. Whilst the Africans sing “Kill the Boer! Shoot the farmer!” and complain endlessly because the ANC literally steals all the wealth. It’s a ticking timebomb.
I meant to write, “A matriarchy would be a society in which the prestigious and powerful positions are mostly held by women.”
Feminist Hater, are you English or Afrikaaner?
A Boer. Afrikaner merely means ‘African’. Therefore an ‘Afrikaner’ is a white African. You get mainly three types of whites in South Africa. South African English, Cape Dutch and then us Boers.
Fh,
I gather that Zimbabwean agricultural production has declined since many of the farms were ‘reclaimed.’
The same is happening in western countries, in a way. As misandric, socialist governments tax and spend, men start to ask: for whom do i struggle and toil?
@David Collard
According to sources available to me Mosuo men have no real power. The only political institutions with men were founded to conform to chinese bureaucracy. But even those men have no real power in the Mosuo society.
OK, krakonos. We obviously have different sources. I doubt that the Mosuo are matriarchal partly on a priori grounds. But even so, the evidence for matriarchy in even this single case is ambiguous at best. Even Wikipedia tends to discount it.
Yes, many people unfamiliar with the terms and cultures confuse matrilineal and matrilocal with matriarchy. Always boggled my mind the way MRAs claim we are living in a “matriarchy”.
Regarding the Mosuo: http://www.mosuoproject.org/matri.htm
@David Collard
According to some sources there (has) existed Mosuo elite which was patriarchal. Matriarchal part of society were serfs (but majority of population). It might be a part of confusion.
Plus people at fringes (geographically) of the society had mixed mixed customs (with other groups).
Yes, krakanos. They are an interesting group.
For me a matriarchy would be a division of labor, responsibility and power/influence where the women have that in protecting, providing and taking care of the infrastructure in a broad sense and the men have it in the fields of family, home and hearth. If all or most parts of the responsibility for protecting, providing and taking care of the infrastructure in a broad sense, lies outside of the so called matriarchy I would not call it a society, but a subculture, class or caste. Patriarchal rulers with control over protection, resources and infrastructure can very well give women power over men in the women’s subculture, class or caste, but only if they do not want that subculture, class or caste to prosper.
Yes, lavazza1891
There are some interesting parallels with recent developments in Western society.
If my handwriting (at the age of 8) had been as poor as hers, I would’ve been beaten. On top of that, I knew how to spell “boobs” and didn’t even know what a vagina *was*. Hooray, modern education system?
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As this appeared in HuffPo, it is thus a perfect place to be less than charitable to Arianna Huffington.
Arianna was , of course, originally Stanisopoulos and famous from a very young age as the President of the Oxford Union (the University Debating Society). Clearly having good looks was not a disadvantage. It was this fame and looks that earned her an invitation to be guest panelist on that most pretentious (oh god, it was bad) BBC television show, ‘Face the Music’, in which people like Richard Baker and Joyce Grenfell answered questions on the classical music they knew (that is to say very little). Along with the embarrasement of the ‘dummy keyboard’ and the ‘silly opera’ sections, the questions for the guest were so dumbed down that even the tone deaf would have answered them correctly, especially as the regular panellists gave the strongest hints to the guest panellists to assure a correct answer. [Americans, please never fall for the notion that British Television is somehow better than American – it isn’t.] It was on that show that Araianna met Bernard Levin who (I conceed wrote well) was apart from being twice her age, neither tall nor good looking. As I recall everyone read his twice weekly columns in The Times (well I did) – dreadfully pretentious and trivial stuff it was too – at least in hindsight. He formed an LTR with Arianna which surely could not, given that he was the most famous journalist in Britain, have done any hindrance to her career as a fledgling journalist? According to Arianna she had to leave him because he did not want children (the cad!) – though one always suspects of Levin (repressed) homosexuality. Am I seriously to believe that an Oxford graduate as smart as Arianna took ten years to discover that? Shortly therafter she took up with (bi-sexual) U.S. Congressman Huffington, and had two children – then got rid of him too. Along the way she has written books and has more than once been accused therein of plagarism.
For some strange reason the words of the Human League song ‘Don’t you want me baby’ keep recurring to my mind.
You left out the best bit, Opus, the little Grecian minx made a great deal of money with her anti-feminist paperback, The Female Woman [sways hips]. It had a cute pic of her on the cover and was a sort of counterpoint to The Female Eunuch.
Her politics subsequently veered sharply left. If feminists are claiming HuffPo as a major female achievement, I see it more as a vanity project likely funded by one of the men in her life. Sort of like Milady’s Boudoir, the magazine for ladies run by Aunt Dahlia in the Wooster stories, which was bankrolled by her wealthy husband. Something to keep the Little [Female] Woman out of mischief.
Levin was a terrible bore. I read a collection of his essays once. He was addicted to opera, as I recall, and there is a famous Private Eye cover, of that notorious photo of the Viet Cong prisoner being shot point blank in Saigon, with the made-up speech bubble, “This will teach you to stop Bernard Levin from getting to the opera!”
Some ass once wrote an essay criticising Poussin for being unable to draw. I think the ass may have been Bernard Levin. Or maybe it was another ass.
@David Collard
No doubt about it, Arianna is cuter than Germaine (but Germaine is the more intellectually competent) – ah, life is so cruel.
Arianna had a feminine cute look, and I used to speculate that her Greek heritage had kept her a bit more female and grounded. But Germaine was a very handsome woman, who once posed, legs spread, for a student newspaper or some such thing. Not my type, too horse-faced, but in some ways a more striking looking woman than the more conventional Arianna. And a better thinker, agreed. She wrote a really good essay on The Taming of the Shrew, which took a surprisingly masculinist line. Basically she said that Petruchio wanted Kate because he felt a spirited woman would make a good wife, once her pride was broken.
@David Collard
No doubt about it: Germaine is intelligent; very good on Shakespeare and scathing about female poets – but no longer good-looking, in fact she gave up even trying which is why she looks like a bag-lady. She needs a man to tame her, but he’d have to be brave, [note her interest in Taming of the Shrew] and frankly the reward would be insufficient to tempt someone even as reckless as myself. So, a tale of two women: Arianna rich and with adoring males at her command who used her looks to get what she wanted – from bankrupt Greece to American high-society; Germaine, a parody of herself, reduced to doing Celebrity Big Brother, very conscious of the – galling for a feminist – fact that (so far as Literature – her speciality – goes) women are second rate.
As for Levin (again) I recall he used to write the most ridiculous articles in The Times about The Soviet Union: when it is left to a pop-singer like Sting (Gordon Sumner) to point out in a song the bleeding obvious: that the ‘Russians love their children too’, you can see the intellectuals have lost it, and my own post-1990 experience of former-Soviets shows, that Levin (for all his intelligence) had merely fallen (hook, line and sinker) for western propaganda – and certainly did not see the bigger picture as to the problems – especially for its inhabitants – that a post Soviet Russia (which neither he nor anyone else could imagine) would bring. There are, I would say, presently, more perceptive and better writers in the Androsphere than the over-paid and over-rated Levin.
Interesting, Opus.
I think women are capable of good literary work. Plath, Dickinson, Sappho, Austen, even Rowling for sheer invention, Muriel Spark (“congratulations on your sexual intercourse”), Barbara Pym, Daphne Du Maurier, Nancy Mitford, Camille Paglia, come immediately to mind. Sei Shonagon from Japan. Some I know only by reputation, but others I have read and enjoyed.
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