why I am not a feminist

They are deciding women's rights must be more than a slogan and actually belong to every woman, not just the sort approved of by left-wing special interest groups.
- A Feminist's Argument for McCain's VP
Tammy Bruce, San Francisco Chronicle

I happened upon a comment that stopped me cold, from a blog I otherwise really enjoy:

And it is meaningless to talk of female subservience as a valid “choice” made by free agents, when we know (feminism 101) that patriarchy brainwashes women into believing that they are destined for an inferior status, as codifed by whatever godbaggism the particular flavor of patriarchy employs.

My first and lesser objection to this view is that patriarchy is not picking on women specifically - feminism made (and keeps re-making) a big mistake in targeting all men equally as the Enemy Oppressor, when in reality low-status males are their natural allies against control-hogging patriarchs.

More importantly, though, I strongly object to any ideology that grants one group (in this case, feminists) the power to discount another group as infantile and incapable of making decisions on their own behalf*

This Marxist "false consciousness" doctrine is, at its heart, about obedience and control, not liberation.

Just as the same Marxist "false consciousness" doctrine says that poor people must obey rich liberal reformers (because, being poor, one cannot be a free agent who understands and can make informed choices about one's situation - see Obama's Greatest Speech on Race for more details).

In the name of helping women, this worldview deprives all women of their status as rational actor and human being - until and unless they act the one true way they are supposed to, and embrace a single one-size-fits-all set of values and beliefs.

The simple act of thinking outside the liberal box, which has insisted for generations that only liberals and Democrats can be trusted on issues of import to women, is the political equivalent of a nuclear explosion.
- A Feminist's Argument for McCain's VP
Tammy Bruce, San Francisco Chronicle

The worldview that classes all men as the beneficiaries of patriarchy (and all women as its brainwashed victims) ignores the fact that low-status males are not privileged, while women who have allied themselves advantageously might be very powerful indeed. With its gender yes-no good-bad simplicity, it ignores that, for instance, it might just be very rational for a woman to unite with a low-status male (to survive a tough economic climate, to resist the will of an abusive patriarch, or for any of a number of reasons), no matter the terms and conditions - the level of "subservience" - involved.

This Marxist "false consciousness" crap is the root of why feminism must always be the enemy of women who are committed to their families.

I can already hear the hollering, as feminists scream that they are too committed to their families. It's just that they want "equality" with their men, not "subservience".

Fair enough. But who gets to decide what is "subservient"?

Not the women experiencing the reality here; clearly the decision as to whether she is incapable of being a free agent is not going to be hers to decide.

The very fact of her being married makes her suspect. Marriage demands "subservience", as do all social interactions and relationships. You have to submit before you can join anything - the Freemasons, the Chamber of Commerce, the Girl Scouts, the local PTA, the feminist movement itself (which spends hours arguing about rules which are intended to apply not only to those making the rules, but to all women).

But in marriage, this willingness to submit becomes bad when ... ??

Because ... why...??

It's such a marvelously squishy word, 'subservience', isn't it?

To me, the word suggests ill will on the part of the man. But aren't all men presumed guilty of the desire to oppress, until they prove otherwise (by demonstrating their subservience to feminist values and beliefs)?

There's no clear definition of what "good" vs. "excessive" subservience in marriage might look like, because such a definition can only be one person's opinion, and what gives that person's opinion authority?

But feminists know it when they see it.

And so, if it is convenient, one may assume that a married woman starts off presumed incapable of making a rational choice on her own behalf until proven otherwise. Or not. It's apparently up to the feminists, who are the experts on what women ought to want, and whether a particular woman or type of woman qualifies as a real woman or gets categorized as a brainless idiotic child.

The feminists become the new authority figures, deciding how women ought to live. And the very state of being married ends up being pathologized**.

The potential for abuse is staggering. The entire Republican party, for instance, appears to be made up of women who are in fact childlike little dolls who shouldn't be allowed the vote. (How's that for a reason to vote the way we tell you to?)

Well, I call that utter crap - and I'll even go so far as to say the doctrine itself sounds like the sour grapes of women who chose their mates unwisely, or were bullied into accepting a mate they should not have chosen at all, or who otherwise has personal issues with being married, and must therefore project her own issues onto everyone.

The truth is, whether women are strong or helpless has nothing to do with whether they are married. The real factors separating the woman who is powerful and has influence from the one who is weak and must submit to injustice without recourse:

1. support: does she have kin? a strong network of friends? How supportive? What form does that support take? Are there any supports available to the woman without kin? Is it real support or useless fake lip service support?
   
   
2. expectations: is she willing to give herself away cheap? Will she settle for crumbs? Aside from her own expectations there are the expectations of those around her - what is considered normal?
   
   
3. ability: does she have the knowledge and confidence necessary to effectively use the power sources that are available to her?

Do women stand up for other women? If so, then it should be safe to be married. If not, then it's not safe whether the woman is married or not***.

This is where I want to see the women's rights movement put its time and energy - but I see the opposite: I see feminism sacrificing all three of these concerns - support, expectations, ability - on behalf of American women, in its quest to hold on to its crumbling power and its questionable authority centered on reproductive issues (IMHO to the benefit of professional feminists, but not to the benefit of real women living in the real world).

So I would ask feminists: apart from it being a rival power base to feminists who want feminism to be the primary power base - apart from that, what proof is there that the very act of being married is pathological?

Because if there's any at all, I've never seen it.

Meanwhile, I will continue to believe (until persuaded otherwise) that:

• Having kids without having the baby's father committed to the child is pathological.
  
  
• Making childbearing decisions without the active involvement of the child's father is pathological.
  
  
• Deliberately having sex outside of a monogamous, committed relationship when you are so immature and unprepared that you don't even have the ability to prevent unintended consequences like pregnancy - that is pathological.

In cases of rape or incest (where grownups are exploiting underage girls), the pathology is clearly on the part of the male, whose behavior is not only pathological but criminal. In cases where the female chose to engage in the sex act, she ought to accept her share of responsibility. To do otherwise is to declare gender warfare, which will cause all women who do not want war with men to side with the men - thus weakening the entire movement on behalf of women's rights.

Some of us want equality, but without begrudging men their rights. We want to negotiate their role in the household - not kick them out altogether.

And I disagree sharply with feminists who are all for encouraging young people to be promiscuous, on the argument that "they're going to do it anyway" (a circular argument, since the reason teen sex becomes inevitable has a lot to do with the fact that if you're 16 and still a virgin, there's "probably something wrong with you").

I object to feminists who care so passionately about a teen's right to have sex that they will freely intervene in family conflicts they otherwise know nothing about, without any concern for the rights of any family member (or the family unit itself) other than the daughter, and they will encourage her and provide support if she wishes to disobey her family's rules, lie to her parents, and engage in numerous behaviors that may leave her estranged from her kin and sometimes even her community.

... it is an article of faith among liberals that a woman’s body belongs to her and her alone, and that no one else has the right to make decisions about her body except her. That includes sex, contraception, pregnancy, abortion, childbirth and sterilization, as well as marriage and divorce. Although we do not approve of underage sex, for pragmatic reasons we believe that minors who are sexually active should have information on and access to contraception, protection and/or treatment of STD’s, pregnancy testing, prenatal care, and abortion, without parental notification or consent. That is on page 3, paragraph 1-A of the Liberal handbook, under the heading “A Woman’s Right to Choose.”
- Klownhaus

The 'family values' rallying cry is effective because people who aren't from or in favor of failed, broken families recognize it as an act of warfare when the feminist takes it upon herself to insert herself between a child and that child's parents. Whether harm is done to the family is not a big deal to the feminist because the mere existence of a rebellious daughter is considered proof that the family is abusive. And so the same people who hollered loudest at how Terry Schiavo was diagnosed from a distance can simply look at a teenager and just see that her family is so seriously messed up that it deserves to have its life support pulled.

But then that may be because all families are suspected of being pathological. After all, as a purely pragmatic matter, there can only be one ultimate source of authority, and to the feminist movement, the family unit is the competition. So naturally - whatever the actual facts of the case - the teenage girl is right, and the family is oppressing her, because the family is the symbol of patriarchy and therefore....yeah.
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* at least, before anyone is presumed incapable of acting in their own interests, I want a proper procedure in place to have them formally declared unfit. (After all, we grant that much to criminals and lunatics, why not to married women?)

We might view the Texas polygamist women as a problem (for whom exactly?) - but simply asserting, without any evidence, that these women are not capable of making decisions, are in fact brainwashed children - that's a mistake that is going to come back to haunt the one who makes it. Better IMO to start with the assumption that they are rational actors making rational choices, which they probably are. Give them a better option and they might very well take it. But, no, sorry, what those women have been offered so far is not a better option. Leaving one's home, family, everything you've ever known or cared about, to throw yourself on the mercy of people with alien values and beliefs, with no means of support and no reason to suppose these strangers are trustworthy - in fact, every reason to suppose they are not - that's not much of an option.

And incidentally liberals don't exactly have a great track record when it comes to actually putting their money where their mouth is, when it comes to taking care of abused women.

**to put it bluntly, if the woman does not submit, it's not going to be a happy marriage. The key is to find a man worth submitting to. If a woman can't trust her man, then she made a mistake marrying him.

And, unless she can argue - for real - that she was forced to marry him, it would be better to put the responsibility on her, not on some "patriarchy" that comes out like the boogey-man to scare disobedient little girls into doing things that feminists don't approve of. That boogeyman has to go away now; whatever purpose he once served, he's now serving to make excuses for people who need to start taking responsibility for their life choices like a grownup. Feminism cannot get away with blaming unhappy marriages on "the patriarchy". It takes real, living people to make an unhappy marriage, and I have known real people who were very happy in traditional marriages - subservience and all. I have also known liberals who were very unhappily mated, both inside and outside of actual marriage, because they just didn't know what they wanted.

*** Right now, I see in the high schools a culture that is every bit as oppressive as anything Betty Friedan described - and I have seen, too many times, how sexual freedom itself can be a weapon that boys use to domesticate girls into pets.