But those in the camp of T [trans] claim that “woman” is a self-identifying construct, which men can fairly appropriate. So what’s coming in this narrative? Will feminism eventually be edited to exclude women?
John Stonestreet and Shane Morris
https://www.breakpoint.org/feminism-without-women/It is hard to imagine women can advocate effectively for ourselves without advocating for ourselves as women.
Birth Without Mothers, Feminism Without Women
https://otherfeminisms.substack.com/p/birth-without-mothers-feminism-without
The Anti-feminism and ‘feminazi’ nature of Postfeminism,
In Their Own Words
What is the social value of the mental illness part in Shulamith Firestone’s and Kate Millet’s biographies? This question came to my mind as I was trying to organize some of my memories to write this post about the Shulamith Firestone I knew personally. But as soon as it popped into my mind, it dawned on me the huge mistake I’m making in asking that question: I’m still thinking in terms of “ 2nd wave of feminism”.
I’m assuming that ‘feminism’ and ‘feminists’ still exist in this new millennium, and that there are ‘feminists’ naturally inclined to be interested in the history of feminism and in Firestone, and interested even in ‘women’s liberation’. But Reality just smacked me across the face and said “Wake up, you silly old woman”. (My Reality is a bitch, I don’t know about yours.) My mistake is in that I’m trying to talk to women who don’t care about any of those things mentioned above.
The more 3rd wave ‘feminist critique’ academic papers I read against the 2nd wave and feminism in general (“women against feminism”), the more I realize that feminism doesn’t exist anymore. Postfeminism is not only anti-feminism: it is the cul-de-sac of feminism. My god! They have even taken themselves out of the equation:
“Feminism without “women”
Slowly but steadily these newly “liberated” women are positioning themselves on the side of the capitalist patriarchy by openly adopting its “free market”, conservative, elitist-libertarian and individualistic ideology. Where once we searched for “equality” and power in number (collective action), today (after having penetrated the 3rd wave), the “liberated” libertarian intellectual women emphasize elitist “difference” and “disunity”. It’s not me saying this; these are their words, as you will read in this post. This is an aberrant ‘feminism’ that will have terrible consequences for the future of women, unless first, as per their goal, ‘woman’ ceases to exist as ‘ a social person’ category. Once again, Patriarchy wins.
I will be arguing in this post, first, that the “liberated” conservative women of the 3rd wave (no new word yet to call them, given that they refuse to be called ‘feminists’) have uprooted themselves from the over 100 years of women’s struggle for liberation and equality and dragged their little tushies to the right of the political spectrum (they have no other choice). Also that in exchange for elite jobs in the capitalist Patriarchy economy these women are helping him get rid of ‘feminism’ altogether. [I refer to Patriarchy as ‘him’ or ‘he’.]
Secondly, that the first tell-tale or consequence of this deracination to the right is the public use of that alarming new portmanteau, ‘feminazi’, to refer to them. More specifically, I intend to show that the 3rd wave’s project of “destroying the history of feminism” harbors deep inside the seeds of a fascist project, whether intentionally or by their unmitigated ignorance of history. I intend to make this last point clear after discussing the conservative and libertarian (right-wing, i.e.) character of the ‘postfeminist project’.
Three caveats: First, this post is a ‘critique’ of a segment of women in academia who engage in attacks on the 2nd wave feminists and feminism in general through the so-called feminist critique. There are many women in academia who are trying to prevent this cancelling of the history of feminism; to them I tip my hat. Also, in the term ‘3rd wave’ I include the 4th and ‘Postfeminism’, which apparently is the ‘5th wave’. Finally, given that I’m neither an academic nor a man, I exercise here the privilege of embellishing my opinions with my emotional moods.
Women’s liberation: Mission Accomplished
I don’t recall ever before in my 67 years of life on this planet having seen feminism or feminists labeled or associated with Nazism, this numero uno historical symbol of male ideology of inhumanity, hate, violence, intolerance, misogyny and genocide. Never, despite the 1970s feminist movement success at getting abortion rights, was the term feminazi applied to them.
On those days, the worst label or insult feminists had to contend with in the patriarchal media, the ultra-right-wing Pentecostal church, and in academia were that of being ‘lesbians’ and ‘mentally ill’. These labels were harvested from within the movement itself because lesbians did exist inside it, as was mental illness in some of the most vocal feminists. The ‘lesbian’ label was considered (still is) so socially offensive (even by ‘Marxists’) that it became an efficient weapon in the hands of men of capitalism to divide the women’s movement. It has been given by today’s “liberated women” of the 3rd wave as a reason (cloaked as “anti-man”) to ‘cancel’ feminism.
But these same ‘liberated” women, in turn, have to contend today (because no matter how docile women are in their demands they will always be maligned) with this truly offensive label, femininazi. Although originally coined as an attack on pro-abortion women in the 1990s, it has since crossed that border, now being used to describe the 3rd wavers as intolerant ( as Nazi, i.e.) of any point of view that challenges their opinions, whether from men or, more frequently, from other women. This intolerance is being exhibited by 3rd wavers in social media, Twitter, etc. in the form of ‘cancel culture’ and ‘feminist critique’. Those who disagree with them get shoved into twitter mob where they are bullied, shamed and ostracized (Rowling).
‘Handmaid’s Tale’ Author Margaret Atwood Faces Backlash for Gender Neutrality Tweet
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/handmaids-tale-author-margaret-atwood-faces-backlash-for-gender-neutrality-tweet/ar-AAPIuMo?ocid=uxbndlbing
It has led in some instances to people losing their jobs, for example, Gillian Phillip, a children’s books author. Notably, their attacks are aimed primarily at other women to silence them. From where do they get that power? Keep reading, please.
In that sense, feminazi represents such a powerful negative image and commentary about today’s ‘feminism’ that the 3rd wavers of academia will do good to use their intelligence and resources to explore what changes in American culture and society, but more importantly, in their own ‘feminist’ critique movement have led to the creation of this atrocious political label. For it’s not only misogynist men who use the term; some women who consider themselves feminists use it too (not me). Some of us (old and young) who still identify as feminists of some type understand intuitively and at gut-level from which ground this alarming label have been harvested. One wished some academicians would pay attention to their ‘instincts’ instead of focusing on useless hairsplitting arguments about which ‘wave’ of feminism is this one.
It looks to me as if the “liberation” these women are celebrating is the product of conservatism and fascist tendencies.
The price of ‘liberation’
These 3rd wave/postfeminists say:
Now that the link between hierarchy and patriarchy is not as strong as it once was, young women have a new platform from which to launch their own careers.
Linda Hirshman coined the phrase “choice feminism”
to name the widespread belief in the US that the
women’s movement has liberated women to make
whatever choices they want.
And thus, feeling “liberated”, they are shouting triumphantly (I’m paraphrasing George W. Bush):
‘Women’s Liberation: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. I got a job in academia. We don’t need feminism anymore.’
It is not only ridiculous but a sign of their naiveté to believe that patriarchy and capitalists would kindly surrender power to women. But let’s assume, for argument sake, that these women are right. How did that happen, the ‘weakening of the patriarchy’? Was it because Patriarchy became ‘soft’ and, gentlemanly, opened the doors of his institutions to women, for the benefit of all women, as equal to men in academia and in other elite job positions? Who can be that naïve to believe that too? The truth that the few jobs given to women in academia are mere tokens is seen in the many ‘scholarly’ articles published within academia complaining about how they don’t get the same salaries, recognition and funding for research assignments as their male counterparts. Women nagging even when they are “liberated”.
Or are the ‘new opportunities’ the result of the 2nd wave feminists’ struggle to force the doors open?
Due to the successes of second-wave feminism, many more women have reached higher levels in corporations, law firms, and government.
Postfeminists: patriarchy’s mouthpieces and collaborators
Is the “success” of feminism to be measured by the number of elite jobs obtained in the capitalist power structure or hierarchy? If so, how does this 3rd wave pays back these 2nd wavers (whom the 1970s radicals accused of “careerism”) for creating the conditions for better job opportunities for intellectual women and for “liberating” them? First, the ingrates want to delete them from history. They want to “destroy the history of the 2nd wave” in its totality. And to that goal they continuously smear them with the exact same sexist-misogynist epithets that were used equally against the ‘careerists’ and the radicals in the 1970s feminist movement.
…their mothers’ generation, which they often represent as antimale, antisex, antifemininity, and antifun. [See the lesbophobic words: “antimale”, “antifeminity”?]
But then, not satisfied with shaming their ‘moms’ publicly (e.g. Rebecca Walker, regrettably) and not crediting them for “liberating” them, they are actually destroying the weapon, feminism, i.e., their ‘mothers’ wielded effectively to get them this sense of “liberty”. As if patriarchy doesn’t exist anymore and, consequently, they don’t need the weapon anymore.
After all I have read from these women, it is logically impossible for me to avoid arriving at the following conclusion: that because they choose the same stigmatizing words the anti-feminists of the past used against the 2nd wavers; because of the misogynistic nature of the accusations they hurl against them; and because of the hatred towards feminism and the 2nd wave feminists implicit in their goal of “destroying the history of the 2nd wave”, the 3rd wavers are the facto mouthpieces and collaborators, voluntarily or by sheer ignorance, of the misogynistic patriarchal capitalists. That’s why Postfeminism is anti-feminism.
Postfeminists are not “liberated”, they surrendered
in some cases rejecting the label “feminist,” as they seek power in their professional and personal lives as well.
Big question: Why would the label “feminist” be an obstacle to reach “power” in their elite professional jobs, considering that they feel “liberated” and equal to men? Feminism took them there, but the job is not yet finished (“they seek power”, meaning they don’t yet have it). So why “reject it”? Take your time.
OK. One answer is that because they have consistently pooh-poohed the word “feminist”, now, logically, it closes the doors to the elite positions which they supposedly gained “due to the success of second-wave feminism”. It has come full circle: the 3rd wavers trashed the 2nd wavers and feminism in its totality to satisfy the men of patriarchy who own the jobs they want, and now they have to renegade feminism all together to keep their jobs because these men still don’t like “feminists”. These women have surrendered, they are not “liberated”. The 3rd wave is the loser wave.
This much is clear, though, that whatever these women of the 3rd wave want to call themselves, the old word feminist do not apply to them anymore; they need to find a new one. Firstly, because they have openly rejected it in order to get jobs.
in some cases rejecting the label “feminist,” as they seek power in their professional and personal lives as well.
Again, they have consistently pooh-poohed the word, associating it with lesbianism, men-hating and ‘unsexiness’. You can’t logically want to be seen associate with the things you publicly say you hate and despise, can you? You hate them more than you hate Patriarchy; he, you think is fun and sexy.
Second wave feminism “doesn’t account for some women’s desires for…subordination, and (sometimes) sex that is subordinating”
Thus, the words ‘feminism’ and ‘feminist’, together with ‘history of feminism’, are now history themselves: obsolete, thrown to the trash bin of memory. Funny how ‘history’ used to mean ‘collective memory’, but now it is the ‘unrecyclables’ trash bin where conservatives put the inconvenient (to them) memories of the history of feminism labeled as ‘to be forgotten’.
I wonder though, if you think that the word “feminism” is an obstacle to reach your goals, how happy are you with the word “feminazi”?
Postfeminists: hired to do men’s dirty job
Men who hate women have always wanted to kill feminism (and sometimes feminists), ever since the early suffragist movement to today. But this hatred towards women who dare shake their pink chains is unlike the hatred towards Black people: it is not self-evident. There are no horrific and heart breaking “low-hanging fruits” in the history of feminism, at least not in the USA.
This enduring unique form of hatred, towards feminists, i.e. (and women in general), is hidden in plain view; only by reading its history can you unmask it. Oops, there’s one reason the patriarchy wants to “destroy the history of feminism”!
Today, more than ever, men’s open hatred towards feminism and feminists is bad public optics because it doesn’t jive with our ‘modernity’ and its implied ‘we are more advance and intelligent than previous generations’. Men openly bashing women’s aspirations for progress and for freedom from physical violence look vewy vewy bad today. But men in power have learned their lesson: it is better to have women do the dirty work for them, after all, that’s what we are her for, to do the menial work for them, aren’t we?
So, today men of capitalism buy some women with few jobs in newspapers, government and in academia to do the dirty job of character assassination against feminists of the 2nd wave and anyone who support them.
Unfortunately, as we have seen throughout all of human history, there are always some willing to collaborate with the oppressor. It took early capitalists some decades to learn that bashing and killing, let’s say, workers’ union leaders was not good enough due to public opinion. So, they learned to buy leaders of the workers unions to do the dirty job for them. They are doing the same with women. And thus, for example, 99% (more or less) of anti-feminists articles and opinion pieces in today’s mainstream media are written by women. Truth be told, this is starting to change due to the weakening of feminism; some men now feel “liberated” too by the new feminism so much so as to now attacking women openly themselves in the media.
Women in the mainstream newspapers (New York Times and Jeff Bezos’s Washington Post, for example) are happy to make a name for themselves attacking other women. A few names of women who consistently attack other women when there is an issue related to feminism comes to my mind: Jennifer Rubin, Katheryn Parker, Ruth Marcus, Karen Tumulty, and Catherine Rampell among others.
It’s not that women can’t disagree or even attack each other virulently in their disagreements. But there are attacks and then there are attacks. There is a difference between attacking each other out of passionate political disagreement (it is in the human nature to do so), and being a tool of the capitalist patriarchy.
Rejecting the ‘feminist’ label to get a few elite jobs with the boys doesn’t translate into gaining power, just as more women in Congress do not mean progress for women, for the environment or for society at large if those women are of the conservative persuasion. Noticed how we are losing abortion rights, the right to control our body? That’s a sign not of increased political power but of the opposite.
The Enemy within: conservative/right-wing women
And yet many 3rd wavers are willing to tolerate it and even justify it because ‘feminism’ is now infiltrated by conservative women. In the past, conservative women fought against feminists from the outside; today they are inside dismantling, under the banner of ‘libertarian feminism’, what was left of the 1970s.
Academics such as Christina Hoff Sommers, author of Who Stole Feminism? (1994), have argued that conservative feminism has a place in the third wave. [Emphasis added.]
The convergence of feminist discourse with a conservative neoliberal climate, focused on individualism, has laid the foundations of the current postfeminist moment.
A Postfeminist Generation:Young Women, Feminism and Popular Culture Penelope A. Robinson 2008In fact, third-wave feminists reject the notion of collective identity and … they embrace disunity (Gilmore, 2001, p. 218). [This was meant as a good thing.]
Women’s Forum and ifeminist.com confirm this (Schreiber, 2008, p. 7). Sommers (1994) argues that conservative feminism can be viewed as “equity” feminism, a feminism grounded in free market principles that favor equality of opportunity over equality of outcome. The concept of equity feminism has taken hold among many younger conservative women…
These pro-capitalism elitist women will be favored by the media and the owners of social media platforms over progressive, liberal, and minority/lesbian women.
Facebook’s race-blind decisions on hate speech came at expense of Black users, documents show
That’s right, ‘feminists’ are moving to the right, the only move allowed to them in the chess board of power-struggle after having bashed and almost deleted the leftist radical feminists out of history, and after getting jobs from men of patriarchy. You can’t move to the left anymore, unless you are willing to lose your new privileges; or if the ‘left’ is redefined into something that those in power will consent to. That is happening too. Libertarianism, the ultimate ideology of privilege and elitism, is the new ‘left’.
And the right-wing ‘feminists ’will continue to attribute any problems with patriarchy to lesbians and to those women who understand what feminism really meant.
TV Guide Feminism
Today, as it is well reported in academia, 3rd wave feminism’s roots are clearly embedded in popular culture. But is is based more specifically on TV and movies culture, which is dominated by men like Harvey Weinstein for their personal and their stockholders’ profits. The newbie feminists are oblivious of this, or maybe they just don’t care.
Intellectual women write papers on how women are portrayed and how they want to be portrayed there; about the feminist ‘semiotics’ of ‘Sex and the city’, ‘Friends’, etc. This is what I call TV Guide Feminism.
3rd wavers fight and write scholarly papers to demand Netflix change its programming to include more shows with chick women a la ‘Carrie Bradshaw’. That’s their role model of womanhood. So they burn Dialectic of Sex and go witch-hunting after Firestone, while adopting ‘Grrrl Power’ and ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ – a character created by a man to attract young women as a profitable segment of the TV audience – as images that represent them. Go figure.
Conclusion to part I
I conclude this section by stating with confidence that, in the words of the 3rd wave (as I have shown here), feminism is dead. It is crystal clear even in the word the “liberated” women have chosen to describe themselves: Postfeminists. I don’t delude myself into thinking that the weak liberal and progressive ‘feminists’ can contend with the conservatives who are backed by the capitalists. The old movement has been shredded into a myriad of anti-women, anti-feminist groupuscules with right-wing tendencies, all of them fighting each other’s ‘theories’ and finding excuses to avoid using the word ‘feminist’. This is what ‘divide and conquer’ looks like. Despite their use of the word ‘feminism’, they usually clarify why they are not ‘actually’ feminists; they just haven’t found that new word to describe ‘women who want to be part of patriarchy’.
- “maternal” feminism
- “communitarian” feminism
- equity feminism.
- private feminism,
- “Girlboss feminism’, also known as ‘choice feminism‘, is a movement that focuses on the empowerment of the individual, rather than the liberation of women as a whole.” With that name, “girl”, infantilizing themselves (because “womanboss” is a ‘dead on arrival’ idea), they expect to be taken seriously by men. (LOL)
- Women against feminism
- Individualist feminism
These women of the 3rd wave will succeed only at watering down whatever achievements of the past and rendering ‘women’ obsolete.
Women are ½ the population of this planet, unless the 3rd wavers disagree with that too. What about you, do you disagree? The last count was 4 Billion women worldwide. There are only ‘men’ and ‘women’, and children, of course, boys and girls, i.e. In the 2017 census there were 165 million women in the USA. How many ‘trans’ were there? According to a 2017 Gallop poll “0.6% [1.39million] of U.S. adults identify as transgender.”
That would explain, in part, why patriarchy feels more comfortable keeping our people focused and divided over ‘trans rights’: better to fight 1 million ‘trans’ who have no need for abortion rights and who demand things like access to women’s public bathrooms, than to fight 165 million women demanding abortion rights.
It’s not TERF, I’m for trans rights too. It’s a matter of putting things in perspective. Trans are fighting for their rights; women, on the other hand, declare themselves liberated and become caretakers of men and trans. I don’t see trans marching for women’s rights and abortion rights; but I do see women marching and willing to give their lives for trans’ rights. Good for them.
These Postfeminists not only are not challenging men’s power over society, they are actually cementing that power by ‘deconstructing’ themselves, taking themselves out of the human struggle against capitalism in order to fit within capitalist men’s world.
It is not altogether clear to me why women, much more so than any other oppressed groups of people, have been so willing to yield the ground on which to make a stand against their oppression.
My answer to that question: because women are still afraid of male anger and violence towards feminists and women in general. Fear is capitalists’ best friend. But that is another story.
Feminist critique and ‘feminazi’
An interesting little factoid that fits here is that Shulamith Firestone denounced the lack of material for researchers (in her times) to write a history of the women’s liberation movement not as due to a mere absence of written material but to an intentional cover up of that history by the enemies of liberation, meaning capitalist patriarchy, because that history is a threat to him.
“the few historians of the women’s rights movement in the U.S. complain that the records have been lost, damaged, or scattered due to the little value placed on them. Anyone who as [sic] ever researched the subject knows how little is available, and how superficial, slanted, or downright false is the existing information…I would like to suggest a reason for this…that women’s rights (liberation, if you prefer) has dynamite revolutionary potential;”
The Women’s Rights Movement in the U.S.A.: New View; in
Notes from the First Year New York: The New York Radical Women, 1968.
And yet, here they are, the young generation of intellectual ‘feminists’, from the few seats he has given them in his academia for that purpose, voluntarily lending Patriarchy their intellect so he can achieve his long dreamed goal of disappearing feminist history from Google (the repository of history nowadays). Firestone (the last true feminist) doesn’t have to worry anymore about “missing facts and materials”: they are on the way to the 3rd waves inquisitional ‘history of feminism’ burning pile. Who made them judge, jury and executioners of feminism? I’m getting there.
Feminist critique is being used to demolish feminist history. And it is, in part, from this critique that the word ‘feminazi’ comes.
For, to have as a political goal the destruction of the history of a political movement is to intend the destruction of that movement itself. Are you still ‘12’ that you don’t know that?? Or is that your real intention? If so, then tell me, since when the political project of obliterating a history, with all the repressive tactics (including restriction on freedom of speech) and brainwashing needed to achieve it, and by one small group of people no less, is synonymous with freedom, liberty or social progress? Who taught you dat?! Who do you think benefits from it? We have always associated that type of project with fascism since WW2, a project of intolerance (there’s that word again). Ask any Jewish person if you don’t believe me.
I too can tell you, as a Puerto Rican woman, a thing or two about “destroying history”. As a colony of the USA our history has been not only demeaned, ridiculed and ignored: it has been destroyed. And in its stead we have the most humiliating arrogant capitalist ideology teaching each generation that we as a people are inferior and incapable to stand on our own feet and can’t survive without them. That ideology was put into practice the day the US invaded Puerto Rico, July 25, 1898, and taught immediately in every school in English, mind you, to student who spoke only Spanish. Then the colonizers wised up (oppressors always do) and allowed schools to teach in Spanish to better brainwash the population. We have resisted that colonizing mentality for 123 years. High school teachers lose their jobs if they insist on teaching our history of resistance against the US colonialism. This century-old struggle is one of the reasons we are not a state of the USA. Unfortunately, the ‘waves’ of politics might soon be changing that too.
Don’t you see that your publicly stated goal of “destroying the history of feminism” allies you with all the systems of totalitarian ideologies and their men of past and recent history, from Nazis to Stalin, to Mao, Trump, etc. whose first instinct to control others is to destroy their history? A couple of examples: U.S. and ‘coalition’ soldiers in Iraq intentionally destroying the Iraq Museum of Ancient History, Romans burning the library of Alexandria, etc. to destroy those people’s history and culture.
There is critique and then there is critique. I suggest that this tacit alliance with patriarchy is the source of that unfortunate label “feminazi. People are not stupid; they just get tired of the same crap. The ‘collective unconscious’ can sense that to “destroy the history of feminism” is at its roots a fascist project.
Their success is so evident that other feminists have to tip toe around this ‘postfeminist critique’. Feminist critique and ‘cancel culture’ have the power to destroy careers because it unfolds in the communications tools owned and controlled by the gods of digital and tech capitalism, the Zuckerbergs, Dorsey of Twitter, Jeff Bezos, Sergey of Google, and the numerous financial corporations owned by men who benefit from this old ‘divide and conquer’ tactic. And while 2nd wave feminists worried about their movement being destroyed by patriarchy and feminists focusing on careerism, today’s 3rd wavers have careers in patriarchy’s academia to worry about that make them intolerant to attacks on patriarchy, meaning their boss.
“’[Third-wave feminism] presumes that women can handle the tools of patriarchy and don’t need to be shielded from them’, explains Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards in the iir third-wave text,’
The meaning of that quote is that the tradition of ‘feminism vs patriarchy’ is discarded together with everything else. 3rd wavers are not out to challenge patriarchy, they want to work within it.
The power of the feminist critique and cancel culture to instill fear and destroy careers doesn’t come from them, it’s a power bestowed on them by the owners of FB, Google, IG, Twitter, etc. Those opposed to their critique get shoved into the twitter mob. Don’t be naïve thinking that those corporations are ‘trying’ to control cancel culture.
However, as feminists are increasingly pointing out, the once exhilarating proposition that there is no “essential” female nature has been elaborated to the point where it is now often used to scare “women” away from making any generalizations about or political claims on behalf of a group called “women.”
Instead of attacking this ‘critique’, some well-intentioned academicians are trying to save the 2nd wave history from the burning pile of books by sheepishly trying to show these young slayers the value, e.g., of some of Firestone’s theories.
But the die has been cast. Postfeminists are pro-capitalism libertarian/conservative women. Anyone allied to capitalism is an ally of patriarchy because those two can’t be separated.
Sweet dreams, little girls.
Airless Spaces and mental illness 