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Author
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Topic: Gender Feminism and Sexual Archetypes
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Das Reich
VoivodFan
Member # 286
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posted April 19, 2003 15:16
    
The rise of radical feminism in the latter half of the 20th century represents one of the most significant developments at an ideological level to emerge in the post-WWII West. Traditional feminism, what sociologist Christina Hoff Sommers termed "equity" feminism, was and remains essentially an extension of Enlightment philosophy, rooted in traditional (18th and 19th century) liberalism. "Equity" feminism, as its name implies, focuses largely on issues of legal equality for women (i.e. suffrage, access to education, "equal pay for equal work" etc.). Most contemporary academic and activist feminism, however, eschews the liberal, Enlightenment roots of traditional "equity" feminism in favor of a more ideologically militant feminism rooted in Marxism and post-modern philosophy. Dubbed "gender" feminism by Dr. Sommers, radical feminism now represents the dominant strain at the upper echelons of feminist academia and activist organizations.Gender feminism derives its fundamental tenets from its combination of Marxist and post-modern thought. From Marx, gender feminists have inherited a profoundly deterministic approach to historiography, though they eschew the wholly economic construct of Marxist historiography for a more generic one of "power relationships." At the center of this historiography lies the Myth of the Patriarchy, which, while given the respectable veneer of academic origin, amounts to little more than a tawdry conspiracy theory on par with tales of Grand Masonic Cabals and Zionist Plots (a related concept is the Myth of Primeval Matriarchy, an ahistorical fantasy constructed from incompetent interpretations of mythology, withful thinking and outright fabrication). From post-modern philosophy, gender feminists have derived two notions about the nature of truth that drive their ideological approach: 1. Relativism: the notion that all ideas are wholly subjective and therefore have "relatively" the same truth value. 2. The idea that all social institutions and values are artificially constructed to serve the needs of "power relationships." The end result of the underlying assumptions of gender feminism are manifest. Rejecting any objective truth or natural basis for social institutions and values, they see these institutions and values as fair game for reconstruction along ideologically determined lines (thus the radical feminist mantra that "the personal is political"). This predilection is firmly wedded to a fanatical zeal born of righteous fury engendered by the perceived Vast Patriarchal Conspiracy. Not surprisingly, one of the central focuses of gender feminist ideological assault has been what the gender feminists themselves refer to as "gender roles," and what I will hereafter call sexual archetypes*. Gender feminists see sexual archetypes, particularly the notion of the archetypal man as breadwinner/protector and the archetypal woman as caretaker/mother, as the chief enforcement arm of the Vast Patriarchal Conspiracy. Gender feminists view sexual archetypes as artificially created "social constructs" designed to keep women down by forcing "dependence" on men. This view ignores the salient realities of sexual archetypes. 1. The most foundational sexual archetypes have a natural, biological basis. The association of masculinity with the role of breadwinner/protecter and femininity with caretaker/mother transcends all cultural boundaries. The most basic sexual archetypes are universal to all documented human cultures. This argues powerfully for a non-cultural root for sexual archetypes (and explains why gender feminists are forced to resort to postulating the existence of a Primeval Matriarchy despite the massive evidence to the contrary). The biological basis of sexual archetypes is born out by clinical psychological and neurological studies, as well as the fact that a differentiation of sex-based roles is a common feature of most social animals. 2. "Dependence" is not the one way street that gender feminists would have you believe. Rather, it is a case of mutual INTERDEPENDENCE, with women depending on men for security and men depending on women for stability. The great irony is that gender feminists don't seek to actually LESSEN the dependence of women, but merely to transfer it from a man to the government. In place of the security of a husband or father, they would have women entrust their security to the all knowing welfare state. This represents a tacit, if perverse, admission of the natural basis of sexual archetypes. The problem is that the government apparatus envisioned by gender feminists strongly resembles the total state of Stalinist/Maoist thought, complete with reeducation camps for those who don't get with the program. The gender feminsts' dream is everyone's nightmare. ----------------------------------------------- *I prefer the term "sexual archetype" because "gender role" implies certain assumptions I find to be manifestly false. "Gender" implies social construction rather than biological origins, and "role" implies a watertight and absolutist framework, both concepts which I reject.
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Nuclear Vampire
VoivodFan
Member # 20
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posted April 19, 2003 16:27
quote:
Originally posted by Das Reich:
Ah, so what I've actually run into here is the latent resentment of a clique at the "intrusion" of outsiders. I see.Unfortunately, that's your problem, not mine.
1. Possibly
2. No, it's not a problem at all.
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Das Reich
VoivodFan
Member # 286
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posted April 19, 2003 16:37
quote:
Originally posted by Noitall:
I think you are probably more interesting than your lectures are. Why are you hiding behind contrived text?
The internet, by its very nature, is contrived. To me, fully articulated ideological stances are far more revealing than: Hi, I'm Das Reich, I like extreme metal and long walks on the beach. No Jews need apply.
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posted April 19, 2003 16:39
