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Chris Austin Ebbtide Reporter "... I can see it in the men who try to deny that patriarchy still exists. I can see it in the women who refuse to call themselves feminists even though they believe in feminist principles..." These were the first words I heard as I walked into the auditorium to hear Allan Johnson speak on "Privilege, Power and Differences" April 23 in the Campus Theater. Hell yes. I was back in academia proper.
It didn't matter. In academic feminist-land, all roads lead to Mecca. Men, all men, are involved, wittingly or unwittingly, in a conspiracy to keep women trapped in a state of cowering submission. It had been a while. Returning to school to prepare for a master's program in a different field, I found that attending a community college spared me a return to the land of perpetually ill-intentioned men always on the lookout for new methods of subjugating women. On other campuses, I had found that the more elite the college, the wealthier the students, the more the women studies majors are oppressed. The wealth/oppression correlation didn't sit well with me. I am a socialist-variety leftist, and the math didn't add up. Early on in my experiences with both the left and academia, I learned to make a distinction between what I considered to be real, actual feminism and so-called academic or radical feminism. The former was a progressive movement. Concerned with inequality where it actually existed, its mission was to fight sexism. The latter seemed fixated on promoting sexism. Adhered to and promoted mainly by upper-middle and upper-class women, it was regressive and sometimes bordered on reactionary. When I learned The Ebbtide was looking for someone to cover a presentation entitled "Privilege, Power and Difference," I jumped at the chance. Though I assumed such a topic would inevitably focus on class and race, I was sure they would drag out at least a perfunctory dose of bourgeois pseudo-feminism. The title was cookie-cutter PC, a phenomenon which, like academic feminism, was held by popular misconception to be a petty tyranny of the left, but which, in my experience, was most predominant on conservative, Eastern college campuses with affluent student populations. As I settled into my seat, the speaker continued on a predictable trajectory. America needs to wake up and realize what a bunch of sick fucks men are. Publishing op-ed pieces on the Columbine massacre, the Central Park jogger, and 9/11, the media considered the gender of the participants irrelevant. He did not. He then laid down what he called the basics: 55 percent of women working outside the home are trapped in the low-wage pink ghetto. Women are still responsible for most child care. The wage gap between men and women is stagnant. Men dominate all major institutions in society. In media portrayals, "Women's bodies are viewed as worthless except for what men might do to them." There is an epidemic of violence against women. Johnson really didn't have anything new to say; his act is largely a regurgitation of 30 years of academic feminist saws. His sophistry mostly consisted of putting it all together in a late-night TV infomercial format, packaging his fallacies into bite-sized mortar shells. Dressed in a suit and tie and punctuating his bromides with humorous quips, he came off like an affable talk-show host, focus-group tested to disarm a potentially skeptical mainstream audience. His spiel was so rigged, and so predictable, on so many counts that it's hard to know where to begin. On the issue of 9/11, gender seemed to be the only thing relevant. Nothing about America's support of corrupt, repressive regimes throughout the Mideast since 1945, all for the benefit of a handful of wealthy men and women. That's right Allan, women. In case you haven't heard, half of the ruling classes, on whose behalf most dictatorships are run, are women, both among the local elite of colonized populations and the major share holding families of North American and European corporations. And that means half of the beneficiaries. Johnson began to sound like a televangelist when he repeated the line that the media "portray women's bodies as having no value beyond what men 'might do to them'." Now there's an interesting way of phrasing it. Barely concealing a Victorian hysteria toward (male) sexuality, Johnson resurrected the old assumptions of devious cads plotting the debasement of innocents. It's hard to decide if this is more insulting to men or women. This outlook also suggests that men are only capable of, and interested in, manipulation and anti-emotional conquest. The centuries-old stereotype of men as inherently aggressive and women as inherently passive is further perpetuated by the "epidemic of violence against women" hoax. You can't wade ankle-deep into academic feminism without being hit from all sides by the rigged statistics and sexist ideology that declare unequivocally that men are out to get women. Though academic studies have shown females are as likely as men to engage in violent behavior inside the home, most physical violence outside of the home is perpetrated by men. And it's not hard to figure out why. Violence, whether physical or economic, is usually carried out by those strong enough to feel confident of prevailing. But it's mostly men who are the victims of (physical) violence as well. Men are by far the most likely to be victims of physical violence in every category except rape among the non-incarcerated population. If there is indeed an "epidemic of violence," it's men who bear the brunt of it by far. After laying down the basics, Johnson got down to the matter of privilege, the title of his lecture. "Every time men and women interact, men control the conversation. It's been proven." (I'm not even going to get started on this one.) "Where do all these patterns come from? They all benefit men at the expense of women. And since it is unearned, it is privilege!" And here we go with the identity-politics-privilege scam, pretending that power and privilege are determined along racial and gender lines, rather than by class. This is mostly true, of course, with regard to race. Most minorities are over-represented in the working class and under-represented in the middle. And it's obviously not true with regard to gender, as the upper classes are half male, half female; the same is true for the middle and working classes. The Rev. Johnson continued his identity-politics sermon: "Privilege is something that comes to people by birth, unearned, and is therefore attached to social categories (e.g. men ). And for many people, 'man' means heterosexual; if you're gay, you don't have access to male privilege." Johnson pointed out that it is possible to have access to privilege and not know it. As an example, he used Molly Ivins' quip that George W. was born on third, but thinks he hit a triple. I agree, but would add an additional example: upon entering elite universities, or elite populations of public universities, women in particular are indoctrinated to believe that they were born having already struck out when, in fact, they were born on home plate. Even if your claims to oppression are tenuous - pagan beliefs are not given equal air-time on the 700 Club; no vegan meals at Jack-in-the-Box - you learn that they can be run through enough pseudo-intellectual smoke and mirrors to make you a victim, a survivor, of the white, male, heterosexist, non-pagan, non-vegan hegemony. After his predictable misdiagnosis of the parameters of privilege to exclude half of the privileged, Johnson spoke of the scourge of individualism, the philosophy that says it is individuals who cause good and bad things to happen. He lamented that this model allows "good" men off the hook, it makes privilege invisible, saying nothing about the social category one is born into. Basically, he used this as another smoke-screen to hide the real source of privilege. By declaring the social category, not the individual within it, to be the ultimate measure of unearned power, and then presenting false dichotomies as his categories, he is the one ignoring the privilege that many are born into. By fixating on gender, a mostly arbitrary and irrelevant measure of privilege in contemporary Western society, he lets privileged women off the hook. 'Characteristics of Patriarchy' He closed his presentation by defining the "characteristics of patriarchy." The first, he said, is that it is male-dominated. This doesn't mean that all men have power, just that most people with power are male. Apparently, Johnson is unaware that half of the people born into wealth are female. The second characteristic: an obsession with control. Women's bodies are thought to be "out of control" and are therefore considered less valuable. And it's understood that men are always right. Really? What living Westerner believes either of these things to be the case? Again, Johnson commited the ever-popular academic feminist fallacy of presenting antiquated prejudices as if they were current. The third and fourth characteristics of patriarchy, he said, were that it is male-identified and male-centered. Male experience is taken to be the standard. He warned that people trying to be in control are dangerous. An obsession with control and fear chase each other. Because academia is one of the few places that anyone listens to academic feminists, it is instructive to look here for tangible manifestations of their ideology. "An obsession with control and fear" are evident in the Victorian sexual codes of conduct instituted at a handful of schools under pressure from academic feminists, written in gender-neutral language, but understood to be directed at those always-on-the-verge-of rape-and-murder males. Afterward, I asked Johnson about his ignoring class and race in his promotion of a self-serving, faux-progressive bourgeois institution. He replied that, in this lecture, he didn't really address privilege based on race or class. As to self-serving, bourgeois opportunism, he stated that he thought the advocates of academic feminism are far too diverse a group to be summed up by this one thesis. I agree. Although, as a leftist, I think that socioeconomic issues explain a lot; I don't think they explain everything. There are other features of this movement which I think attract certain types of people. A movement which breeds hatred and contempt for half the world's population is bound to attract a number of hateful people. A movement which makes one gender the measure of all things is bound to attract some self-centered people. A movement which is largely dedicated to the self-praise of its own members is bound to be a big draw for narcissists. But I think the most troubling situation is when people are drawn to events and organizations on campus which claim to be "feminist," only to be repulsed by the sexist bullshit they find there. I learned to make a distinction between real feminism and bogus pseudo-feminism. Not everyone is inclined to give it a second chance. © 2003 Shoreline Community College™ |
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