Men's Group
In reply to the discussion: "Gender Traitors" [View all]ElboRuum
(4,717 posts)It isn't LIKE a demand for group think, it IS a demand for group think.
The group in question, and this is just a speculation, are people who may have been harmed in some way by men but have not healed. And the fact is that this healing, for most of them, may NEVER occur. If this is the case, I do feel sympathy for them and whatever it may be that has happened to them. However, acting as a group, it is obvious that there is enough unbridled anger there, being reinforced and amplified amongst each other, that they've long since abandoned the fact that it was an individual or individuals which have caused their pain, not an entire categorical group.
Once you've gone there, my sympathy disappears. The group in question is more about demonizing men as a whole, treating them as inferiors and sub-human, and looking upon anything males favor as abhorrent, retrograde, and anti-progressive. To attempt this kind of a bigotry in a liberal framework touted as a type of feminism, where we would otherwise look at such a bigotry itself as abhorrent, retrograde, and anti-progressive, requires the kind of rhetorical tomfoolery we usually see from them.
It's why hypocrisy is not only acceptable, but unavoidable. Why it is okay to shout at men the worst sort of accusations of troglodyte behaviors, and why even the most careful statements of criticisms in the mere direction of a woman are intolerable and ALWAYS "sexist"? It's to be expected. Men bad, women good, at least among these so-called "feminists". When a woman says, "that man has a point" which opposes their narrative, they are "traitors". It seems to be just an us vs. them situation, and has little to do with advancing the rights of women to points of true equality. It's why they'll jump into bed with the likes of Ed Meese if it gets that nasty objectifying porn out of the hands of those male grotesques. Put aside the fact that Ed's one of the most reactionary of the party of reactionaries, and would probably rewrite the Constitution to declare women as property given half a chance to do so. It's an acceptable alliance because every erection prevented is a battle won, apparently.
Feminism, in its primacy of purpose, is to assure for women the same freedom of choice that men have, in all aspects of society where no other limiting factor would otherwise exist. Going further, if, indeed, those limiting factors are presumed to exist, they should be ruthlessly questioned and subject to the preponderance of the burden of proof if we are to accept them. At its heart, the point of feminism is to tear down the artificial edifices of restriction placed upon women's bodies, ambitions, roles, and minds so that women may enjoy fully the gamut of choices that men have always taken for granted.
Yet, when a woman chooses something that does not mesh with their idea of the "right" choice, all of a sudden the choice and freedom and agency of women that they claim to care so much about become "troublesome" and "regressive". Of course, the hypocrisy in this is obvious, so to coat it with a delicious candy shell, it all of a sudden conveniently becomes coercion in the guise of choice. Well, there you go. The usual malefactors are, of course, blamed (patriarchy, etc).