I understand your rage and outrage at those women who are so desperate for male approval, or who are so unquestioningly self-involved and congratulatory of their own fake self-righteous performance, or those who are cynically opportunistic, mercenary or ambitious careerists driven to making it in a man's world or are just weak, maybe sycophantic, always willing to pander to the more powerful. Still, don't we have higher standards for women? We have to accept that there are some women who willingly betray other women. We can expose them , but we can't lose sight of the real enemies of women. I'm sure many men would like to see us focus our wrath on other women, as I've frequently observed, but that may play into the hands of the real puppet-masters. No matter the lofty status of any woman she may still be subjected to rape, domestic violence, sexual harassment or be used as the scapegoat for the failures of the men around her. As a working-class woman who's spent more than half a century fighting male violence against women the sting of betrayal by such women is deeply painful. Yet, I know many well-intentioned women fed into the present situation by claiming that women are the same as men, ignoring or denying biological differences and the uniqueness of the evolutionary development of the sexes. Biological essenialism or determinism was a potent slur to shut up feminists who dared mention unique characteristics generally expressed by women rather than men. Women like Alice Rossi were attacked by other feminists for such unacceptable opinions. Others were silenced and shunned for entertaining any suggestion of biological differences. As you might deduce, condemning the idea that women differ in any way from men is truly internalized misogyny. Are the qualities we generally see more of in women like nurturing so unattractive that we should disown them? If men have more physical strength is that necessarily any better than women frequently having better endurance? Only if you have internalized misogyny and consider qualities associated with women to be inferior. This is what men have done for centuries, so some women have bought into it. Now some men have painted women into a corner where they have to admit they were wrong about women being the same as men or embrace the female qualities that male supremacists have irradicably vilified. It will entail a sea change for women (and men) to accept and affirm that femaleness has it's own value, but does not disqualify women from fully participating in all intellectual and physical activities they feel called to.
I understand your rage and outrage at those women who are so desperate for male approval, or who are so unquestioningly self-involved and congratulatory of their own fake self-righteous performance, or those who are cynically opportunistic, mercenary or ambitious careerists driven to making it in a man's world or are just weak, maybe sycophantic, always willing to pander to the more powerful. Still, don't we have higher standards for women? We have to accept that there are some women who willingly betray other women. We can expose them , but we can't lose sight of the real enemies of women. I'm sure many men would like to see us focus our wrath on other women, as I've frequently observed, but that may play into the hands of the real puppet-masters. No matter the lofty status of any woman she may still be subjected to rape, domestic violence, sexual harassment or be used as the scapegoat for the failures of the men around her. As a working-class woman who's spent more than half a century fighting male violence against women the sting of betrayal by such women is deeply painful. Yet, I know many well-intentioned women fed into the present situation by claiming that women are the same as men, ignoring or denying biological differences and the uniqueness of the evolutionary development of the sexes. Biological essenialism or determinism was a potent slur to shut up feminists who dared mention unique characteristics generally expressed by women rather than men. Women like Alice Rossi were attacked by other feminists for such unacceptable opinions. Others were silenced and shunned for entertaining any suggestion of biological differences. As you might deduce, condemning the idea that women differ in any way from men is truly internalized misogyny. Are the qualities we generally see more of in women like nurturing so unattractive that we should disown them? If men have more physical strength is that necessarily any better than women frequently having better endurance? Only if you have internalized misogyny and consider qualities associated with women to be inferior. This is what men have done for centuries, so some women have bought into it. Now some men have painted women into a corner where they have to admit they were wrong about women being the same as men or embrace the female qualities that male supremacists have irradicably vilified. It will entail a sea change for women (and men) to accept and affirm that femaleness has it's own value, but does not disqualify women from fully participating in all intellectual and physical activities they feel called to.
Well said.
Apropos title for this well written piece~!
Thank you for the link Roisin.