Feminism

[rusmeister]

So, essentially, it’s a war on the feminine nature, and characteristics that are a phenotype off that genotype, itself. I couldn’t fully understand his whole argument, but I’ll have to re-read it again to fully digest this excerpt more. Thank you! Very helpful. What do you take most away from this excerpt after reading the entire book?

It's not really fair to encapsulate or sum up, though I can. In short, it is that, leaving out things like the influence of devils and evil spirits as such, there are forces of this world - the rich and the powerful, in concert with ideologues who basically envision the Kingdom of God without God. The latter preach "freedoms" that the rich and powerful want, such as sexual "freedom", and in turn the rich and powerful plutocrats (I think that the best term) bankroll the ideologues into positions of power, the dumber ones into government and the more clever ones into education. Feminism was cooked up to set the two sexes against each other, by claiming an enmity that hadn't existed, using real abuses and evils - such truth as they can base their ideas on - to foment the idea that women are "oppressed" as a class and need to rebel against their supposed male oppressors. For the wealthy owners of businesses it had the effect of doubling the labor force, halving wages, and reducing wages that had been expected to support a family to wages that could only support an individual, if that. That forces women out of the home and into the work force, most of them for minimal wage, and only a few of the wealthy and privileged women could actually attain the "self-realization" (note the emphasis and lifting up of the self there) promised to all, whereas most wind up having to work at Walmart or MacDonald's, so to speak.

The book goes much further - making clear that the "Industrial Revolution" was a revolution against the common man and traditional life, aimed at breaking up the family as a united thing - the one civil unit capable of standing up against the government, commanding older and higher loyalty than government, enabling the principle of "divide and conquer", forcing, first the man out of the home to work for a wealthy stranger rather than in his own workshop or farm, then the woman, and finally force the children into a factory-like institution, one of the purposes of which is to prevent independent thought. (You can draw the inference from that that the Luddites were not quite as stupid as our histories endeavor to paint them.)

Many won't want to hear it, though, because if you think it through, you can see that accepting all that could require us to change some aspects of our lives - and people would rather believe comfortable falsehoods than uncomfortable truths. Thus, they ask for thesis statements ("Get to the point!") but don't want to hear out the thesis itself and its defense - the many reasons why the thesis is held.

Does that make sense?

 

[rusmeister]

So are they saying socio-economic developments play no role in the shifting roles of men and women?
Do they believe when women lived in an agrarian society in the 1500's, they could have still been doing yoga for leisure and sipping coffee at starbucks while they waited for the wealthy landowner's son to marry them and not the peasant working 12 hours a day in the field?

Yes, that is one of the reasons we are seeing so much of this - complaints about oppression from the least-oppressed people the world has ever seen. From positions of comfort they can weave any narrative at all, preferably one that casts them as victims and others as being at fault for their problems.

It is very hard for us to see the good and be thankful, and easy to see the bad and complain. (I do not exclude myself!)

 

[nicholas123]

So, mainly stating the facts rather than raising the philosophical foundation of the ideology? I’m trying to figure out the difference between those two actions mainly.

Facts always depend on intuition, no one is beyond prelest. But my suggestion is that they aren't going to do a complete 180 degrees turn in their worldview, so control a bit of the heat and that statistics are good way to do just that. I speak from experience.

 

[SingularityOne]

Facts always depend on intuition, no one is beyond prelest. But my suggestion is that they aren't going to do a complete 180 degrees turn in their worldview, so control a bit of the heat and that statistics are good way to do just that. I speak from experience.

Hmm, good point. Statistics will be hard to find in this area though as the bias is so strong towards one side.

 

[SingularityOne]

N/A

 

[SingularityOne]

It's not really fair to encapsulate or sum up, though I can. In short, it is that, leaving out things like the influence of devils and evil spirits as such, there are forces of this world - the rich and the powerful, in concert with ideologues who basically envision the Kingdom of God without God. The latter preach "freedoms" that the rich and powerful want, such as sexual "freedom", and in turn the rich and powerful plutocrats (I think that the best term) bankroll the ideologues into positions of power, the dumber ones into government and the more clever ones into education. Feminism was cooked up to set the two sexes against each other, by claiming an enmity that hadn't existed, using real abuses and evils - such truth as they can base their ideas on - to foment the idea that women are "oppressed" as a class and need to rebel against their supposed male oppressors. For the wealthy owners of businesses it had the effect of doubling the labor force, halving wages, and reducing wages that had been expected to support a family to wages that could only support an individual, if that. That forces women out of the home and into the work force, most of them for minimal wage, and only a few of the wealthy and privileged women could actually attain the "self-realization" (note the emphasis and lifting up of the self there) promised to all, whereas most wind up having to work at Walmart or MacDonald's, so to speak.

The book goes much further - making clear that the "Industrial Revolution" was a revolution against the common man and traditional life, aimed at breaking up the family as a united thing - the one civil unit capable of standing up against the government, commanding older and higher loyalty than government, enabling the principle of "divide and conquer", forcing, first the man out of the home to work for a wealthy stranger rather than in his own workshop or farm, then the woman, and finally force the children into a factory-like institution, one of the purposes of which is to prevent independent thought. (You can draw the inference from that that the Luddites were not quite as stupid as our histories endeavor to paint them.)

Many won't want to hear it, though, because if you think it through, you can see that accepting all that could require us to change some aspects of our lives - and people would rather believe comfortable falsehoods than uncomfortable truths. Thus, they ask for thesis statements ("Get to the point!") but don't want to hear out the thesis itself and its defense - the many reasons why the thesis is held.

Does that make sense?

This all makes sense. It seems like the ideology sits on resentment and rebellion tbh... I’m about to read the whole section in the book.

Could one say that men have a reciprocal role in this ideology too; disobedience of not self-sacrificially loving in a responsible way?

 

[buzuxi02]

How come those issues happen during the World Wars yet not in other previous wars?

There were not enough men to fill the jobs nor to start families. So they placed women to fill those jobs in factories and making munitions etc. One of the greatest government marketing campaigns was to create a fictional woman called 'Rosie the Riveter' to convince women to head to the factories (you can google the poster). Previous wars were not as great nor during the industrial revolution which created a further economic boon after the war ended.

Women's suffrage is a byproduct of a generation of men being absent and never coming back home.

 

[rusmeister]

This all makes sense. It seems like the ideology sits on resentment and rebellion tbh... I’m about to read the whole section in the book.

Could one say that men have a reciprocal role in this ideology too; disobedience of not self-sacrificially loving in a responsible way?

Absolutely. And the culture of self-love totally feeds into that.

 

[rusmeister]

The problem with men is having themselves killed off in war and thus the women filled the vacuum. Women never talked about wanting to be in the work force until they were forced to during wartime. They only started asking about voting rights during war time when the men were away getting slaughtered. In this once again government is the culprit. Government tricking the men into the draft and then the women looking towards the government as their saviors. The other thing men are guilty of is being the ones who actually built this infrastructure and institutions which the feminists worship as the golden calf.

Feminism cant grasp socio-economic developments. They believe society always was mobile, everyone always had access to mass transportation etc. They have no idea that in most of human history people never traveled more than 50 miles from their villages and simply worked the fields but as needs and resources (usually through war) became available technological and industrial advancements were made.
The point is the most priveleged women in the world are also the most unhappy. Being the most priveleged means they also have the most leisure time on their hands to promote their insane ideologies and take part in recreational protests where they dress like court jesters or sometimes leave the clothes at home altogether.

Though the bit about men being killed off was more devastatingly true in Russia and Eastern Europe (including, no doubt, Greece) than in the West, still, it is more or less true that a "workforce" had been created and women were in fact encouraged or driven to enter it, and that was certainly one of the (slave-)driving factors.

 

[SingularityOne]

Absolutely. And the culture of self-love totally feeds into that.

How does abortion/abortifacients fit into this narrative?

 

[rusmeister]

How does abortion/abortifacients fit into this narrative?

Pretty easily. GK described it in a great little essay:
Social Reform versus Birth Control

“If (the employer) can prevent his servants from having families, he need not support those families. Why the devil should he?”

 

[LizaMarie]

My views will be controversial, but I think 2nd(or 3rd wave feminism or whatever) is a strong delusion from Satan that has led to the current state we are in now with the unraveling of the family and society.
I'm talking about the Boston's Women's Collective Book "Our Bodies Ourselves" form of feminism which first came out around 1972 when I was still a child and my best friends older sister by five years had and we looked at. Abortion and free sex of all kinds were what it advocated. Abortion was depicted as no more than retroactive birth control. God have mercy on us.
Of course I believe women should have equal rights with men in the workplace and in society, but
we have devalued motherhood and family, the rotten fruits are obvious from this in our society.

 

[rusmeister]

My views will be controversial, but I think 2nd(or 3rd wave feminism or whatever) is a strong delusion from Satan that has led to the current state we are in now with the unraveling of the family and society.
I'm talking about the Boston's Women's Collective Book "Our Bodies Ourselves" form of feminism which first came out around 1972 when I was still a child and my best friends older sister by five years had and we looked at. Abortion and free sex of all kinds were what it advocated. Abortion was depicted as no more than retroactive birth control. God have mercy on us.
Of course I believe women should have equal rights with men in the workplace and in society, but
we have devalued motherhood and family, the rotten fruits are obvious from this in our society.

If only we could see the human ideal, we would realize that "the workplace" ought to be a man's own farm or workshop, that the average man ought not to be working for an employer at all, but in the immediate vicinity of his own home. That goes double for the woman.

But we don't see, a condition called "blindness".

 

[ArmyMatt]

Of course I believe women should have equal rights with men in the workplace and in society, but
we have devalued motherhood and family, the rotten fruits are obvious from this in our society.

agreed. a lot seems like modern feminism is a green light for women to behave like pigs as men did (and do), rather than women calling men out on their hypocrisy, and using virtue to elevate men to be better.

behaving like a pig then just leads men to objectify and abuse women more.

 

[Not David]

If only we could see the human ideal, we would realize that "the workplace" ought to be a man's own farm or workshop, that the average man ought not to be working for an employer at all, but in the immediate vicinity of his own home. That goes double for the woman.

But we don't see, a condition called "blindness".

Exactly. Who benefits from both men and women competing in the workplace? The corporations.

 

[All4Christ]

Am I understanding that some of you (Orthodox responders) think we shouldn’t be able to work in the workplace? I agree with @LizaMarie on this, both about work and family. Orthodox thought and teaching does not mandate that we only stay in the home.

 

[rusmeister]

Am I understanding that some of you (Orthodox responders) think we shouldn’t be able to work in the workplace? I agree with @LizaMarie on this, both about work and family. Orthodox thought and teaching does not mandate that we only stay in the home.

A good question and thanks for asking!
No. I, at any rate, am saying that there shouldn’t be “a workplace” in principle, or at least, that it ought to be the exception, and not the rule, of employment of the populace. The average citizen ought to be working for himself, either as a farmer, or craftsman, or specialist for his immediate community.

It is NOT about “control and domination of women”. The whole idea of the home as a place of confinement and slavery was popularized by people like George Bernard Shaw, the famous frenemy of Chesterton. If anything, the home is the only place of true freedom for anybody. A woman working in her own home for a family she loves is by definition freer than one that works for a rich stranger, doing the will and bidding of the stranger, and accomplishing what HE wants and needs.

The evil of the industrial revolution, more than in anything else, was that it first forced the father out of and away from the home, and then the mother, when the employers squeezed the wage tight enough, and finally the child sent to a compulsory state institution. It has been a long and gradual breakdown of the family, the only institution truly capable of resisting the power of big government and big business, commanding older and higher loyalty than that due to an employer or one’s government. The family is what stands between us as individuals, and enslavement. Thus, the masters of business and government are naturally for whatever will break down the family, increasing the profit of the unnatural thing called the “corporation” and the helplessness of the individual before the state. Thus, easy divorce, sexual perversion, the end of the social rule of marriage as a sacred and inviolable status, and so on.

 

[All4Christ]

A good question and thanks for asking!
No. I, at any rate, am saying that there shouldn’t be “a workplace” in principle, or at least, that it ought to be the exception, and not the rule, of employment of the populace. The average citizen ought to be working for himself, either as a farmer, or craftsman, or specialist for his immediate community.

It is NOT about “control and domination of women”. The whole idea of the home as a place of confinement and slavery was popularized by people like George Bernard Shaw, the famous frenemy of Chesterton. If anything, the home is the only place of true freedom for anybody. A woman working in her own home for a family she loves is by definition freer than one that works for a rich stranger, doing the will and bidding of the stranger, and accomplishing what HE wants and needs.

The evil of the industrial revolution, more than in anything else, was that it first forced the father out of and away from the home, and then the mother, when the employers squeezed the wage tight enough, and finally the child sent to a compulsory state institution. It has been a long and gradual breakdown of the family, the only institution truly capable of resisting the power of big government and big business, commanding older and higher loyalty than that due to an employer or one’s government. The family is what stands between us as individuals, and enslavement. Thus, the masters of business and government are naturally for whatever will break down the family, increasing the profit of the unnatural thing called the “corporation” and the helplessness of the individual before the state. Thus, easy divorce, sexual perversion, the end of the social rule of marriage as a sacred and inviolable status, and so on.

Working from home or the immediate community is good - I’m not disputing that. That said, I’m focused more on women not being able to do things beyond being a mother or house wife. For purposes of discussion, consider it to be working in a business out of the home, not working for a boss somewhere to satisfy the company’s bidding.

What role would you say a woman who cannot medically have children in this case? What would you say in regards to Ss. Priscilla, Lydia and Phoebe, or the ideal woman mentioned in Psalms? What of the saints who were empresses? Men and women were not always working from their home. Women at times worked in business as well, albeit often in home based businesses without a corporate boss. I’m referencing times outside of the Industrial Revolution. The corporate world is a topic in and of itself.

I’ll go back to the first point - what of the women who cannot medically have children in the ideal you mentioned and thus fulfill the role of motherhood? Are you saying they still are “freer” at home being a house wife without the option of doing other things well? Why would God give women gifts if they could not contribute to society in various ways? What of the “vote” question in my previous post?

 

[ArmyMatt]

just in case this question was directed at me, my wife works, but she's always a wife and mother first.

 

[All4Christ]

just in case this question was directed at me, my wife works, but she's always a wife and mother first.

Nope not you - I agree with what you always have said in this.

Likewise, men should be husbands and fathers first as well, right? God first and then family take priority.