What About Moderate Feminists?

What exactly is a moderate feminist? Another person has, by way of analogy, alluded to "moderate Nazis," and while the average person who believes that The Daily Show and Oprah actually broadcast news might find that a tad illiberal, there is a kernel of truth to what he is saying.

The truth is, I can envision a member of the Nazi party who simply said, "You know, I love Germany. I am a nationalist and I think we need to get control of immigration. We need to rebuild the infrastructure of this country and this Adolf guy seems to be all over that stuff. I don't agree with everything he says, but he seems the only one who can drag us out of the economic morass we are in, so I voted for him, and joined the party - and the pay is good as a party member; lotsa opportunity! So I do it for my wife and kids."

He has no hatred of Jews; no desire to rule the world; doesn't approve of the use of corruption and violence as political tools - his agreements with the movement are entirely pragmatic.

But doesn't the presence of such a man in the Nazi party lend credence to its less noble goals? While HE sees National Socialism as a decision regarding infrastructure and national greatness, OTHERS see his participation in the movement as an implicit approval of the wider goals of the party. And let's not forget, that whether he agrees with Nazi goals or not, there is strength in numbers, and the party of the concentration camp is made stronger by his mere association with it.

But the real problem, it seems to me, is not that our mythical moderate is lending credence to something he doesn't agree with, but rather that to associate with a lie not believed is simply the calculating act of an evil person, and to believe less of a lie than someone else does not confer any amount of truth upon the original lie. All who believe a lie, even if they do so to varying degrees - nevertheless believe a lie! And all are morally culpable for choosing the lie - though they choose less of it than another - when the truth was apparent.



But if we could draw a line between "radical feminazis" and "moderate feminists," does anyone have any idea where that line would be drawn? Are there certain basic beliefs that a moderate feminist would have? Likely, in my opinion, she wants an expansion of or maintenance of abortion rights. Likely, she is on board with the Domestic Violence bandwagon - and even if she admits that men are often victims rather than perpetrators (an exceedingly moderate stance), she still likely agrees with the feminist definition of DV - including "failing to take another's feelings into account" or "trying to withhold money" or "being controlling" - and of course the idea that a person simply trying to look out for his own interests, balance his budget, or keep his wife from harming herself or leaving him are criminal deeds to be equated with assault and battery is part of the neurotic radicalism that is radical feminism, no?

As an aside, as a former resident of South Carolina, I have followed the Mark Sanford scandal with some interest, having been personally acquainted with him years ago. I notice that his wife kicking him out of the house and refusing to let him see his kids for a period of time while he took time to think through his adultery has not once even been suggested to have been Domestic Violence! Yet I have been in court and seen men have Domestic Violence Protective Orders continued against them for threatening to take the kids away, for threatening to leave, and even for trying to keep a woman from leaving him! Odd, no?

Or perhaps it isn't abortion or domestic violence: maybe it is wage equity that is the issue of "moderate feminists." First, since all reasonable people know that wage equity (at least in America) has already been achieved, focusing on this non-issue is much like focusing on Domestic Violence or Global Warming: throwing governmental money and power at a made-up issue in an attempt to expand governmental power. But that governmental power IS and WILL BE expanded: at the cost of discriminatory policies against men. Do "moderate feminists" find it OK that more highly-qualified men are routinely discriminated against so that less-qualified females can have jobs? Is that best for society? The client? The economy? The men and women involved?

Or maybe it is the family that is the issue? Perhaps the moderate feminist simply despises the male-headed home. She despises evangelical Christianity, the Patriarchy, traditional values - however she characterizes it - and feels that women are equally qualified to hold authority and lead the home. Now, of course, she feels this in direct opposition to the facts, since we all know that the plague of divorce is a female concoction (with 2/3 of all divorces - the vast majority utterly groundless - are initiated by women) and that children are harmed by growing up in a home headed by a woman alone. But of course, it is not the children or society or all the millions wasted on family lawyers or even the fact that eight years down the road she will call somebody like me and say, "You know, I thought I would be happier/married again/whatever if I left my husband, but looking back I see I destroyed the greatest situation I ever had." - no, it is not any of these things: for the stability of society and the good of children and even the truth itself are expendable so that a woman can get what she wants.

To say nothing of the fact that, if a woman truly feels she is competent to head a home (and consequently destroy it), there is a great harvest of manginas out there who would be more than glad to agree to such an arrangement. There is no need for a political movement legislating such - but you see, it is not her own freedom that the feminist desires (for she will gladly exchange "slavery" to her husband for "slavery" to the government!) - it is merely the unadulterated hatred of men and their authority that she despises. It is not her submission to a man (which would never occur) that she hates, it is the willing submission of other women - reminding her of her own neurotic fears of men, and illustrating that they are, in fact, neurotic fears, since women in male-headed homes seem to do quite well.

And every once in a while, the emotions begin to rear their ugly collective head, and these "moderate" feminists forget that the TV camera is on, and even such moderates as congregate in the Church of Oprah forget themselves and let the truth slip, showing the vicious hatred, the neurotic fear, the irrational departure from reality that is the feminist mindset - even among the more "moderate" of their ilk:

"You're trying to get your hunger needs met," Dr. Smith tells Melissa. "What are you hungry for? To be loved? To be cared for? To feel special? These are not things to be ashamed of. You're asking a great question: 'How can I stop this?'"

Dr. Smith says that a lot of young girls are treating their bodies like trash cans. "Trash cans for what? For boys' sperm. For boys' insecurities. The boys come and drop their trash in our bodies. … It keeps going until we decide that we aren't receptacles for garbage. That my body is a temple; it's sacred. … I'm not the place that boys come and drop their sperm, their insecurity so they can pump their muscles up as I shrink down into nothing."

Well, since Oprah Winfrey is the very definition of "feminist lite" or "moderate feminism," given this quote, can you tell me exactly what is the difference between a "moderate feminist" and "radical feminazi?"

Feminism in all of its strains is a neurosis - a mental illness - because it is at its root a departure from reality and a flight into neurotic fears ("all men are abusers/rapists")and neurotic fantasies ("I can do whatever a man can do so lower all the requirements to accommodate me!").

We are happy whenever we find a bipolar patient whose illness is under control. She is always better off than the person committed long-term who cannot even come outdoors and live life. But at the end of the day both are sick. Very sick. Painfully, woefully, and pitifully sick.

And these "moderate feminists," though they may be married, though they may spout platitudes about men being victims of domestic violence, and though they may sing in the choir at church, (and though, like our moderate Nazi above, they may preface every discussion of feminist ideology with the phrase: "Well, now I don't agree with THAT....") are just as surely living a neurosis - a reality constructed only in their mind - as are the more rabid radicals whose rite of passage is the abortion and whose worship service is The Vagina Monologues.

And who, exactly, is prepared to characterize the violent destruction of the human child, engaging in systematized perjury as a means of getting money (or one's way), the use of government force to deny opportunity to others, and the destruction of the family - the very foundation of society and the only truly safe place for women and children to dwell - as a position of moderation?