This is not a blog you should come to, if you want to encounter a neatly packaged bunch of received political ideas that conform to any convenient label. If you can only stand views that do not offend the “right” or the “left”, or which stay within the confines of the “politically correct”, then go read elsewhere.
Recently I have taken on the shibboleths of ultra feminism, in response to a series of articles published in the Guardian by feminist writers on the Assange and DSK cases, and on Kenneth Clarke’s remarks on rape. The writers in question – including for example Eve Ensler and Zoe Williams – self-describe as feminist writers. I am not applying the description to them.
My views on these matters plainly cross what is viewed as a boundary of acceptable or conventional thought for some of my regular commentators. It is therefore sensible of me to set out those views in a logical form here, so we can identify areas of agreement and disagreement, and try to consider with each other whether any of us wish to reconsider our views.
First, on feminism in general. I recognise that there is a power imbalance in society to the detriment of women. The glass ceiling still is firmly in place. Alpha male behaviour is still overly rewarded by the cutthroat system on which our political economy is organised, to general detriment. We really do have a society where male sociopaths dominate; Tony Blair is its poster boy.
I think that palliative measures on female equality, for example on equal pay, have been a good and important thing. But they have not even achieved their limited objective, nor succesfully tackled the difficulties of women in achieving power and promotion. I do not believe, in any sense, that women’s lack of power in society is because they should rightly be concentrating on subsidiary roles, either as homemakers or in the workforce.
But I believe that palliative measures have done pretty well all they can to improve this situation, and that no fundamental change is possible unless we reform our society itself to one which operates on a more cooperative model and in which consumption, wealth and waste of resources are not the primary goals. Then aggression and selfishness will not be rewarded as they now are.
I do believe that there are differing masculine and feminine personality traits, and that it is true that cooperative and empathectic behaviour is viewed as more feminine. But there is of course massive overlap within male and female populations, and there are many men who are also disadvantaged within the present system by their more societal attitude – just as there are female Rebekah Brooks (Update I can see I am going to have to keep doing this as it is very difficult to reason with feminist ideologues. In response to a comment, I am plainly putting forward Rebekah Brooks here as the female equivalnet of Tony Blair who I cite above, the ultra-succesful sociopath. I am not saying that all career women are like Rebekah Brooks.)- but a balance of disadvantage lies currently with women.
But- when it comes to sexuality itself, I think that sexuality is a wonderful fact of existence, which should be celebrated in full. I applaud any form of pleasure giving cooperation, that does not harm others, between consenting adults. But I do not regard sex as in any way sacred or mystic.
I believe that sexuality is just another human trait which people should be able to use, if they so choose, for economic gain, just as they can use their muscles or intellect in other ways. I therefore have no problem with prostitution, striptease, or advertising images. The coercion and violence which often accompanies prostitution could largely be remedied (as with drugs) by legalisation and regulation. If people wish to sell their sexuality, I believe they have a right to do so.
Nobody should ever be forced to.
Rape is a terrible crime. I believe that it should receive a very long jail sentence indeed. My view is that custodial sentences – as opposed to other punishment – should be reserved only for those who are a danger of committing violence to others. Non-violent crime should be punished in other ways. Rape is a violent crime and society should rightly be protected from rapists by long jail sentences. However, Kenneth Clarke was right; every crime can have aggravating or mitigating circumstances, even murder. There is nothing sacramental about rape that makes it different to murder and mystically unified, incapable of being worsened by use of a weapon, death threats, duration of offence etc.
For some feminists rape is not just a disgusting and violent crime, but a totemic act, indicative of wider male domination of women in society. There is some correlation (though not absolute) between this view, and sex-negative feminism, which views the act of penetration itself as an act of male dominance, and regards feminine heterosexuality as in itself tending to enforce a submissive role in society. This feminist tendency is completely opposed to the use of female sexuality by women for commercial gain, and thus virulently opposed to prostitution, stripping, advertising images, etc.
These sex-negative feminists have what I would call a dog-whistle response to allegations of rape, tending to an immediate presumption that the man must be guilty – this blog has previously pointed to a number of such articles on both Julian Assange and DSK, of which yesterday’s really badly researched article by Liz Willams can stand as an example – in which they are undoubtedly arguing that the man is guilty. They also argue for a lower standard of proof in rape trials than other criminal trials.
I have an extreme aversion to this line of argument. It is extremely unfortunate that rape will always be, in most cases, a hard crime to prove, for reasons which are obvious. But plainly false allegations of rape do exist, and the evil of false conviction is so great we have to continue to give the benefit of doubt to the defendant. If that principle disappeared in rape trials, other categories would soon follow.
The political establishment frequently uses sexual allegations against threatening dissidents to discredit them. That was done against me, it is what was done by Murdoch to Tommy Sheridan, it is being done against Julian Assange, and there is strong reason to believe it may be what is being done against DSK. Here are some facts I did not refer to yesterday.
The suite which Diallo entered after the alleged rape was empty and adjoined DSK’s suite, with a party wall. She had entered it twice with her electronic keycard before going to DSK’s suite, and she entered it again after the alleged rape. She had consistently lied about what she did after the alleged rape, and only admitted she had entered the adjoining suite after shown the electronic keycard record. She then changed her story to say she had returned and cleaned it – which begs the question, what had she done in there the previous two times?
This is important because the keycard records show that the hotel general manager himself had entered, rather surprisingly, that same adjoining suite that morning, before the alleged rape. As the records do not show when someone left, we do not know if he met her in there, or if he was in there during the consensual or forced sexual encounter next door. What we do know is that he telephoned the Elysee Palace before the alleged rape was reported to the police, and briefed Sarkozy’s aides.
Why I get so completely infuriated with the Enslers and Williams of this world is that they don’t stop to think why Assange or DSK or Sheridan might suddenly find themselves exposed to this kind of attack. Has the far left just gained in the Scottish Parliament its most important electoral positions in the UK for decades? Is Wikileaks threatening the whole edifice of US official secrecy, illegal killing and duplicitous foreign policy? Is the IMF being steered gently leftwards at a time of huge currency crises for the West?
The ultra, sex negative feminists cannot even start to consider that they ought perhaps to consider if there is a wider context. If the accusation is sexual then they automatically obey the dog whistle.. Of course the woman is telling the truth! And they fill the columns and airwaves to the delight of the right extablishment, whose obedient attack dogs the ultra feminists have become.
That is, of course, why the allegations are always sexual. They do so much more damage, in so many ways. The strange thing is, that if DSK or Assange had been accused of anything else, like robbing a Post Office (remember Peter Hain?), people like HarpyMarx would be extremely suspicious. But throw in a bit of sex, and the stupid idiots dance immediately to the right’s tune.
@ JimmyGiro: seems to me that you’ve cut and pasted this from somewhere.
Anyway. No idea what Suhayl would say (probably something funny and apposite) but yes, of course, I define Christianity according to the actions and belief of Christ: otherwise the term is meaningless. Equally, I measure the actions of professed Christians against them.
Feminism destroys the family, does it? It has certainly challenged a family structure in which rape was legal and in which women had no control over income or property,and a system in which women had no right to vote; and in many ways, has succeeded (the fact that in many people’s view there are no parties fit to vote for is another issue). It has fought for equality of income, fought against the secrecy of abuse and domestic violence, fought for the right for female education, and on and on.
You may feel it would have been a better world if these iniquities had been allowed to continue unabated here: in which case I question not merely your sanity, but humanity. You seem to fail to realise that encouraging men to behave, or condoning men behaving, brutally has brutal effects on men too: this brutalisation is what we should all be fighting against. Feminism, in its real form, does so.
“…the ensuing crisis will allow the state leviathan to take executive control, and provide the eager corporations with desperate and willing slave labour.”. If you had any grasp of geography, history or culture you would understand that this, with the exception of the word ‘willing’, has happened, is happening, and will happen, unless people unite to resist it.
hmmmm. well I would postulate that its perfectly plausible that both men did the things they are accused of doing and their position of opposition to powerful interests facilitated their prosecution which otherwise in our society would be unlikely.
There is a plausible case that DSK seems to have done what he is accused of and more, all his previous crimes have been covered up by the institutions that he worked for (the French socialist episode is especially troubling), his latest crime coincided with the need to restore neoliberal orthodoxy at the IMF and hence is proceeding.
As for assange, has anyone read the description by one of assange’s accusers of their encounter, I don’t think she’s lying and statistically it’s pretty solid that only a tiny minority of women lie about this kind of thing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_accusation_of_rape#British_Home_Office
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to conclude that his committing of those crimes coincided with the aims of Swedish conservatives to cosy up to the US by convicting someone they (the US) were out to get, this resulted in the robust prosecution of something that (sadly even in Sweden) a powerful man would usually get away with very easily
Otherwise great people do horrible things, Martin Luther King Jr cheated on his wife loads, Gandhi was all kinds of crazy when it came to his personal life, it’s not too much of a stretch to imagine that these men can be both good in one way and bad in another.
Craig. if you want a more snappily written alternative to @Yakub islam’s recommendation on gender construction and male/female personalities you could try
cordelia fine’s book delusions of gender
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Delusions-Gender-Science-Behind-Differences/dp/184831163X
it’s really good
here’s an interview with her
http://castroller.com/Podcasts/LittleAtoms/1830601-Cordelia%20Fine%20-%20Delusions%20of%20Gender
(ok last try at posting this no links this time)
hmmmm. well I would postulate that its perfectly plausible that both men did the things they are accused of doing and their position of opposition to powerful interests facilitated their prosecution which otherwise in our society would be unlikely.
There is a plausible case that DSK seems to have done what he is accused of and more, all his previous crimes have been covered up by the institutions that he worked for (the French socialist episode is especially troubling), his latest crime coincided with the need to restore neoliberal orthodoxy at the IMF and hence is proceeding.
As for assange, has anyone read the description by one of assange’s accusers of their encounter, I don’t think she’s lying and statistically it’s pretty solid that only a tiny minority of women lie about this kind of thing.
(wikipedia [“false accusiation of rape”] lists stats of studies done in the uk, 3% false claims and the Austrailia at 2.1% )
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to conclude that his committing of those crimes coincided with the aims of Swedish conservatives to cosy up to the US by convicting someone they (the US) were out to get, this resulted in the robust prosecution of something that (sadly even in Sweden) a powerful man would usually get away with very easily
People who are otherwise great do horrible things, Martin Luther King Jr cheated on his wife loads, Gandhi was all kinds of crazy when it came to his personal life, it’s not too much of a stretch to imagine that these men can be both good in one way and bad in another.
Craig. if you want a more snappily written alternative to @Yakub islam’s recommendation on gender construction and male/female personalities you could try
cordelia fine’s book delusions of gender
it’s really good
there’s also a prety good interview with her at little atoms and one on behind the news with doug henwood.
I’d like to register my objection to calling Jesus of Nazereth “Christ”.
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The story of Jesus carries huge emotional power – so long as he is regarded as a normal human. The perversion of his story into that of some sort of immortal sub-deity robs it of all meaning.
Clark, fair play; on the other hand that’s what ‘Christianity’ does, otherwise I guess it would be called ‘Jesusism’ 🙂
“Christianity” is fair enough. They mythologise and thereby degrade this important human story.
“I think that palliative measures on female equality, for example on equal pay, have been a good and important thing.”
“Then aggression and selfishness will not be rewarded as they now are.”
The equal pay act and other equality legislation (I’m assuming you’re referring to this in the first quote) is ultimately enforced by government violence. You want society to change to be less aggressive by not rewarding aggression? Try leading by example and not advocating aggression to get what you want.
Apart from that bit your article is bang on, the neofeminists are reducing adult women to the status of children, and men to the status of the devil incarnate.
Epyon, you wrote: “statistically it’s pretty solid that only a tiny minority of women lie about this kind of thing”. However, you have referenced a Wikipedia article with the tag “The neutrality of this article is disputed”, and quoted the lowest figures in that article. Other parts of the article read:
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“Detailed investigations using differing samples and methodologies have found widely differing results ranging from as high as 41% to as low as 1.5%. As a scientific matter, the frequency of false rape complaints to police or other legal authorities remains unknown”
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and
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“A tabulated list of studies on false reporting published between 1968 and 2005 placed the percentage of false reports between a minimum on 1.5% (Theilade and Thomsen, 1986) and a maximum of 90% (Stewart, 1981)”.
So, Jimmy, you’re saying that Marxism has nothing to do Marx? How odd. I suppose Leninism has nothing to do with Lenin. And Stalinism has nothing to do with Stalin. And Trotskyism has nothing to do with Trotsky. And Maoism has nothing to do with Mao. And Thatcherism has nothing to do with Thatcher. And Bonapartism has nothing to do with Bonaparte. And Kafkaesque has nothing to do with Kafka. How odd. One almost feels as though one is turning into a cockroach. Perhaps your political philosophy might be termed, Cockroachism.
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One suspects the truth is, you don’t really know that much about Marxism (or Marx); as I suggested, you just use the term as a totem, a negative signifier. Kind of like Senator Joe McCarthy did.
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You didn’t read the link I provided about Asma Jehangir, did you? Here it is again. One thing is clear: Asma Jehangir does not believe in Cockroachism.
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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asma_Jahangir
Hi Craig
I haven’t seen you since your last days as rector at Dundee, i hope you are well.
You’ve certainly thrown the proverbial cat among the pigeons with a couple of your recent entries.
When the state fabricated evidence against you their motives were obvious, and i’m glad that the lies fell apart (unfortunately at a considerable emotional cost to yourself and your family).
Simmilarly if the Julian Assange allegations are also bullshit then the motives on the part of the establishment is very obvious. However, I know enough about the Tommy Sheridan case to know that it wasn’t quite so clear cut.
The part of your post that i’m wondering about is the part about DSK. What would the motive be to frame him up? in his role at the IMF he was a piller of the european political class, who did he represent a threat to?
Andrew,
Great to hear from you. I should be plain I don’t think the allegations against Sheridan were false. Set up, possibly, but not false. In his case, he wasn’t accused of doing anything illegal, but the madness was with the feminists who considered having a bath with some sex-workers worth the destruction of the SSP.
DSK I think was probably just Sarko wanting to get rid of his most dangerous opponent, but like you I am not entirely sure.
I would tend to agree wrt Sheridan. However, wrt the SSP fragmentation, Craig, was it not because Sheridan allegedly asked the SSP to engage in a cover-up of his sexual shenanigans that the SSP fragmented? Did they not advise Sheridan not to sue the Murdoch press? I’m sure they advised him not to sue. I agree, however, that in Scottish culture, there is a stream of repressed opprobrium about sex, possibly (simplistic, I know) a legacy of the mix of Calvinism and Irish-Scots Catholic guilt, etc., and that probably did play a part. But, sadly – very sadly – I think it was Sheridan’s own hang-ups that did for him/them, rather than feminism.
Yes, I agree about Sarko wrt DSK. His hand was there, somewhere, I’m sure.
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Is Sarko on cocaine, btw? I’ve heard this rumour, from some journalists in France, but never had it confirmed. His energy level is legendary.
An interesting thread – must say I don’t agree with those leaving because it’s become too rude. My own view probably is much as probably Craig’s, but as modified by Old Trot and DeepGreenPuddock – workers in the sex industry are almost invariably coerced.
I don’t think all feminists are crazy but I know some are – there’s Luce Irigaray, for example, who thinks that Einstein’s equation E=mc^2 is ‘sexed’. There’s an amusing deconstruction of Irigaray and other deconstructionists in ‘Intellectual Impostures’ – Irigaray is described as ‘unwittingly comical’.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fashionable_Nonsense
Sorry to pop up twice, but the allegations against Sheridan were, as Craig says, both true and set up. However feminism had nothing to do with his downfall – it was Sheridan’s ego which caused the trouble, his desire to take on NI even though it meant asking his colleagues – male and female – to lie for him. It was mostly the males who refused. A senior Scottish QC, a friend of Sheridan’s, told me that he had strongly advised Tommy *in writing* that he should not proceed with the case against NI as the outcome, no matter what it was, would likely be very damaging to the SSP.
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After the recent shenanigans at NI maybe Tommy will have the last laugh. Damage done, though.
Precisely, Vronsky. It really had absolutely nothing to do with feminism.
“I agree that IQ is a controversial thing – all it measures is your ability to take IQ tests – but I last had mine measured at 187…” Craig.
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That casual comment, my dear fellow, allows us to put you squarely in the ‘highest genius’ category. Indeed, according to Bertrand Russell (drawing on Nietsche), it would make you ‘an overman’.
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http://hem.bredband.net/b153434/Index.htm
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Or else, a Midwich Cuckoo.
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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Midwich_Cuckoos
I should say that Craig’s helping of people in need, as depicted by him earlier in this thread, is admirable and amazingly self-sacrificing. I’d missed that bit of the post before, and I think that needs to be said. I also agree with Craig that the struggle must be comprehensive and societal in nature.
“I should be plain I don’t think the allegations against Sheridan were false. Set up, possibly, but not false.”
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That maybe is what was intended for you and others to think?. After the first trial at which Sheridan won, the second trial hinged on the black shadow video, with a voice that was or was not Sheridans?. For me it was all too strange to make any sense, that is to this day my thoughts on it all.
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As for your being set up Craig, its a very old ploy that the right wing have employed over not years but over the centuries…William Dodd
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=17991&pid=231510&st=0&#entry231510
“That maybe is what was intended for you and others to think?.”
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“What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite”
Bertrand Russell (1872 – 1970)
Oh for heaven’s sake. Craig: “but the madness was with the feminists who considered having a bath with some sex-workers worth the destruction of the SSP.”
Really? I would have thought it far more likely that it was the disapproving spinsters, rather than the ‘feminists’. At least, that would be one way to keep blaming ‘women’. Where are all these ‘feminists’ who brought down the SSP? How did they do it? Without any proof this is again entirely nonsensical – never mind against the interpretation anyone I’ve known who knows anything about Scottish and SSP politics has given it.
Jimmy, in case you forgot… from the previous thread:
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> So, as to whether all women are misandrist. It’s an important point, I think.
“DSK or Assange”
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Looks like you can add another one
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/jul2011/moti-j30.shtml
“his desire to take on NI even though it meant asking his colleagues – male and female – to lie for him. It was mostly the males who refused.”
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Vronsky, I don`t think it was that way. There were some at that meeting that said he never admitted but denied what had been written about him, the majority of the first trial jury believed them…Vronsky wrote… “After the recent shenanigans at NI maybe Tommy will have the last laugh. Damage done, though.”…As Craig wrote above…”the destruction of the SSP”…Whatever the truth of the matter, all roads lead to…mission accomplished!.
Jon wrote: “Jimmy, in case you forgot… from the previous thread:
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> So, as to whether all women are misandrist. It’s an important point, I think.”
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A mangina believes that all women are feminists; therefore it is a ‘reasonable’ question to you.
How very sad to adopt your discourse from Hollywood films. But then it is make-believe, tissue-thin, fantasy, isn’t it, Jimmy, with not even a good script to back it up.
@ Jon,
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Further, in an act of great prescience to your deliberate equivocations, I answered your ‘important point’ in the first comment of this thread.
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It is very brave of you and the other manginas, Suhayl and Technicolour, to sacrifice your intellectual integrity at the altar of Marxist-Feminist misandry.
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Your collective equivocations failed to account for the real evil displayed in the Sharon Osbourne exposure; and the Marxist-Feminist holocaust of boys education, as exemplified by the drugging of about 1 million boys (and rising) with Ritalin on a regular basis.
We live and have always lived and always will live in a dysfunctional and damaged mixed tribe of semi naked interbred apes on a damp rock in the middle of nowhere where life as we know it is nasty, brutal and short and made more so by our own efforts. We don’t know where we came from, we don’t know why we are here, and we don’t know where we are going. We will continue to live this way until our extinction is achieved.
“damaged mixed tribe…” James.
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Do you mean the Neanderthal, etc. admixtures? Is this a ‘2001’ Kubrick image? Throw the bone up into the sky… I mean, you’re not wrong, obviously, wrt the ape-thing, but…
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My advice: a stiff whisky.
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Jimmy, here we go: “the Marxist-Feminist holocaust”. You missed out ‘Femi-Nazi’. Don’t forget the ‘Femi-Nazi Mangina’. This is a William Burroughs, H. P. Lovecraft primal creature and it’s waiting for you, Jimmy. It yearns for you. It wants to encompass you and swallow you up. To take you back into the great womb.
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My advice: some dungarees.