http://jkalb.org/node/2?PHPSESSID=c066e75b5ddd57acfbeee3bae553c7f3

Introduction
Welcome to the Anti-Feminist Page!

"Women's issues" are so contentious that it often seems easier to avoid
them. Nonetheless, they are basic to all our lives, so open discussion is
necessary and we hope this page contributes to that. To begin exploring the
issues feminism raises we include a short essay as well as a list of
resources. We also have a spoken introduction (requiring RealPlayer).

The issues presented here can be discussed in our forum. Your participation
is welcome. You can also email the author, Jim Kalb, or add a comment at the
foot of this page.


Feminism and Antifeminism
"Feminism" means so many different things that it appears to mean very
little. Its advocates constantly contradict each other and themselves. In
casting off feminine reserve and modesty they seem to have learned
intellectual shamelessness as well. Rather than damaging feminism, its
incoherence offers an easy defense against criticism: whatever the
complaint, the response is that it misses the mark because feminism is
really something else.

It appears, however, that nothing can be called feminism that is not
radically antitraditional and antinatural. What feminists call "gender"-the
system of attitudes, expectations and customs that distinguishes men from
women-has always and everywhere been basic to human life. To speak of
"deeply rooted social stereotypes" is to speak of the centrality of
masculinity and femininity to how we understand the world. Grammatical
gender is one sign among many of that centrality. Although the detailed
content of sexual distinctions has varied somewhat their general outlines
have been stable. The men and women in ancient and non-Western literatures
are immediately recognizable to us today as men and women like ourselves.
Yang strikes us as masculine, Yin as feminine, just as they did the ancient
Chinese.

The practical aspects of gender are no less universal than the symbolic. The

ties among a man, a woman, and their children have always been fundamental,
and dependent for reliable functioning on a generally settled division of
responsibility among the parties and therefore between the sexes. More
specifically, all societies have been patriarchal, with men mainly
responsible for public concerns and women for domestic matters and the care
of small children. Always and everywhere men, while exercising no general
right of domination, have predominated in positions of formal authority.

The universality of these differences shows them to be rooted in biology and
other permanent conditions of human life. It is hard to think of anything
very different that would work, given the need for stable and functional
families and therefore generally settled role distinctions able to stand up
to the stresses and changes of life. A system as complex and subtle as human
life cannot be reconfigured in fundamental ways merely at will. Nonetheless,
opposition to gender as a principle of social order-to what is called
"sexism"-is what unifies the things called "feminism."
Since the opposition
is absolute and categorical, feminism is in no way reformist. It treats a
fundamental and evidently necessary principle of all human societies,
sex-role differentiation, as an oppressive arrangement that must be
abolished at whatever cost.

The aim of feminism, therefore, is to create a new kind of human being in a
new form of society in which the ties among men, women and children that
have always existed are to be dissolved and new ones constituted in
accordance with abstract ideological demands. In place of family ties based
on what seems natural and customary, and supported by upbringing and social
expectation, feminism would permit only ties based on contract and
idiosyncratic sentiment, with government stepping in when those prove too
shaky for serious reliance. There is no reason to suppose the substitution
can be made to work, let alone work well, and every reason to expect the
contrary. Feminism does not care about reason, however, or even about
experience of the effects of weakened family life. It is in fact ideological
and radical to the core. There can be no commonsense feminism, because doing
what comes naturally gets a feminist nowhere.

The harsh things that can be said about anarchism and communism can be said
with yet more force about feminism, because what the latter seeks to
eliminate touches us far more deeply than private property or the state.
Like the other two ideologies, feminism can be presented as a lofty and
necessary ideal set up in opposition to a long history of dreadful
injustice. After all, things like gender that are implicated in all social
life are necessarily implicated in all social injustice. Nonetheless, the
practical implementation of feminism, especially by force of law, can only
lead to catastrophe. Like anarchism it calls for categorical opposition to
distinctions and patterns of authority people find natural, and like
communism for ceaseless radical reconstruction of all aspects of life, and
consequently for absolute bureaucratic control of everything. Both
tendencies are thoroughly destructive, and their apparent mutual opposition
does not render them harmless.

The result of the victory of feminism has been a combination of disorder and
state tyranny cascading from America throughout the world, from the most
immediate personal relationships to high culture and international politics.
Feminism has meant suspicion and hostility where mutual reliance is an
absolute necessity. It has meant growing deceit, heartlessness and brutality
in daily life, resulting in particular suffering for the weak. It has meant
confusion and misery for the young, who have been deprived of stable family
life and concrete ideals of adulthood. It has meant the destruction of local
and popular institutions by ever more powerful and irresponsible state
bureaucracies. It must therefore be opposed as a destructive fanaticism
based on a gross and wilful misapprehension of human life.

It is not surprising that feminists, who misconstrue so much, misconstrue
the nature of the opposition to them. Since their position requires a
comprehensive and minute system of ideological regimentation they assume
antifeminists must also be aspiring tyrants. They thus recreate their
opponents in their own image.

In fact, to be antifeminist is simply to accept that men and women differ
and rely on each other to be different, and to view the differences as among
the things constituting human life that should be reflected where
appropriate in social attitudes and institutions. By feminist standards all
societies have been thoroughly sexist. It follows that to be antifeminist is
only to abandon the bigotry of a present-day ideology that sees traditional
relations between the sexes as simply a matter of domination and submission,
and to accept the validity of the ways in which human beings have actually
dealt with sex, children, family life and so on. Antifeminism is thus
nothing more than the rejection of one of the narrow and destructive
fantasies of an age in which such things have been responsible for
destruction and murder on an unprecedented scale. It is opening oneself to
the reality of things.

Acceptance of the legitimacy and usefulness of sex roles is an exercise of
ordinary good sense. Stable and functional families are necessary for a
tolerable way of life, and they will not exist unless men and women each
have something specific to offer that the other is entitled to rely on.
Further, the natural tendencies of the sexes are different, and life is
happier when social institutions somehow reflect natural human tendencies.
Nonetheless, what is in itself good sense may be quite radical from the
point of view that is conventional in public at a particular time and place.
Such is the state of antifeminism today. To reject feminist claims is to put
oneself outside what is said to be the mainstream.

The success of feminism has owed a great deal to the astonishing absence of
open opposition to it. That absence has had a variety of causes, including
masculine cowardice and the difficulty of communication between the sexes.
Other causes include the extreme centralization of public life today, the
absolute triumph of liberal ideology in our public and intellectual life,
and the difficulty that ideology has dealing with issues relating to family
life because of its tendency to base all human relations on arm's-length
bargaining or force.

The power of feminism despite its evident irrationality shows the strength
and pervasiveness of the institutions, interests and ways of thinking that
support it. Its triumph has been part of the triumph of state and market
over all other social powers, the culmination of a trend that has been
sweeping all before it for centuries and become horrendously destructive.
Government and business are feminist, ultimately because family life hems
them in by establishing a principle of social order not reducible to money
and state regulation. The media, the educational system, and even organized
scholarship take their lead from government and business and are therefore
feminist as well. No significant social authority takes an opposing view.
Without exception the articulate and powerful benefit from absorption of the
functions of the family by formal public institutions.

Circumstances thus favor feminism, and a restored system of sex roles will
not be brought back by fiat. A system of sexual cooperation must be
generally acceptable to both men and women, and reflect current conditions
as well as human nature. What must be done now is to eliminate arbitrary
ideological demands and open up discussion so that considerations
fundamental to normal human life but at odds with institutional interests
can once again find expression and play their necessary role in public and
private life. Extensive discussion and experimentation will be necessary to
that end, things now impossible because of feminist laws and censorship.
Almost alone, the Internet retains its independence and holds out hope that
resistance and free discussion may still be possible.

In the end feminism cannot win because it radically undermines any stable
and productive ordering of private life. By disordering reproduction and
childrearing it puts long-term social survival in question. It has done a
great deal of damage, however, and will do much more before it destroys
itself. The more explicit, articulate and successful its opponents the more
damage can be prevented. Hence this page


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Men are everywhere that matters!





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