FirmYetGentle
Seasoned Veteran
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2015
- Posts
- 74
I've noticed something strange over the past several years among the anti-feminist movement. It used to be that feminism versus anti-feminism was argued along the lines of this:
Feminism saw patriarchy as an essentialist ideology while simultaneously saying historical systemic prejudice was grounded in denying certain feminine essences because society had become accustomed to prioritizing masculine forms of idea processing.
Those forms entailed rationalism before empiricism, universalism before particularism, abstractions before concreteness, sense of time before sense of space, absolute morality before relative morality, principle before power, analysis before synthesis, necessities before possibilities, agency before communion, and individuality before collectivity.
Therefore, feminism typically aligned itself with other political ideologies like anarchism, Marxism, multiculturalism, environmentalism, postmodernism, etc. The objective was to oppose the rule of law and order in general since due process was deemed patriarchic, and replace it with a socially democratic outlook by which consensus deliberately played favorites towards desirable members of society while the unwanted were expected to do everyone's dirty work.
Then, Trump hit the scene.
Trump was a former Democrat who was ostracized among his own, and his gracelessness did not align with the typical anti-feminist argument. If anything, he was a former feminist himself. He deliberately promoted women ahead of men in his real estate empire, he hosted the glamorizing Miss Universe pageant, and he disparaged family values by getting divorced multiple times. This went along with the onset of Gamergate in which feminism dissociated from its typical anarchist sentiments.
The implication was bizarre.
Trumpism twisted rugged individualism from being a movement about pioneers on the frontier blazing their own trail by harnessing forces of nature to a movement of blaming victims to stop whining and pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
In essence, Trumpism itself became... feminist... which isn't much of a surprise: https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/03/20/the-other-womens-movement-trump-le-pen-clinton-nationalism/
What Trump did was rally feminists to his cause while appealing to simple-minded, anti-intellectual, grotesque traditionalism. He took the conventional idea of "intellectuals are liberal" to alienate the anti-feminist argument from itself. Instead, those who practiced feminist forms in opposition to essentialism were embraced while the anti-feminists themselves were portrayed as elites, especially since those elites often embraced globalization and free trade as a way to get working class people around the world to compete among one another.
The only reason so many feminists oppose Trump is because Trump is a Republican, but so many others have thrown their lot in with the movement while moving on from their pasts. The single mother conservative phenomenon is a classic example of this in which they deliberately want to pretend that their past decisions about jumping to conclusions without commitment established in advance... didn't happen. Instead, they just want to embrace rugged individualism and show the world how they're pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. Another classic example is drug addicts who've gone sober who get more consideration than others who never got hooked in the first place from self-control. Likewise, people who overcame mountains of debt from splurging in hedonist consumerism are treated better than others who never went into debt to begin with.
It seems very clear that feminism has subverted anti-feminism from the inside out because Trumpism allowed it to happen. The flagrant hypocrisy which is festering among the political right has its own lack of discipline to blame. Instead, it's put conformity, obedience, and punishment ahead of cultivating technique in the celebration of excellence.
Feminism saw patriarchy as an essentialist ideology while simultaneously saying historical systemic prejudice was grounded in denying certain feminine essences because society had become accustomed to prioritizing masculine forms of idea processing.
Those forms entailed rationalism before empiricism, universalism before particularism, abstractions before concreteness, sense of time before sense of space, absolute morality before relative morality, principle before power, analysis before synthesis, necessities before possibilities, agency before communion, and individuality before collectivity.
Therefore, feminism typically aligned itself with other political ideologies like anarchism, Marxism, multiculturalism, environmentalism, postmodernism, etc. The objective was to oppose the rule of law and order in general since due process was deemed patriarchic, and replace it with a socially democratic outlook by which consensus deliberately played favorites towards desirable members of society while the unwanted were expected to do everyone's dirty work.
Then, Trump hit the scene.
Trump was a former Democrat who was ostracized among his own, and his gracelessness did not align with the typical anti-feminist argument. If anything, he was a former feminist himself. He deliberately promoted women ahead of men in his real estate empire, he hosted the glamorizing Miss Universe pageant, and he disparaged family values by getting divorced multiple times. This went along with the onset of Gamergate in which feminism dissociated from its typical anarchist sentiments.
The implication was bizarre.
Trumpism twisted rugged individualism from being a movement about pioneers on the frontier blazing their own trail by harnessing forces of nature to a movement of blaming victims to stop whining and pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
In essence, Trumpism itself became... feminist... which isn't much of a surprise: https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/03/20/the-other-womens-movement-trump-le-pen-clinton-nationalism/
What Trump did was rally feminists to his cause while appealing to simple-minded, anti-intellectual, grotesque traditionalism. He took the conventional idea of "intellectuals are liberal" to alienate the anti-feminist argument from itself. Instead, those who practiced feminist forms in opposition to essentialism were embraced while the anti-feminists themselves were portrayed as elites, especially since those elites often embraced globalization and free trade as a way to get working class people around the world to compete among one another.
The only reason so many feminists oppose Trump is because Trump is a Republican, but so many others have thrown their lot in with the movement while moving on from their pasts. The single mother conservative phenomenon is a classic example of this in which they deliberately want to pretend that their past decisions about jumping to conclusions without commitment established in advance... didn't happen. Instead, they just want to embrace rugged individualism and show the world how they're pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. Another classic example is drug addicts who've gone sober who get more consideration than others who never got hooked in the first place from self-control. Likewise, people who overcame mountains of debt from splurging in hedonist consumerism are treated better than others who never went into debt to begin with.
It seems very clear that feminism has subverted anti-feminism from the inside out because Trumpism allowed it to happen. The flagrant hypocrisy which is festering among the political right has its own lack of discipline to blame. Instead, it's put conformity, obedience, and punishment ahead of cultivating technique in the celebration of excellence.
