Rage Against the (Male) Machine
The American feminist movement did not begin in the mid-1800s as a war against men. It began as a war for women. A war for women's equality and women's liberation and women's rights. But it was not an overt attack on men or on maleness. That has changed dramatically with the modern feminist movement. It has declared war on males.
Through much of our history, black males have been the target of discrimination and prejudice, right until today. But a new enemy has been found for special attack, and that is males in general. And in the eyes of a radical feminist, no one is guiltier than a white male, the very image of oppression and the embodiment of patriarchal rule. He must be overthrown.
These sentiments were hardly hidden before Donald Trump was elected president. But his election brought them front and center in the loudest and strongest possible terms.
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He was not just a white male. He made women into sexual objects (sadly, this was true). He was a misogynist. And he was powerful. The most powerful man on the planet.
Trump, to the radical feminists, represented everything that was wrong with maleness, everything that needed to be opposed. That's why the Women's Marches were so vitriolic. (Of course, the idolatrous devotion to Roe v. Wade played directly into their fury as well. And this, in turn, is another aspect of male domination over women: only the females have to deal with unwanted pregnancies.)
That's why their rhetoric was over the top, perhaps encapsulated in Madonna's expressed desire to blow up the White House. Trump's election means war!
All this has now been exacerbated by the sexual assault charges brought against Brett Kavanaugh.
As a white male, he is presumed guilty.
As a conservative Catholic, he is obviously guilty.
And in his passionate defense of his reputation and integrity, he is without doubt guilty. Kavanaugh is the abusive, angry white male. Kavanaugh represents the enemy.
The passionate, angry speech of Lindsey Graham during last week's Senate Judiciary hearings was just icing on the cake – the very ugly cake of white male patriarchy.
As expressed by "A Z Bluemeanie" on the Blog for Arizona, "eleven privileged white male Republican senators and privileged white male Judge Brett Kavanaugh in a collective primal scream against the outrage of anyone, especially this woman, challenging their privileged white male patriarchy, nay their God-given right to rule over our us.
"It was a defense of the old world order of privileged white male patriarchy, to paraphrase William F. Buckley, Jr., 'standing athwart the tide of history and demographics yelling Stop at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it.'"
The patriarchy must be toppled! White male rule must come to an end! The Amazons must rise!
On the Nation.com, Liza Featherstone counseled a woman who asked, "How do I contain my RAGE at all these REGRESSIVE PATRIARCHAL JACKA--ES who are KILLING MY BUZZ on the DAILY?"
Liza replied, "Whatever you do, don't contain your rage. That's how we end up hurting and sabotaging ourselves. As Dr. Melfi, Tony Soprano's wise shrink, observed, 'Depression is anger turned inward.' Suppressed rage can also lead to physical ills, like high blood pressure and heart attacks. Even worse, it leaves the world's depravity untouched."
Surely the male patriarchy is part of "the world's depravity." It's time to rage against the male machine!
Rebecca Traister is the author of the new book Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger. And lest you think this is a fringe message, her book debuted on Amazon (no relationship to the aforementioned female Amazons) as the #1 Bestseller in Women in Politics. At the time of this writing (on the day of the book's release), it was #9 overall on Amazon sales, quite an achievement.
According to Traister, "The power is being gripped ever more tightly by those who have power."
More specifically, "that is what the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh is about and that is the kind of power that is gonna have a mechanical value when it comes to suppressing the insurgency. One of the purposes of shaping this court for another generation is to depress the mechanisms of change."
Even more specifically, the purpose is, "To take away votes. To take away bodily autonomy and therefore, economic, familial professional autonomy from women."
The men – especially the powerful white men – want to keep women enslaved. They will do anything to hold onto their power.
That's why Traister uses words like "revolution" and "the insurgency." This is an all-out war.
And you can be assured of this. No matter how compassionate men may be. No matter how much they protect and care for the women they love. No matter how honorably they act towards the opposite sex. No matter how much they stand against sexual harassment and assault and abuse.
If they hold to conservative moral values. If they are pro-life. If they believe in gender distinctions. If they even believe – perish the thought! – that men might be better equipped to carry certain burdens than women. If they are anything but card-carrying, radical feminist-affirming, hardcore leftists, they are the enemy. And all the more if they are white.
The sad irony in all this is that the more they succeed in the reaching their goals, the less fulfilled they will be as women. In the end, they are fighting themselves.
