Feminist Boosterism

Last night I recieved an e-mail from somebody I had no reason to expect any e-mail from—or at any rate I'm not sure how or why I, of all people, got onto their mailing list. This message was dispatched to me by "A Single WomanMovie News", and rather than explain it myself I will send you to their official home page, here: http://tinyurl.com/6w3gqd

As you will quickly see, former United States Congresswoman Jeanette Rankin is a HUGE feminist icon. Do a bit of googling to learn more about her.

From yesterday's e-mail, this:

"* The National Arts Club has invited "A Single Woman" to screen at their historic national landmark headquarters, the Tilden Mansion, 15 Gramercy Park South, on Tuesday January 6th [2009] at 8pm for their members as well as invited guests.

"Charles De Kay, literary and art critic for the New York Times formed this world-renowned club, whose mission is to stimulate, foster and promote public interest in the arts and educate the American people in the fine arts, in 1898. The Club's Membership has included three presidents, and some of the most important artists and arts patrons in America. It also admitted women on a full and equal basis from its inception."

The Gramercy Park district in Manhattan is an elite location as locations go. I walked through that area once, years ago, and the dim 19th-century image lingers in my memory: the leafy park; the wrought-iron fence; the ornate buildings.

And this movie about Jeanette Rankin is getting a ton of support from high places. They are hyping it, big time; they are talking it up! They are screening it at the elite Arts Club, as you have seen. They are also screening it at the Smithsonian Institution, and in front of the United States Congress. Alas. . . poor feminism, friendless and forlorn!

This movie, A Single Woman, is clearly a major project in which a lot of time, money, energy and planning have been invested. It is a "rich kid" which has been pampered every step of the way. But here is more from yesterday's e-mail:

"*The Office of Los Angles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and his Partnership for L.A. Schools (a program the Mayor designed to improve the ten most troubled schools in the Los Angles Unified School District) worked with us to bring a full school bus of high school students from Santee High School in South Central Los Angeles to the Pacific Design Center to see the film.

"Students, teachers, social workers and volunteers from CAMS (the Coalition Against Militarism in the Schools) joined several of the film's team in discussing "A Single Woman" for over half an hour after the film ended. The students were engaged and inspired by what they learned and Principal Richard Chavez wrote to tell me how much they had enjoyed the experience."

(So as you can see, they are spreading their message to the lumpenproletariat urban masses. Verrry clever!)

Mind you, I have not seen this flick. I may, or I may not, eventually do so. But let's keep in mind that cinema is a magical thing, and as such promotes magical thinking—superstition, in other words. Which is not the sort of thinking that I recommend.

For truly, this Jeanette Rankin is an impressive, nay, a formidable person! And she makes one hell of an icon, so it is no mystery to me why certain people might wish to shove her into the faces of certain other people, as if to say "who do you think YOU are, sirrah??" And the timing for such a gesture seems about right, too. After all, we are well aware of the grassroots groundswell of bad feeling, concerning feminism, that is presently in progress. . .

Yes, feminism is looking rather tarnished, and it needs a hero to refurbish the shine! A righteous champion holding aloft a golden sceptre. . . .

Yet need I remind you, that feminism is our enemy?

Feminism, to be sure, benefits a certain number of people. For example: mercenary women, gold-digging women, criminally-minded women, man-hating women, flakey women, irresponsible women, bureaucratical parasite women; intellectual viper women in academia. But above all, feminism benefits men of the ruling class, and it benefits men who long to join the ruling class—for it gives such men a surefire way to plant their bootheels (directly or indirectly) on the necks of underclass "chumps" who refuse to "get with the program".

Feminism empowers women against men, AND. . . it empowers MEN against men. The second clause is critical, for feminism would crumble within two weeks if ALL MEN made a collective decision to stop supporting it. But the reason this doesn't happen is because some men are profiting greatly, at the expense of other men, from feminism's existence.

Jeanette Rankin, so it appears, was a champion in many different fields, not just feminism alone. And from the looks of it, she is now getting boosted—on the "Statue of Liberty" principle—as an emblem. An embodiment. A personification of feminism itself . But that doesn't make a jot of difference: feminism is STILL your enemy, and don't you forget it!

It is merely boilerplate rhetoric for a feminist to declare that "feminism works to achieve justice for everybody". And I don't doubt that some feminists mean that very sincerely in their own minds, and I don't doubt that some of them sincerely walk their talk in that regard. But that is NOT the pragmatic truth about feminism as a whole; in fact it is a hypocritical charade and nothing more.

They say it because it sounds like a good thing, because it places them in a rhetorical posture that is burdensome to argue with, and because it puts their adversaries (who typically have a more narrow political focus) on the defensive—for you will look like an enemy of peace and justice clear across the board if you merely attack feminism.

But it's all a pack of lies, and it's all rhetorical posturing. Feminism wraps itself in the flag of "progressive politics" in order to use that very same politics as a living shield. The truth is, that by far the majority of women who parade through life under color of feminism are nasty, selfish, vindictive creatures—and their impact upon the social ecology reflects this.

This Jeanette Rankin, for all I know, was an admirable person. I haven't got much to say about her, because quite honestly she doesn't much interest me. My voice is neither for nor against her. Why should Jeanette Rankin interest me? Why in heaven's name should I worship the idols of my enemies, or even trouble my head about those idols one way or the other?

Jeanette Rankin might have been quite a gal, and she might have made quite a splash. But I don't give a fig about any of that, because I wash my hands of her and all that concerns her. Jeanette Rankin is nothing to me. . .

Jeanette Rankin? Whatever!

Jeanette WHO..??

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Note: The people who sent me that e-mail might have just been curious to see my reaction. I expect this will satisfy their curiosity.