The Question of Feminist Guilt: It Will Not Go Away

So. . . did feminism make this happen?

That is an important question. And a hard question—meaning, a persistent question which demands an answer. However, let's scrutinize this from another direction. In light of your own study of feminist behavior over many years, how do you suppose the average feminist would react when confronted by a story of this nature? For example, are you aware of any feminist website that would embed such a video as this, and thereupon invite its feminist readers to a spirited discussion of the issue which the video raises?

I would say: fat chance! For I have seen that most feminists will completely blow off such pesky little embarrassments by filtering them out of their world altogether—out of sight, out of mind! It is a rare feminist indeed, who would introduce any such material for discussion among her peers—polite silence is the order of the day; a communal agreement to "not go there." Still, they will sometimes be forced to handle these issues, and when such a moment arrives, the interlopers who apply the force in question will be given a special name: "trolls".

A troll, incidentally, is any person who enters a feminist space and subverts the feminist worldview.

And the feminists, who are certainly no slouches in such matters, have a witty saying which they love to wheel out on occasions when they feel compelled to express any opinion whatsoever about such things:

"Oh, but. . .what about teh menz??"

The burden of this apothegm is double-barrelled. On the one side, it translates very effectively as "let them eat cake!" And on the other, it amounts to an across-the-board "fuck you", tossed flippantly in the general direction of half the human race. This filthy snot-rag of a saying will typically fly from a feminist tongue any time somebody has the moxie to suggest that men's problems are as serious as women's, and so must be regarded seriously if women's problems are likewise to be regarded seriously.

But the problem with taking men's problem's seriously, is that you can't TRULY take them seriously if you don't grapple with the equally serious question of feminism's role in either creating those problems, or perpetuating their existence. Or putting it simply: the question of feminism's guilt.

Yes, the hard question: Did feminism make this happen?

Surely, if I were a feminist who had any conscience whatsoever, I would be squirming like a toad on a hot-plate if I were compelled to spend time thinking or talking about such things. But then, if I were a feminist who had any conscience whatsoever, I wouldn't be a feminist. . . would I? And in that case, my conscience would be clear, and I wouldn't need to squirm like a toad. . . would I?

We must consider, that during the last forty-odd years life has gotten worse for men in a multitude of ways. And in so considering, we must equally consider that this thing called feminism took a considerable hand in the proceedings. And therefore it becomes critically important to ask, repeatedly and in connection with a multitude of difficulties, the hard question: Did feminism make this happen? It becomes critically important to ask this question a LOT, because frankly, a lot of things cry out for such an inquest.

Feminism is conspicuous for both its presence and its absence as regards anti-male developments of every sort. For instance, feminists were indisputably present at the inception of many worrisome social trends that nowadays plague us all—but plague men in particular. Sometimes they actively initiated such things, and demonstrably launched them into the world. Or perhaps they early spoke in favor of such things, in words foreshadowing such things— urging the necessity of such things and making the inclination of their sympathies abundantly clear in regard to such things.

Other times, the initial contribution of feminism is not so plainly seen, yet the absence of present-day feminist voices upon such matters—the peculiar silence, the denial, the trivialization, the rationalization, the self-serving reinterpretation, the conversational avoidance, and above all the glaring failure to manifest a seemly sense of moral urgency—speaks with overpowering eloquence. So that even if the feminists cannot be shown to have directly supported the matter in the beginning, they clearly do so now. And that even if they didn't clearly make it happen in the beginning, they clearly make it happen now, by making it clear that they don't want it to stop happening.

And so again, the hard question of feminist guilt: Did feminism make this happen?

And the feminist reply: "Oh. . . but what about teh menz?"

It is a magic-wand statement, and for them it makes the world disappear. For truly, nothing medicates a seasick conscience quite like striking a jaunty pose of devil-may-care defiance in the company of a supportive peer group. Why be a guilty, squirming toad when it feels so much better to be a fashionably nihilistic toad?

But now, my good friends of the non-feminist sector, go and watch the video again in order to burn it more deeply into your brains!
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Update: 1 Dec 2010:

Unfortunately, this video (by the notorious Thugtician) has been removed. It wouldn't surprise me if Thugtician has been banned altogether from YouTube -- he "told it like it is" rather strongly, and had plenty of enemies!

But briefly: the video told the story of a man in Dauphin county, Pennsylvania, who got hit with the most outrageous case of paternity fraud you can possibly imagine -- the kind that buggers belief! And. . . the various bureaucrats and agencies conspired and lied outrageously to keep this man in his condition of slavery. Tom Leykis reported on the story, and Thugtician included a clip of Leykis in his YouTube video.