Put Them in a Pipe and Smoke Them!

Know them forwards and backwards, inside and out! Savvy how they think and what they are on about! Feminists love to inform us that it's not their job to educate us about feminism. Therefore, it is left to our own sovereign pleasure to educate ourselves about feminism in whatever manner would make them wish they'd been careful what they'd wished for. For truly, if we intend to dismantle their world then we ought to learn how their world is put together, yes?

Our great strength (and consequently their great weakness) is that we know more about them than they know about us—and they will not condescend to know about us; that is their attitude, and I have seen it displayed again and again. However, it is always a great strength to "know thine enemy", and this great strength waxes even greater when thine enemy knoweth not thee! So just imagine the multiplication of force that finally happens, when you know more about thine enemy than thine enemy knoweth even about himself! That is when you begin to OWN thine enemy; that is when thine enemy's soul passes into YOUR possession!

In the case of our enemy feminism, we've got the upper hand and always will! They cannot truly know us, because doing so would force them to know themselves—and that is a world-shattering moment which they maneuver to avoid. They do not want to know the truth about themselves, and in that way they are very, very human indeed, because to avoid the truth about oneself is a classic human behavior. They may be our enemies, but we oughtn't fail to see their humanity—by which I mean their human fallibility, frailty, vanity and venality. That they are human, that they bleed when you cut them, is not in question. We must learn to see them as human, otherwise we'll not get the proper measure of them.

At any rate, let us by all means educate ourselves about feminism, on the principle of know thine enemy. Be it personally, politically, or what you will. It's all good, it's all grist for the mill, and it all grinds.

Very well. The following is from an article on 'Feminist Epistemology' at the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. ('Epistemology' means roughly "the organized foundational theory of knowledge or knowing." Therefore, Feminist Epistemology means roughly "the organized foundational theory of knowledge or knowing organized upon a feminist foundation". So you will quickly realize the political importance of studying such things.) :

"Feminist epistemology is an outgrowth of both feminist theorizing about gender and traditional epistemological concerns. Feminist epistemology is a loosely organized approach to epistemology, rather than a particular school or theory. Its diversity mirrors the diversity of epistemology generally, as well as the diversity of theoretical positions that constitute the fields of gender studies, women’s studies, and feminist theory. What is common to feminist epistemologies is an emphasis on the epistemic salience of gender and the use of gender as an analytic category in discussions, criticisms, and reconstructions of epistemic practices, norms, and ideals. While feminist epistemology is not easily and simply characterized, feminist approaches to epistemology tend to share an emphasis on the ways in which knowers are particular and concrete, rather than abstract and universalizable. Feminist epistemologies take seriously the ways in which knowers are enmeshed in social relations that are generally hierarchical while also being historically and culturally specific. In addition, feminist epistemologies assume that the ways in which knowers are constituted as particular subjects are significant to epistemological problems such as warrant, evidence, justification, and theory-construction, as well as to our understanding of terms like “objectivity,” “rationality,” and “knowledge.” "

Go HERE to read the complete article: http://www.iep.utm.edu/fem-epis/print/

Next, from the same website, an article on Feminist Jurisprudence. ("Jurisprudence" means roughly "how the law works". Therefore, Feminist Jurisprudence means roughly "how the law works after feminism works on it." So you will quickly realize the political importance of studying such things.) :

"American feminist jurisprudence is the study of the construction and workings of the law from perspectives which foreground the implications of the law for women and women’s lives. . . On all . . levels, feminist scholars, lawyers, and activists raise questions about the meaning and the impact of law on women’s lives. Feminist jurisprudence seeks to analyze and redress more traditional legal theory and practice. It focuses on the ways in which law has been structured (sometimes unwittingly) that deny the experiences and needs of women. Feminist jurisprudence claims that patriarchy (the system of interconnected relations and institutions that oppress women) infuses the legal system and all its workings, and that this is an unacceptable state of affairs. Consequently, feminist jurisprudence is not politically neutral, but a normative approach . . ."

Go HERE to read the complete article: http://www.iep.utm.edu/jurisfem/print/

And if you are a glutton for punishment, you will surely relish THIS article about the French post-modernist philosopher Michel Foucault and how his ideas have been applied to feminist theory. Warning: heavy slogging ahead!

http://www.iep.utm.edu/foucfem/print/

Finally, our little banquet of ideas would scarcely be complete without Luce Irigaray. And who the hell is Luce Irigaray, you might ask? Well, consider the following:

"Luce Irigaray is a prominent author in contemporary French feminism and Continental philosophy. She is an interdisciplinary thinker who works between philosophy, psychoanalysis, and linguistics. Originally a student of the famous analyst Jacques Lacan, Irigaray’s departure from Lacan in Speculum of the Other Woman, where she critiques the exclusion of women from both philosophy and psychoanalytic theory, earned her recognition as a leading feminist theorist and continental philosopher. Her subsequent texts provide a comprehensive analysis and critique of the exclusion of women from the history of philosophy, psychoanalytic theory and structural linguistics."

And in case you are pining to know even more about Luce Irigaray, the complete article will keep you very, very busy indeed my friend. Warning: more heavy slogging ahead!

http://www.iep.utm.edu/irigaray/print/

Okay, enough already! What I've given you here will set your brain abuzz beyond all doubt. You will now be empowered to reassert patriarchy by feeding their own jargons and epistemic categories back to them in all manner of cleverly twisted ways, subverting their priesthood and violating the temple of their arcanum through the simple act of showing them that you too know about this stuff! After that, you can instruct them to shut the hell up! (And I'm sure that somewhere deep in their academic babble-bag they've got a nomenclatural appellative for the process I have described here.)

I would recommend archiving this material and sharing it, either as hardcopy or as PDF.