The Battle for Feminism's Soul - Part Two

Hello. Fidelbogen here. To my fellow workers in the vineyard, worldwide, greetings!

The title of today's talk is The Battle for Feminism's Soul - Part 2. So, as you might guess, it is the continuation of a talk that was commenced in the podcast immediately prior to this.

In part one of this talk, I made a couple of points that I would like to re-visit, and to enlarge upon.

In the present talk I will discuss the first of these points, which concerns the axiomatic counter-feminist equation that feminism equals female supremacism.

So, what is female supremacism? It is the moral attitude, whether openly stated or merely implied, that women are superior to men and that the ruling power in most areas of life ought to be a female power. This is a truly revolutionary doctrine because it overturns many things and modifies the details of life in a radical and far-reaching way - more than I have time to describe here . .

The accomplished outcome of female supremacism would be a state of female supremacy. Female supremacism and female supremacy are therefore separate things: the latter is what the former would, if given the chance, swing into practice in real world terms.

I would make bold that female supremacism as a system of social energy is objectively real; it EXISTS; it is out there in the world, ranging freely in one guise or another, covertly or overtly. I can attest from my own observation that many people harbor this culture virus either strongly or weakly. I would further attest that it overlaps with "feminism" , and more than just a trifle.

It is rhetorically formulaic to declare that feminism "seeks equality between men and women", and whether or not you consider that an honest descriptor of feminism, it is the one most commonly invoked. Yes, you hear it all the time. It is what a lot of people want the world to believe that feminism is.

So, if you believe that feminism is "about equality", then you would naturally suppose feminism and female supremacism to be mutually exclusive. Yet counterintuitive as it seems, nothing rules out their cohabitation in the same individual mind. And why? Because "equality" is an essentially contested concept. The possible meanings of "equality" are so varied, so flexible, and so ambiguous that (given the right mental gymnastics) they can easily admit female supremacism in close moral proximity. That is especially true if the thinker does not expressly call supremacism by its correct name, or harbors the doctrine latently, as a logical consequence of unclear thinking in some other area.

Consider also, that feminism is a movement which advocates for women's interests; who would dispute this? And female supremacism, if you wish to call it a "movement", certainly does likewise; how could it possibly do otherwise? Therefore, feminism and female supremacism converge upon the point of advocating for women's interests. The only difference is that female supremacism, unlike "equality", doesn't sound respectable. Most people would not openly admit to it, but still, for reasons I have suggested, cognitive dissonance can be rationalized. And such being given, the terrain of women's advocacy is left wide open as a zone of conjoined political effort.

So, feminism (arbitrarily defined as "sexual equality") and female supremacism may coexist in the same individual mind—and I have only lightly sketched how this might happen. But the next step up from the individual is the collective: what is true of the individual mind could as well be true of the group mind, for what is a group mind if not (among other things) the sum of individual minds composing it?

It is clear that both equalitarians and supremacists may converge upon the zone of women's advocacy—and that is a lot of overlap. And in the battle for feminism's soul, the question that occupies us above all, is to know which of these principles is quintessentially constitutive of the feminist movement as a group mind.

Consider once again the uncertainty of the term equality, and its doubtful utility as a category of understanding. A movement built upon the "quest for equality" would be a house built on mud or shifting sand, or worse, a cloud-castle built on thin air. So-called equality, if it is to mean anything at all, must be operationalized; it depends entirely on what is being done, when it is being done, how it is being done, and where you set the zero in the equation. Equality is infinitely plastic in its applications; the goal-posts can always be shifted and the parameters can always be reassigned. It is inherently fickle and flakey.

Now consider the meaning of female supremacism. It is easy to cognize, and in practice it would offer no puzzling quirks or moral uncertainties. The guidelines would be coherent and crystal clear—reducible to whatever gives women the upper hand in a given situation. Consider also that supremacism in its naked form would be starkly elemental and devoid of hypocrisy, because unburdened by the need to appear respectable.

So which of these two, sexual equality or female supremacism, would compose the stable foundation for a movement?

Clearly, female supremacism would be the winning ticket. And yet, female supremacism sounds nasty! It does not sound respectable, and any movement that openly endorsed it would have a public image problem.

By contrast, sexual equality is a flakey concept that means little if anything, and yet. . . it sounds noble! It sounds wonderful! It sounds high-minded! And most of all, it is so very, very unseemly to disagree with!

A movement built upon either female supremacism alone, or sexual equality alone, would not be viable. But if you roll them up together in the same joint (so to speak), then hey man, that'd be some righteous shit!

The so-called "quest for equality" would fizzle out in very little time if it were not animated by a malignant will. It would not be infinitely greedy; it would not "want it all"; it would be satisfied with a clear, definite list of things, after which it would roll up the tent and call it a day. And more, it is doubtful that such a movement would even get airborne at all when you consider, once again, what an unstable concept this "equality" really is.

Female supremacism, on the other hand, wants it all. It is a malignant will that will not quit, but keeps on coming back for more and more and more. It is able to stay the course; it is able to go the distance; it never sleeps and never takes a day off, and ultimately, it will leave no stone unturned! But again. . . it is not respectable!

Or at least, not if it walks around naked!

And that is why the rhetoric of equality is so very, very important: because it drapes the sagging, bulging, obscene flesh of female supremacism in a decent bathrobe.

So once more, both sexual equality and female supremacism advocate for women; that is where they converge into a conjoined political effort. And their relation is symbiotic. If plenty of feminists did not have supremacist motives, the movement as a whole would have no stable foundation, no cohesion, nothing to give it permanence, and finally it would lack a reliable engine. Yet if the rhetoric of equality were missing, female supremacism could never travel; it could never leave the house without getting arrested! Equality rhetoric not only veils female supremacism, but permits it to operate almost unhindered in a multitude of forms because equality as a concept is capable of unlimited shapeshifting.

Female supremacism and equality rhetoric: what a team! Neither the bathrobe nor the obscene flesh would log any mileage at all without the other.

So, is "equality" the soul of feminism? Or would that title go to female supremacism? Ask yourself, where does feminism get its real muscle? What is the true animating principle? Is feminism powered by any so-called quest for equality, and is such a thing even possible considering the vacuity of equality as a concept? Does the so-called quest for equality exist as anything more than a RHETORIC of equality? And finally, what does this RHETORIC of equality in fact serve? Does it serve actual "equality" (whatever that is)? Or does it in fact serve female supremacism? Please think about these questions.

And that concludes today's talk. In my next talk, part three of this series, I will enlarge upon the second of the two points that were given near the end of Part 1—namely, the counter-feminist theorem that whatever is respectable about feminism is not original, and whatever is original is not respectable.

I hope you will join me for that talk.

Fidelbogen . . . . out.

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This is the script for CF Podcast No. 12.

The MP3 file is available HERE:

http://www.4shared.com/audio/JPGewctH/_2__CF12.html