I’m going to take a moment to talk about feminism, and one of the greatest instances of mass-projection in modern human history, and then later this week, perhaps even later today, I plan to lay out what I see as a new frontier in the theme.
Feminism, you say? How late 2010’s.
Indeed. Back in Feminism’s glory days, when politicians were unapologetically professing their beliefs in the church of Latter-Day Sisterhood, and we were busy talking about microaggressions, the male gaze and rape culture, I was an edgy little thing. If I ever rise to a level of prominence that is cancellable, I have no doubt that data diggers will be able to pull up a couple of cancel worthy nuggets. Heck, I might even be writing a few as we speak.
We’re going to focus on “Rape Culture”, feminism is a big tent, so almost any term they use will mean something different depending on the speaker. Rape Culture is defined by Wikipedia as:
Rape culture is a sociological concept for a setting in which rape is pervasive and normalized due to societal attitudes about gender and sexuality. Behaviors commonly associated with rape culture include victim blaming, slut-shaming, sexual objectification, trivializing rape, denial of widespread rape, refusing to acknowledge the harm caused by sexual violence, or some combination of these.
This is one of the tamer, meant-for-consumption definitions, but even this definition still puts a burr under my saddle. For instance; Rape isn’t nearly as pervasive as feminists said it was, and they were proven wrong, time and time again. Is Feminism’s failure to state an accurate statistic rape culture, or are they just full of shit?
How Full of Shit Were They?
A great example was the “1 in 3” or “1 in 4” Myth, where they said that between 25% and 33% of all women were raped. They based this on a survey of women on two American Campuses conducted by Mary Koss. Koss got there by ignoring what the responses were, and editorializing. For instance: If a woman reported a consensual sexual encounter, but also reported having consumed alcohol, she was counted as a rape victim, because in the surveyor’s view, consumption of alcohol made consent impossible. This is, and always was, facially absurd; Not only is the methodology self-defeating, the fact of the matter is that statistic was asserting that rape was more prevalent on American campuses than it was in the Congo at the time rape was being used as a weapon of war. As that narrative started to break down, they changed the goalposts to “1 in 4” or “1 in 5” women have been sexually assaulted, or harassed…. And don’t even get me started on what they called sexual harassment. Long story short: People made fun of the statistics until they disappeared. When’s the last time someone dredged up one of those statistics at you?
And that’s just the topical one. Literal books have been written on the mendacity of feminists surrounding the “77% Wage Gap Myth”.
Why do I bring these up?
Well… Despite all the Politicians, YouTubers, Celebrities, News Anchors and progressive self-flagellators telling me that I lived in a rape culture, I knew they were full of shit. I knew that rape was one of the worst things a person could do to another person, I knew I’d never raped someone, I knew that none of my friends had. People did not high five each other at the water cooler and bragged about all the bitches they raped over the weekend. Rape was not normal. Were women objectified? Probably. Have to admit that I’ve seen some of that. But trying to build an equivalency between that and rape is the kind of thing that had me check out from progressivism shortly after graduating.
And then #MeToo happened. Harvey Weinstein.
And all of a sudden it made sense. Despite progressives hyperfocusing on the half dozen or so conservative names on the list, most of the #MeToo accusations were against progressives. Those politicians, educators, YouTubers, Celebrities and News Anchors were telling us that we lived in a Rape Culture because they did, and despite (or because) they live in an insanely bubbled and insular culture, they assumed that the rest of America was like them. I would love for there to be a study on the number of people purporting to be “Male Feminist Allies” who ended up being rapists vs the rate of rape generally, because it really does seem to me, anecdotally, that “Male Feminist Allies” really punched above their weightclass in scuzzy behavior towards women.
This sets us up for what I like to call “Humbles Law”
As a person’s positions on a topic become more morally absolute, the probability of that person being a hypocrite approaches 1.
Stay tuned for part two… Which is more topical to 2021.