The only devils in the world are those running around in our own hearts – that is where the battle should be fought. – Mahatma Gandhi
Last month I published “Traffic Jam”, in which I demonstrated the close resemblance between the Satanic Panic of the 1980s and today’s “sex trafficking” hysteria. I spoke of the beginning, course and end of both panics, but I also pointed out via my epigram that such fanatical beliefs never really end; what actually happens is that a specific incarnation of hysteria dies off, the cult goes underground until it figures out a new way to peddle its hate to the society at large, and then the whole thing starts all over again. The particulars of the myth may change in the intervening years, but the underlying cultic belief system, the ur-myth if you will, continues on until it bursts forth in some new monstrous form (or, as pointed out in my column of one year ago today, an old form again). Usually those of us who spend the majority of our time in the waking world only get to see that portion of the religious mystery the cultists choose to reveal to outsiders, but in rare circumstances the myth may be sufficiently exposed to sunlight that we can see a large portion of it at once. Such a case came to my attention via Dr. Laura Agustín’s column of May 1st, 2011; I’m not sure how I missed it last year but I rediscovered it by serendipity while searching for the first illustration in “Traffic Jam”.
In most countries, neofeminists move largely in academic and governmental circles; though they enable each others’ delusions as all cultists do, they are also forced to deal with men and non-neofeminist women and are therefore held at least tenuously in contact with reality. But in Sweden, neofeminism did not begin to wither after its heyday in the early ‘90s as it did nearly everywhere else; instead, it was enabled by politicians for their own reasons and became ever stronger, resulting in the Swedish Model and other bizarre growths which I’ve detailed on numerous occasions. Because their nightmarish fantasies were not only encouraged by “authorities” but even financed with public funds, Swedish neofeminists were freed from the necessity of even the most superficial grounding in mundane fact, and thus developed a narrative which combines the Satanic Panic, child sex abuse hysteria and “sex trafficking” hysteria into a single unified myth. This bizarre cult was first fully exposed to the Swedish public in the 2005 documentary Könskriget, which is usually translated as “The Gender War” but, as this article explains,
…can more appropriately be translated as “The Sex War”: for this isn’t just about man versus woman – this is about woman against sex. The women involved in this “struggle” – something they themselves call “a universal civil war” – aren’t merely disappointed with their previous relationships – they want men gone completely, they hate men, they want the male of the species literally eradicated – wiped out.
Courtesy of a commenter on Agustín’s blog, here’s the documentary with English subtitles:
The video opens with Eva Lundgren, a neofeminist professor of theology (!), “explaining” that a worldwide male cult controlled from the United Nations dominates both the armaments industry and the porn industry; they abduct young girls, impregnate them, then when the fetuses are old enough they cut them out of the girls’ wombs and sacrifice them. They then magically heal the girls’ wounds, wipe their memories, and return them to their homes; also, they use magical pills to make the dead fetuses explode. Other feminists dismiss those who point out that these claims are literally impossible by alleging that science and statistics are also controlled by the secret Satanist Patriarchy.
One of these was Ireen von Wachenfeldt, the director of the organization (ROKS) which controls most of the women’s shelters in Sweden; Könskriget shows how “counselors” from ROKS abducted two young women who came to them for help, cutting them off from outside communication (because they were supposedly being pursued by the Satanists) and spiriting them off to Norway with the help of Gunilla Ekberg, the Swedish government’s “expert” on prostitution and one of the architects of the Swedish Model. The two girls slipped (unsurprisingly) into a deep depression, and one tried to commit suicide three times; her abductors refused to take her to the hospital because the health-care system is of course also controlled by the Patriarchy. Eventually they were rescued from the psychotic ROKS women by a Norwegian feminist. The documentary precipitated a firestorm, and von Wachenfeldt was forced out as head of ROKS; amazingly, the government dismissed the public outcry against Ekberg, despite the fact that she threatened the female interviewer on camera (apparently believing it was not running). Though she eventually resigned over the continuing controversy, she became the executive director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW), one of the most influential promoters of trafficking hysteria, and is a sort of unofficial ambassador for the Swedish Model, especially in Canada.
Another neofeminist Swedish politician with ties to ROKS is Marianne Ny, Sweden’s Director of Public Prosecutions (and therefore the author of the persecution of Julian Assange); her chief pre-Assange claim to fame was her unremitting effort to make sex laws ever more restrictive, and she operates under the principle that a woman’s consent is not a valid defense against rape. Retired judge Brita Sundberg-Weitman wrote,
Ms Ny…is known to have said that when a woman says she has been assaulted by a man, the man ought to be detained because it is not until he is in prison that the woman may have the peace to consider whether or not she has been mistreated. Ms Ny…believes that imprisoning the man has a positive effect, “even in cases where the perpetrator is prosecuted but not convicted”. It is also informative, in regards to the presumption of innocence, that she uses the term “perpetrator” rather than “defendant” or “suspect” in discussing criminal investigation in rape cases.
As I’ve previously pointed out, these laws are unpopular in Sweden despite neofeminist claims to the contrary; 88% of Swedes say the laws are too harsh, and 81% say they’re “very angry” about the sex purchase law. But it’s far too late to protest now; like its mythical diabolical adversary, the Cult of Swedish Neofeminism has its claws in every institution in the country, and they’re going to have a devil of a time exorcising it.
Julian Assange’s defense team might be interested in this….
They already know about it all; I found the article quoting the retired judge via a “tweet” from Wikileaks. But in actuality, Assange isn’t concerned about Sweden per se; he’s rightfully concerned about Sweden’s secret agreement to hand him over to the tender mercies of the US the second he sets foot in Sweden (Hillary Clinton was there a couple of weeks ago to arrange the particulars). All this “rape” nonsense is just a cover for that: remember there are NO criminal charges pending against him in Sweden; he’s supposedly wanted for “questioning”. And a few hours after that “questioning” turns up nothing (as is preordained) he’ll be on a plane to the US to face the same sort of treatment as Bradley Manning has endured for almost two years, only worse. Sweden has a long history of catering to the US on matters of this type.
Sorry – but Brad Manning is a traitor to his country and it’s only too bad he won’t suffer the “Braveheart” penalty when he’s convicted. None of that stuff he released was explosive enough to merit violating his oath of enlistment. As I sit here – I can’t think of a single thing he and Assange released that really changes my opinon of the US or the rest of the nations of the world. Their exploits were mere “noise”. We already knew most of that stuff – just not the “Peyton Place” details – which actually were better off left buried.
As far as Assange – you mess with the bull you get the horns. I’m reminded of something that Assange arrogantly said when he began his exploits on Wikileaks – something to the effect that he enjoys “taking down bullies”.
LOL – I hope you are having fun with that, Julian.
(he looks very depressed these days you know – nothing like the smiling, arrogant “knight” he appeared to be when he started these exploits. At the very least you can say he didn’t quite think this all the way through.)
I know what I’m saying here isn’t popular – but I’m not going to cheer a guy on who’s only motive is to bring down Western Civilization. I know most of us believe that it will collapse anyway – but I’ll render no support to those whose only motives are to do it.
Freedom doesn’t – and will not exist unless strong good men protect it – and sometimes that means grabbing the neck of troublmakers. Assange is no U.S. citizen and, by my reckoning – he doesn’t deserve the protection of the US Constitution. Manning violated an oath – when I was in the military I too was prepared to violate my oath if I thought the circumstances warranted – and I was prepared to take the inevitable punishment standing on my feet. Manning should do the same.
“The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy; the best weapon of a democracy is openness.” – Edvard Teller
That’s a binary choice though – isn’t it? And how many decisions in the world are, or should be, based on either ALL of one thing or ALL of another?
You could make the greatest democracy the world has ever seen – full of openess – a libertarian paradise …
It would not last a fortnight before evil men on the outside destroyed it out of pure resentment.
That is the sum total of human history – strong and aggressive cultures capturing and enslaving weak ones. I’d rather live in an imperfect democracy than to live under another man’s boot.
You could say we’re already living under another man’s boot – true, but it could be A LOT worse and would be if we allowed the benificiaries of Julian Assange’s antics to take over. I can’t see how trading a bad situation for a worse one improves our condition or outlook.
I shed my idealism on my first submarine deployment when I was able to see some pretty ugly things about the world. Since then – I realize that the best you can do in this life is walk a very thin line and attempt to stay on the side of GOOD, even though you’ll have to do BAD things to stay there.
Julian Assange and Brad Manning endangered a lot of my comrades in Afghanistan and Iraq and other places with their self-righteous releases. Brave men and women who are out there – AT LEAST THINKING – that they are fighting for US. Now, people may disagree with this – but that’s no reason crap on those soldiers on the front lines who are thinking they are doing the right thing.
If Assange has a problem with Bush, or Obama, or someone else – he needs to address that directly with those guys – and take the success of failure he is delivered in that effort.
But endangering kids from Kentucky who are just trying to do the right thing makes Juilan Assange – quite frankly, a pompus ASS in my book!
And you KNOW Maggie -that nothing Assange did ever endangered or even nicked any world leader.
Your point is moot. It’s long past time the troops were brought home.
A lot of the scandalous stuff that was leaked was information that was already suspected or know through stuff.
Wikileaks seems to be less about the information itself and more about it finally being provided to us in a way that we could make an action movie about it.
I can’t be disinterested about Assange: I’ve read enough about him to be disturbed by what he’s done in the past. He claims to promote freedom of information, but is secretive about his life. He claims an American “conspiracy” wants to extradite him from Sweden, yet we are all very suspicious of conspiracies. It’s very easy for the US to extradite people from the UK — there is a very one-sided treaty, though perhaps it only applies to British nationals, I don’t know. But, prima fascie, he has committed crimes in Sweden — it’s irrelevant whether you think the Swedish laws are nonsense, they are the laws there, and as a visitor you must respect them. And as for him suggesting that the Swedes come to the UK to question him; that sounds more like paranoia, self-aggrandisement. And now he’s in the Ecudorian embassy, his sureties stand to loose the bail money he put up. Publicity seeking? I’m reminded of this:
“The wicked flee when no man persueth.”
It’s somewhere in Proverbs.
And as for Bradley Manning: it’s alleged that he stole files, it’s not proven. But his treatment is quite inhumane, sadly as we’ve come to expect from the US. So I can sort of understand where Assange is coming from.
Your criticism is founded on one premise: “might makes right”.
they call the greek government corrupt,because some politicians stole public money,but theirs is just disgusting.how could they protect sb who has ties to an organisation that abducts and abuses people?all theese sorry ass females need to be thrown into jail,not receive public support for doing supposedly sth good for women.sweden has a reputation of being one of the most sexually open nations in europe,maybe the world,how did they allow themselves to become a country governed by corrupt,psychotic feminazis?
What basically happened is that Swedish feminism was such a success that significant goals were achieved and all the real feminists went home. Then feminism was infiltrated and taken over by these neofem wolves.
That said, part of the neofeminist triumph was the traditional Swedish naivety regarding government. Other European countries have experienced significant government-related traumas that give their populations a certain skepticism towards authoritarianism, which is lacking in Sweden.
I often wonder about the types and above all the qualifications of those who staff rape crisis/sexual assault centres. Now I’m sure that many such venues provide much needed recouperation for women who are deeply traumatised as a result of appalling treatment, but I think they can also become centres of state-funded misandry, and political bases for radical feminism. I’m sure women who have been subjected to sexual assault are exposed to a range of vulnerabilities, but one of these is undoubtedly the exploitation of the vulnerability to see all men as attackers and exploiters. In this respect at least, the staff of at least some such centres can do more harm than good.
I think the main bases for neofeminism are still the Universities, and specifically women’s studies programs. These end up acting as political think tanks for developing policies to inflict on society at large. (The concept of an intellectual vanguard in Marxism is instructive here.) Obviously, they also exist to indoctrinate young women who are available to have their minds indoctrinated. Also, the students don’t have to buy the whole program, but if the program is saying “women are morally superior to men,” I can see a woman buying it, as it comes in handy in an argument. (Some women are going to have a problem with “their men” hiring prostitutes, and might like something other than simple female jealousy to hang that argument on. Trafficking works well for that. Speaking of female jealousy, I read an interesting bit of history the other day:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consort_Xiao_(Gaozong)
The poor emperor never stood a chance here.)
Not to say that rape crisis centers aren’t sometimes infiltrated by these types, but if you are looking for centers of state funded misandry, I’d look at the universities first.
Rape crisis centers are indeed hotbeds of state-sponsored misandry; in the US that was greatly enabled by the passage of the “Violence Against Women Act”, as I explained in “Greeks Bearing Gifts“. Besides the anti-male machinery which is automatically set in motion the moment a woman as much as telephones a shelter (911 systems automatically reveal the caller’s address to “authorities”), women in shelters are coerced to cooperate with neofeminist agendas via “threats, intimidation, and fear of losing their children.”
Well, then it’s a good thing they’ve been getting their funding cut here in Florida, is all I can say.
Back in the 1970’s early 80’s I volunteered in a rape crisis/battered women’s centre. I can tell you, the idea that it was some lair of man-hating neo-feminists trying to brain wash women into hating men is as absurd as the other side, those who claim that all prostitutes are poor, brain-washed, trafficked victims.
The volunteers were just women trying to help others, working hard to try to bring some help into some pretty horrible situations. I never saw any of the women do anything to men to equal much of what had been done to them.
And yes, I’m met lesbian separatists, women who do dislike men. But even they aren’t like the current crop of US Republicans who want to see all rights taken from women, most of them just want to live apart from men, to have nothing to do with them.
I’m sure these centres vary over both place and time, and I’m sure much good is done in at least many of them. However, it would seem to me that the establishment of qualifications and monitoring to ensure high minimum standards could do nothing but good. What angers me is when such centres are used for political campaigning, not on matters in which they are expert, such as the care of traumatised women, but on matters on which they are not, such as sex industry legislation, and I have in mind the past behaviour of the Eves/Poppy setup in London.
See this makes more sense to me, but I have no real idea. I rely on people who know more about the situation to inform me.
From what I’ve read, the politicization of such places began after the “child sex abuse” hysteria got underway in 1984, and did not become pervasive until the VAWA in 1994. So though what you say may indeed be correct and the majority of volunteers (or even the majority of shelters) may be like the one you experienced, I think it’s also important to recognize that the dominant feminism of the ’70s and that of the ’90s were different creatures, not least in the area of the rhetoric surrounding domestic violence.
Let me be honest, if this level of discrimination was against me because I was jewish, instead of male, the neofems would have been lynched in the press by now, and socially ostracised.
Sick.
Am I wrong in thinking that some of the women like Gunilla Ekberg might be…a little psychopathic?
I must admit, I do get a slight churn in my stomach whenever I hear someone holding up the Nordic countries (ignoring Finland) as pinnacles of liberty and public services etc… There are so many people in the UK that focus on the good of other countries without acknowledging the bad.
Yes, you’re wrong; they’re a LOT psychopathic.
Many thanks for this post. I suspected something like this but I never thought it could go to such extremes. I also understand much better what Julian Assange is up againts. It also shows that some women can be as brutal, violent, biased and corrupt in their own subtle ways as some men are more openly violent because of their physical strength. There is a gender crisis in society, there has always been one, although things have improved a lot, but this doesn’t explain everything. Men are also violent towards other men for a variety of reasons, low sel-esteem, mental illness, etc. If you evade these issues from the political agenda for dubious reasons, you’re in trouble as a society. It seems some feminist groups are also power hungry and determined to control things for their own benefit. It’s also a way to make a living and to climb the social status latter.
Okay, No means No, Got it, Tracking. “Yes” mean No? What do I have to do now, say “Mother may I”?
Nor is consent valid on full moons and Tuesdays either.
It’s considered an acceptbale psychopathy to hate men. Many feminist arguments center around this notion:
“Well, that’s a little bit crazy, but honestly, men are kind of evil and if one woman suffers, then I can understand their position.”
The rank self-interest and total lack of “public interest” in most neofeminist arguments escapes their advocates, most of the time.
All of the lefty neo-nonthinking feminists will be shouting, “But I never! They never said he’d be extradited to the united states!” the moment he’s on a plane.
The cluelessness of ideological single-note warriors never fails to impress me.
I recall a LArry Niven (I think) short story in which a temperamental genius was unable to concentrate and save a space colony ship from destruction; it was unable to scrub the atmosphere any longer, and needed to get to its destination. The narrator was in love with this woman, but the genius was unable to think (was indeed somewhat crazy) when he went sexless. She ended up servicing the genius in order to save everyone, leaving the narrator saddened and somewhat loast in the process. She might have bene his wigfe. I’m not sure.
Anyway, it brought to mind something else, just now.
let’s assume that Assange is, in the extreme, a rapist. he tgortured, beat and raped two women serially. Instead of a he said / she said night of fun that no party regretted until the women felt used when they found out they were not the only ones involved with Assange, let’s say he actually violently attacjed hethem (not Neofeminist violence attacked them, which basically means having any sex at all).
let’s assume this. Now let’s assume that he’;s not just a gadfly annoying secret-leaker, but that he has undermined serious dictatorships through leaking incredible secrets of monumental import, helping to bring down tyrants and monsters. He’s helped destroy evil governments. His help is crucial in continuing to bring down other repulsive, cardboard-cutout Hitlerite evils.
Now that we’ve reduced this to a Hollywood movie screenplay, let’s throw in the moral conundrum.
Do you arrest, imprison, or kill this individual, or perhaps even hand him over to the Evil Inc. Government for punishment as a rapist, who is genuinely slightly sadistic, and thereby guarantee that Evil Government has lost its chief enemy, …
Or do you let him go more or less free (though people know about his proclivities and women may be able to stay away from him) and let him continue to Bring Down The Evil Government?
You have a gun. You’re sitting in front of him. You have the complete moral discretion to make this decision now:
Condemn the world but save his victims, or free the entire world but condem a few individual women to likely being raped?
before you try to wualify this with “How sadistic is he? Can a good prostitute who gets paid solve this problem, and in the process save the world?”
This is one of those binary moral quandaries. This is how the neofeminists think; In simple moral binaries. So you have to think in this manner, too. The qualifications are irrelevant. He doesn’t kill his victims, but being raped by him is traumatic. In this way, he’s evil.
Decide.
In essence, this is how the neofeminists are thinking: Rape! is all exactly, precisely the same. If the woman claims it’s rape, it’s rape. In Sweden, Consent isn’t even a defence: if an OUTSIDER thinks it’s rape, it’s rape. if a woman merely wants to consider an event from the distant PAST rape, say the firsts night with the man she married and had children with, then he goes to jail. And more or less no defence he makes is justifiable.
Indeed, the FACT that he’s defending himself can be considered abuse, because he’s putting the woman through difficult4es and emotional trauma, effectivelty re-raping her.
Once you start to think in hard, absolute binaries and learn how to stop thinking of people as equals and individuals but learn how to privilege one gender over the other in absolute terms, you can start to pose moral quandaries like the one above.
I wonder how these neofeminists would answer this simplistic binary moral quandary.
“The video opens with Eva Lundgren, a neofeminist professor of theology (!), “explaining” that a worldwide male cult controlled from the United Nations dominates both the armaments industry and the porn industry; they abduct young girls, impregnate them, then when the fetuses are old enough they cut them out of the girls’ wombs and sacrifice them. They then magically heal the girls’ wounds, wipe their memories, and return them to their homes; also, they use magical pills to make the dead fetuses explode. Other feminists dismiss those who point out that these claims are literally impossible by alleging that science and statistics are also controlled by the secret Satanist Patriarchy.”
This transcends basic ‘delusion’ and goes full-on into Virtual Reality. And this is one helluva drug they’re smoking. I mean, wtf? If this was a story kept merely in the realm of fiction that’d be fine but they’re making it a horrible reality.
What amazes me most is that this was exposed on Swedish television seven years ago, yet it’s never mentioned by Swedish Model opponents anywhere that model is hawked. There’s this colossal disconnect between the beliefs and antics of these people and the legislation, despite the fact that the two groups have a huge overlap in membership. It would be as though 75% of those agitating for a certain law in the US were members of the KKK or Nazi skinheads, yet nobody ever brought that up.
It’s a good thing when the cultists stop mixing with the rest of society. It allows them to forget just how batshit their batshit sounds to most people. It means that they start saying where it can be overheard that EVERY government agency, that EVERY scientific institution, that the very existence of math is all a part of the overarching conspiracy.
When they mix with non-cultists, they might BELIEVE such idiocy, but they are careful not to say it out loud, because they know that the “sheeple” consider it crazy. But let them segregate themselves off like they want to do, and they forget that the rest of the world hasn’t stewed in this nonsense long enough to accept magic cesareans and exploding baby pills. So they say it. Out loud. In front of everybody.
And that is what brings them down in the end.
As for Bradly Manning: whatever he did, his treatment is wrong. Accept for the sake of argument that he’s the worst traitor since before Benedict Arnold; what’s being done is still wrong. And to tell the truth, I’m more reminded of Daniel Ellsberg than anybody else.
I’ve been reading this blog on and off for several months now, but have never read anything prior to this about the issues in Sweden. I had always assumed that when you wrote of the “Swedish Cult” you were referring to Abba! This is some scary stuff.
Usually when I refer to “the Swedish Disease” or some such expression I’m referring to the Swedish Model of anti-prostitute legislation, in which it is legal to sell sex but not to buy it. Its legal basis is the same as that of statutory rape laws: the whore is considered legally incompetent to consent to sex, so for a man to have sex with her is basically a form of low-grade rape. This of course establishes adult women as the equivalent of adolescents and even adolescent men (see last item in link) as the equivalent of adults, but none of the “feminists” who support these laws are able to recognize the danger of that precedent.
Ahh, so it’s a separate topic then, Maggie? Or are the two related?
And that last link is indeed ridiculous. So Swedish male “children” (if 17.999 years old is still a child, of course) suddenly become adults when “preying” on prostitutes, even if they’re of legal age themselves. WHat sort of twisted post-modern legal “thought” could come up with something like that?
Well, as I said in this reply to Aspasia farther up the thread, people have certainly been pretending they’re different for the past 7 years, but I honestly think they’re part of the same broad psychosis.
It will soon be illegal in Sweden to even say “Lay All Your Love On Me,” much less sing about it.
Unfortunately, reactionary forces are showing their heads in Sweden and the rest of Europe. The situation described in Stieg Larsson’s Girl With the Dragon Tattoo books is more common than most imagine, driven by an increasingly reactionary government bureaucracy in Sweden.
“But they have the moral interests of the country at heart.”
Yeah, sure they do.
PS_Bradley Manning mostly released crap where the government was covering up its own mistakes, not anything that really affected “National Security.”
What situation was that? I read Girl with The Dragon Tattoo a while ago, so I might have missed it?
You need to read all three books: together they are a chilling indictment of what happens when even the most benevolent system gets into the wrong hands.
Apparently, radical neo-feminists are everywhere. Here’s a rape crisis center I found linked in an article that is clearly in the camp you deride:
http://www.rapereliefshelter.bc.ca/victories
Which came from here:
https://davinasquirrel.wordpress.com/
And one thing about these groups: They hate, hate, hate trans women. In fact, they seem to detest and hate men in general, and hate trans women for choosing to become women – from a general dislike of all things male. It’s like men intruding on their territory.
If this rape crisis center can be believed, all prostitution is rape and all men are evil.
And then there’s this.
Is it my imagination or is there a general extreme discomfort with the idea that men and women have sex with each other in all of these opinions?
http://supporterofwomensliberation.wordpress.com/2008/02/15/pro-pornographypro-prostitution-feminism-a-critique/
Maggie, how do you feel about Laurie Shrage’s work?
I’m not all that familiar with it. I know she supports decriminalization, but I can’t really recall ever reading anything she’s written.
The last link above, from a 1995 paper she wrote, a critique of pro-prostitution feminism, illustrates it pretty adequately.
Let me know what you think. She seems to be highly respected among academic circles.
And a very sensible essay.
http://www.stolaf.edu/courses/ws399/ws399_04/Projects/Ortmann_Research/introduction.html
I couldn`t believe this video! these neofims in sweden and absolutely nuts!
Witch hunting again. ? i thought they might have at least some kind of half rational idea of why they made such man hating laws….but this. There gov should be embarrased.
I just finished watching the entire video.
What shocks me is this: the delusional, almost hallucinogenic nature of this belief system has nothing to do with feminism at all, fundamentally.
it’s a fundamentalist religion – a kind of feminist fundementalism, a bizarre replication of mystical religious thinking outside of the religious realm.
I suspect that this is an inherent weakness of the human intellect. you see it with people who believe in black helicopters and all kinds of conspiracies, like that AIDS was invented to kill black people and other such bizarre notions.
jews eat babies. Etc.
It’s to demonize an enemy, to acquire self-identity, and it gets entwined with snippets of reason and tangental facts.
What’s damaging is not that these poor, benighted souls believe this nonsense. it’s that they were given ANY power at all over public policy, women’s shelters or the general cutlure.
They’re extreme elements of a culture that echoes in every pore the equally bizarre notions of Dworkin, Mackinnon, et al.
It’s just a religion. There’s nothing more to it.
Precisely. Neofeminism in general is a religion, and the Swedish variety is like an extremist sect within that religion. As such humanity will eventually discard it, but as we’ve seen it can take a very long time for all the damage to be repaired and there are always places in which the devotees hang on for centuries after the beliefs have died out elsewhere.
I’m attempting to now shame Taslima Nasrin into admitting that there are alternate views of feminism that aren’t her own – but she as much as said “Anyone who d disagrees with me is a sex trafficker or pimp.”
I can’t imagine anyone has given this woman so much respect. her writing is replete with illogical thought, ideological caricaturing, and zealotry that makes religious fundamentalists look open to reason.
What astonishes me is that there’s a huge chorus of people who play Sainthood with her: Because of her status and history, she is above criticism. Anyone who disagrees with her is an MRM advocate or a Patriarchy stooge.
If this is what characterizes that entire branch of “feminism”, God help us. There isn’t an ounce of reason or logic in almost everything she’s written on that blog. A child could point out the logical fallacies and the careless distortions she engages in.
If she weren’t spouting meaningless and incoherent slogans that trivialized everything it was to be oppressed, she’s have nothing consistent or meaningful to say.
What’s worse, she seems to have attitudes about sex that date from the 1850’s: clearly, she doesn’t understand what’s happened in the west and never experienced the Sexual Revolution. She detests commercialization of sexuality and, it appears, all use of sexuality that doesn’t go on between mutually respectful lovers behind closed doors.
She also seems to be a hard-core, committed marxist.
It’s just so shocking. I’d never read anything by her before, but I can’t imagine there’s any intellectual content in her feminism at all. It all seems to run on instinct, raw emotion and shaming of disagreement. Anyone who disagrees with her is shat on by a chorus of mindless worshippers.
It really is sad.
If you’d like to read, please go and read some of the comments and what she says about prostitution. In the comments to her posts (not all of them about prostitution), she responds to many – and her responses are horribly disappointing.
It may just be that she’s not all that bright. I do get that impression. It’s harsh to say, but in any language, someone of her stature should have more ability to detach themselves and use cold reason. Or is the cult she belongs to just that overpowering?
Because she writes, sounds like and acts like a religious zealot.
I’d actually like your opinion on what she’s been writing.
My opinion is that she is a religious zealot, and as such not worth any of my time. Bless you for trying, but you have to recognize that it isn’t possible to reason anyone out of a position she didn’t reason herself into.
What’s worse are the dense as bricks commenters who seem to hold her as faultless and therefore above reproach.
She has apparently never needed to construct an argument.
It’s quite literally infuriating. I can’t believe she’s been so honored for her apparently intelligent activism. Perhaps feminist standards are just lower in South Asia.
Here’s my latest comment. Her literally mindless semi-retorts just got to me.
She is, alas, even in her limited scope, not a brilliant feminist thinker.
Ms. Nasrin,
From your appearance on the Free Thought blogs, where skepticism is the order of the day, you have shocked and dismayed a large umber of people. Many are women and feminists.
From disjointed, thoughtless ideological zealotry on prostitution and porn – reminiscent of the worst bigotry in the 1980′s, largely now discarded by mainstream feminists, thankfully, to cultural warfare that has little resonance in the West, to attempts to blame critics and shame them – instead of ever, ever adressing a single criticism–
I mean, here on this blog space, there are bloggers who have written clear, concise, extremely well-worded commentary ripping apart your comfortable delusions about a number of subjects.
You’ve managed to parrot the most delusional, divisive and ridiculous almost-religious ideological beliefs, and appeal to the most emotion-laden responses rather than careful thought.
Those who support you no locally no longer do so so effusively, and there are several who were elated when you arrived who are now publicly quite disappointed. This is not because you’ve shocked them and shown how they’re beneath contempt, not because you’re just too radical. It’s because you’ve singularly failed to use reason, logic or anything but crass appeals to emotion.
There are rock-solid criticisms of all of your posts both in the comments and elsewhere in the blogosphere. You refuse to even address one single criticism: Instead, you call people MRAs, pimps, and sex traffickers.
You exaggerate and pander to the worst radical sensibilities: Because passengers don’t wear helmets often, women are considered cheap. How did you arrive at such a facile conclusion? A child could pick apart this argument.
Those who support you seem to do so out of some sort of hagiographic impulse. Alas, there are no saints or sacred icons.
An, of course, I’m nothing but a misogynist MRA.
Let me spell it out for you:
I have hired women over men many times. I hire for competence alone, never for gender. I was raised to appreciate women as human beings, not as infantile children and helpless, pathetic victims, which is the only way you see women.
The women around me are strong, independent human beings with opinions of their own and very potent wills. They move in powerful circles and have no trouble defending their own. I’ve seen women start fights, tear men apart in boardrooms, and humiliate both men and women for their own advancement.
I was taught from a young age, througout the 70′s and 80′s, that women were the equals of men.
I both expect and give as much equal treatment as I can. I make myself aware of bias and discrimination, and do what’s necessary to balance the scales.
This is what feminism was supposed to be about.
Feminism in your book appears to be about infantilizing and marginalizing women and treating them like the worst sort of simpering, weak, incompetent children. In your world, women are like some sort of weak caricature, incapable of defending themselves.
Dear God, go to New York or Los Angeles or London and tell me American or British women are under the iron bootheels of relentlessly oppressive men.
For an atheist, you seem to approach these issues with the ideological purity and blind adherence of a religious zealot. I’m not the only one to have noticed this.
Your quest to identify sexism in circles in bowls of cereal and to exaggerate social patterns out of all proportion,with conclusions like “Men hate women”, are laughable if they weren’t so disturbing coming from someone with influence.
I as trying to be charitable and put your lack of perspective and inability to see depth or to parse arguments down to lack of cultural exposure to the West – a charity I tried to make, given the lack of other explanations for your apparent cultural blindness – but for this I was called racist. Of course, I’m not the only commenter to have noticed this profound arrogance and lack of cultural depth in your writing. I’d quote a few choice bits from more erudite and careful writers, but you’ll just ignore them.
You’re so absolutely self-assured, and yet you have a name for all detractors and a means of dismissing even the lightest criticism. What you seek is not an audience, but an echo chamber.
Your criticism of issues like pornography and prostitution illustrate a profound dislike of sex, generally; you appear not to have experienced the 1960′s in the West, where women stopped being shamed for their sexuality or for expressing it, or even being manipulated by it.
Perhaps you would prefer to go back to a time when other people regulated sexuality? Obliged women to wear Burkas so that men didn’t exploit them?
I’m of the concerted opinion that instead of screaming “Bully! MRA! Sex trafficker!”, you should read some Wendy McElroy or a host of other more rational, less religiously ideological”feminist” writers.
It’s a ridiculous state when a man demanding that women be held to the same standards, be treated as intellectual equals, and be accorded all of the rights and privileges of being adult humans – including, as a consequence, all of the same responsibilities – is called a misogynist.
Your politics are the merciless politics of eternal victimhood.
Women have the power to stand up and assume absolute equality with men, and where it matters, they’re doing it. In my industry, media, my former industry, advertising, and in print: Women dominate where the work, and they represent some of the smartest, best-paid, most motivated and most powerful people there are.
I am surrounded by them.
You treat women like pathetic, useless children. I’ve seen the raw, human power of women – and I know that they’re fully the equals of men.
Apparently, you don’t.
While your tone of abject powerlessness may be appropriate for a place like South Asia, perhaps you need to spend more time in a large Western city where women are quite literally free to be as great or as awful as they want to be in perhaps the greatest degree ever afforded in Human history – though not yet perfectly – before you make radical, unsubstantiated, transparently ridiculous statements masquerading as free or skeptical thought.
I may sound harsh. But unlike sycophantic admirers, I have no “saints” – and I’m as willing to call out thoughtless zealotry in the most honored activist, the closest activist and the most important, if such a person engages in indiscriminate trivialization of issues as important as women’s rights.
beause this is what you’re doing: Trivializing women’s rights for emotional shock value.
it’s cheap and pathetic. I’m just some guy on the Internet to you.
But a large number of people very quietly agree with me. I’m just brave enough to tell someone this, someone who most people will politely honor without giving you too much thought.
Consider that, when things are quiet.
Some advice from a random guy on the internet:
Try reading some feminism *OUTSIDE* your comfort zone from time to time. It might show you how to treat women as individuals and as humans with agency, rather than denying them essential respect and treating them as ciphers in an imaginary gender war.