The Dangers Of Feminist Ideology And The Need For A Gender Transition Movement

Humans are supposedly the zenith of 3.8 billion years of evolution and every form of life that came before us. At least that seems to be the common perspective held by the mainstream. In reality our continued existence is no more certain than bacteria at the bottom of the ocean. What is it that makes us unique? Intelligence and the complex consciousness it spawns.

It has been our intelligence that has allowed us to develop the technology to break free of the Malthusian trap and build our global civilisation. However intelligence is a tool with two sides to it. An important part of intelligence is categorising and ordering the information that comes from our senses. We do this with virtually everything you can think of. Idea’s, objects, locations and perhaps most importantly for this article, people. This capacity to place things in boxes is a virtue and a vice.

This same ability to label, categorise and organise which allowed us to develop civilisation and our modern societies, also leads to ideological thinking. It is ideological thinking and the underlying flaws in human intellect that perpetuate it, which poses the greatest threat to humanity. The next one thousand years and arguably the next ten thousand, pose as an evolutionary hurdle for our species. Nuclear weapons and the shear impact (climate change among others) our activity is having on the planet have seen to that. The capacity of our present and future technology in combination with ideological thinking is a dangerous mix.

If we do nothing, then sooner or later the continued insistence by influential people in our societies to perceive the world through a narrow ideological lens and either twist or ignore facts, is going to lead to the extinction of the entire human race. Will intelligence be a mutation that eventually leads to the end of our evolutionary line? The outcome is unclear. We need to get away from the idea civilisation or humanity for that matter is invincible. We have only been on the planet for 200,000 years, there are some bacteria on Earth that have been around for billions of years. In an evolutionary sense, we have a long way to go before we can even remotely start thinking that way.

Why do I bring this up? Why is this relevant to gender issues? Unfortunately ideological thinking pervades modern mainstream feminism (or gender feminism) in the form of the half truth of patriarchy theory (see my two articles here and here) and other feminist dogma. Secondly, it is a paradigm that frames half the population as oppressors of the other half and encourages conflict. Thirdly, such an ideology divides the human race in the most fundamental way possible. When you combine these three things, you have the perfect recipe for disaster. At present the men’s human rights movement does not have an ideology (thank goodness). However I do want to warn people of just how easy it is to start lapsing into such thinking. We can learn a lot from the mistakes of feminism and they should serve as a reminder of what not to do.

So you think you are smart? Good, then you can learn how to become a Nazi quicker! Intelligence without a critical but open mind, is extremely dangerous.

One of the main problems with ideological thinking is it encourages people to put things in boxes and view things as separate and mutually exclusive. In reality we really need to be looking at the world and our society as the complex systems they are. System’s analysis is a discipline found in business, right through to the physical sciences. Systems are basically a series of components which interact with each other in some way and function as a whole. Systems, comprise the components of a system, the couplings or relationships between each component and the positive and negative feedback’s and equilibria that emerge from them. Systems are a fundamental characteristic of the universe. The universe itself is an enormous system. Whether we are talking about galaxies, solar systems, the climate, the economy or gender relations, systems dictate how things behave collectively and individually in relation to each other.

So when someone comes in with an ideology and starts putting things in boxes without any regard to the relationships, feedbacks and so forth in the system of relevance, they usually produce dysfunctional outcomes. If the impact of such an individual or group is large enough, such ignorance can bring about enormous consequences that appear to come from nowhere. In reality they were always going to come about, but these ideologues chose to ignore such inconvenient facts. Ideological thinking breed’s ignorance and ignorance breeds stupidity. You can have the most intelligent person in the world reduced to an idiot with ideological thinking. I don’t care if you are talking about feminism, the extreme right or the extreme left or any other fanatical ideology. The moment people become selective with facts, they become idiots. Unfortunately ideologues do run our societies and their wilful ignorance will eventually run humanity into the ground if they continue to be left to their own devices.

Now why do I raise the concept of systems when talking about gender issues? Well, the core relationship upon which the fate of our social systems rest, is that between men and women. Why? The relationship between men and women has an enormous bearing on the relationship between our parents. The relationship between mothers and fathers in-turn plays a huge role in shaping children and the adults they eventually grow up into. Consequently the relationship between men and women shapes the minds, values and behaviours of society. The moral decay of society, the rising scale of social injustice, the increasing social stratification and associated violence and the sliding quality of our leaders, is at the very least partly the result of the deterioration of the male-female relationship.

The most sinister thing about it, is that the time scales of the relevant feedbacks on society are often generational. Action and consequence or cause and effect, are separated by 20-30 years or more. This creates an asymmetry between present and future information in the brains of decision makers, much like an addiction. People have a false sense of security which in turn ensures relevant destructive practices, like kicking fathers out of children’s lives, is the status quo for decades on end. Even now, our governments, media and so forth still have not put the dots together. Why? Ideological bias. Aside from that, our leaders are insulated from many of their destructive policies so why should they care? Pandering to feminist demands to gain votes or standing at the expense of the long term health of society will affect other people later on, not them. As with so many things in politics and business, the short-term is all that matters. The next generation can clean up the mess, or so the self-serving justifications go.

We need an end to feminist ideological thinking, among others. Ignoring and even compounding men’s problems, such as the boy crisis in education, or the bias against men in family courts, is going to bring about huge social and economic problems that will threaten to collapse our societies. We really needed to have started doing something at least 20 years ago and we are now seeing the consequences of perpetual inaction unfold. We have now raised large numbers of young men that have been stripped of a viable future or place in society and the family. I don’t think I have to elaborate on how destructive that will be for our economies and social cohesion in the present or near future.

Ideological thinking can allow people to justify the most monstrous of acts. Feminist patriarchy theory is no exception. When you paint half the population as oppressors, privileged and part of some upper class, that effectively gives you a means to justify a whole of swath of depravity on that group. Is it any wonder a number of prominent feminists have no compunction about ignoring men’s issues, ensuring bias against men is enshrined into our laws and even talking about eugenics and the extermination of men? Indeed in their own little boxed world, many of them actually believe they are doing the “right” thing. Well, so did the Nazi’s.

Feminism needs to abandon ideological thinking and patriarchy theory and start embracing facts. Don’t distort data to fit your narrow worldview, instead build your advocacy from facts and be prepared to review them, because as society changes with time, so do the facts that describe it. The longer mainstream feminism continues to ignore reality and a world that has changed drastically over the last 50 years, the more obsolete it becomes.

Perhaps the biggest barrier standing in the way, is the propensity of people to conform to group-think. Asch's group conformity experiments and the infamous Stanford prison experiment, give a rather sobering view of the lengths people will go to conform to group thought just to "belong". Nazism in Germany provides a great historic example. Feminists have to choose between continuing to conform to an ideology that is becoming more destructive and obselete by the day, or acting with their conscience. Don't be a sheep.

There are a minority of dissident feminists such as Prof. Christina Hoff Sommers, which are well aware of exactly what I am talking about. These people are the only chance the feminist movement has to transform itself into something authentic. Without them, it is only a matter of time before the movement implodes on itself. Any component in a system will eventually break apart if it does not exist in a sustainable equilibrium with the rest of the system. This is a law of nature and feminism is no exception to it. In thermodynamics they call it entropy.

The problem that I see at the moment is that mainstream feminism can’t see the forest through the trees or the big picture. They all have their own little box and it is all la la la, I can’t hear you to everything else! Over the last five or so decades, dozens of astronauts have gone into space and have had an experience that has been termed the overview effect (see adjacent video). If we could make every political leader, every gender ideologue and every extremist fanatic go up in space and look upon the Earth in its whole entirety and come back, chances are our society would be very different. It would force these idiots to look beyond their narrow worldviews.

None of the stupid ways in which we human’s divide ourselves based on gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, age, religion and so forth would stand. We are all on this fragile planet, we are mortal, we all want to live and have a happy prosperous life. There is no distinction of humanity in space, just universality. This gets me to the heart of this article and why I am so sick and tired of the meaningless war on men and human stupidity in general.

Men and women are both human and men and women have evolved an interdependent relationship. Furthermore, men and women care about each other. Men care about their wives, girlfriends, daughters, sisters, female relatives and friends. Women care about their husbands, boyfriends, sons, brothers, male relatives and friends. Men and women very often live, work and raise families together in society. For all these reasons, what affects men will affect women and vice versa. A child could make such observations. So when bigots and hypocrites within the feminist movement cheer about putting men down, such as Hanna Rosin and her nonsense about the “End Of Men” (see article here), they might want to consider that inevitably they are attacking women as well. Misogyny and misandry eventually become one and the same thing. Men and women don’t live on different planets. We either sink or swim together.

There are no men’s rights or women’s rights, these are human rights. When I look at a woman I see a human being and when I look at a man I see a human being. Human nature and the human condition are universal constants for all men and for all women. I don’t distinguish one group of people’s rights as being more important or worth protecting more than another group of people. You don’t pick and choose when and to whom equality applies. That should be commonsense, but apparently some feminists and bigots did not get the memo.

Men and women are different, so how can they be equal? What do I mean by equal? This gets to the very core of my being and indeed it lies at the heart of every functional society and culture on Earth. There is a moral principle that is found across many religions, cultures and nations. This worldly principle is called the golden rule.

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”

Such a cross-cultural phenomenon generally points to a biological cause. Indeed there is a growing body of research to support that a neurological basis for the golden rule exists and also that we have an innate moral code which can even be seen in babies. The golden rule is arguably the definition of empathy. Mirror neurons in the brain have been implicated at least partly in the biological basis of empathy. Our capacity to imagine how we would feel in the other person’s position, is an integral part of human nature. The social cohesion of every human society that is, has been or ever will be, is based on the capacity to consider our actions in relation to others.

If I am to treat other people as I would want to be treated, then that implies that what happens to them is as important as what happens to me. Which in turn means I must value their life as equivalent to my own. Equality to me, means that men and women are equal in terms of the value of their life. Consequently men and women should have the same human rights and be entitled to the same basic level of respect or human dignity. These have three broad implications on society. It means men and women should be treated equally before the law, in the democratic process and have equal opportunities or freedoms in society.

The huge difference between many people like myself and a number of feminists, is that I am not in support of equality of outcome. Why? To enforce such a measure would be to infringe upon the freedom of men and women to choose how to live their own lives and it would thus violate their human rights. Notice I mentioned both genders. Expecting men and women to be clones of each other is not only impossible but immoral. The second reason why I don’t support equality of outcome, is because it is just that someone that exerts effort, should be rewarded for it on merit. Treating all people equally regardless of how much effort they put in, is unfair and unjust.

Where I do agree with feminists, is that a man and woman that produce the same outcome, should be treated exactly the same. Or do I? See, I believe such a principle should apply whether the outcome is good or bad, not just when it is in women or men’s favour. That means equal prison time for murder, rape and paedophilia for women, among other things. Where does this principle extend from? The basis of the golden rule. That is that the value of human life for men and women is equal and therefore they are entitled to the same basic level of respect and fair treatment.

The ultimate source of the value of human life, is human consciousness. Our laws governing brain death and pulling the plug reflect this. We put mind over matter. Men and women share the same basic qualities of consciousness and it is for this reason we regard each other as equals. We all feel anger, pain, sadness, regret, love, joy and happiness et cetera. It is an implication of the golden rule, that we regard each others feelings to be equal and by extension the human consciousness that gives rise to it.

So when we dehumanise men, ignore their pain, ignore their feelings and even ridicule them for expressing their feelings or dare to tell them they don’t have any, we are essentially stripping men of their dignity. This is the root cause of the suicide epidemic among men (see article here), particularly young men. This is why I will not accept double standards, or shut up when feminists deliberately attempt to downplay, trivialise or ridicule men for talking about men’s issues. They are essentially by extension telling me and every other man like me, that my life is of less value because I am male and not female.

There are even people that are that delusional that they think women are superior to men (see two articles here and here) and that it is an association or bad company fallacy to compare them to the KKK. You have got to be kidding me! For people that are unaware, association fallacy is as follows:

“When the source is viewed negatively because of its association with another person or group who is already viewed negatively.” -Logical Fallacies.com

No. It is not a logical fallacy to make the comparison. The KKK thought black people were inferior to white people. That their lives were of less value. Female supremacists think men are inferior to women and have said that their lives are of less value and even go as far as to say men are subhuman.

I think virtually anyone that reads this, will agree with me, that if you regard the lives of a group of people as being of less value, that causes people to discriminate against them, marginalise them and even exterminate them (or at least has a high probability of doing so). Why? Empathy is based on our understanding that the feelings of the other party matter, which is in turn based on our understanding of the equal value of human life. When we say blacks are inferior to whites or men are inferior to women, we are essentially saying their feelings are less important. So we are less inhibited in behaving inhumanely toward them if we view them as inferior.

Do people seriously think the KKK hung and tortured black people because they thought their lives were equal to their own? No. It is was the exact opposite that allowed them to do as they did. The Nazi’s and the Jews are another example. So no, making the association of female supremacy with such groups is perfectly valid.

Indeed what I have just discussed is described as the exception to the association or bad company fallacy-

Exception: If one can demonstrate that the connection between the two characteristics that was inherited by association is causally linked, or the probability of taking on a characteristic would be high, then it would be valid. -Logical Fallacies.com

Which I just did! Both the KKK and female supremacy are regarded as immoral and loathed because both share the common assumption that one group of people is superior to another group of people and this causes bigotry. The public loathing of these racist and sexist groups is a reaction to that bigotry. The reasoning and principles of female supremacists and the KKK are exactly the same but with different groups. How delusional and sociopathic does a person (a woman in this case) have to be, to call that an association fallacy! I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. This is what ideological thinking does to people.

Furthermore, saying the lives of one group of people are less valuable than the lives of another group of people is inherently immoral. Even if we take away any association to the KKK, female supremacy is a belief that on it's own is morally wrong and a reprehensible textbook example of discrimination. Apparently the female supremacist in question does not understand that. Sociopaths generally have problems understanding the value of human life.

On a final note regarding female superiority, I would like to say that making value judgements about the worth of human life on the basis of abilities is not only completely arbitrary, but it is also immoral. Again it is not a fallacy to compare that to Nazism. Nazi’s killed people on the basis that they were inferior in terms of abilities. The mentally retarded, mentally ill and the physically disabled come to mind. Judging men as inferior to women because of some arbitrary construct someone has developed in their warped minds, is analogous to me saying men are superior to women because they are generally stronger and taller. Anyone can make such value judgements and come out with any answer they like. Who is right? No one. Telling men or anyone for that matter that their life is of less value because of their abilities or physical and mental attributes is evil. No one has the right to tell anyone their life is of less value than another person’s. Again I refer people to the golden rule, which like the KKK, female supremacists spectacularly fail in.

So now that I have covered the fundamentals of equality, I can discuss my thoughts on gender advocacy. I am for human rights. I don’t care who you are or where you come from. Men are human and women are human. Therefore I am for men’s rights and women’s rights. You cannot be for one and not for the other. How can people pick and choose who should be treated equally? It defies logic! This is why I have said in my Hub Profile that I am a humanist above all else. I don’t identify with mainstream feminism for the same reason why dissident feminists, anti-feminists, men’s human rights activists and humanists cannot. Patriarchy theory, man-hating feminist dogma and most importantly the actions of mainstream feminists, completely contradict the dictionary definition of the word feminism. But it is not just that, they violate the golden rule (a principle as opposed to an ideological worldview) and their dogma dehumanises men and portrays them as monsters.

Unfortunately because many of the leaders of the modern feminist movement do have an ideological worldview, they cannot see the irrational nature of their own reasoning and the immorality and yes evil of their mindset. I cannot help the ignorant if their minds are already closed. Having said that, part of my reasoning for calling myself “masculistfeminist”, was to force these ideologues to confront the difference between what feminism is defined as in the dictionary, as opposed to what the actual movement is. Hopefully that sets up an annoying cycle of cognitive dissonance and perhaps a circuit breaker for them to escape their own indoctrination.

What society needs, is what Dr. Warren Farrell called a gender transition movement and what I would identify as humanism. Yes men and women do face unique problems in society and yes we do need a distinct men’s rights movement and a women’s rights movement. However, both movements need to be under something more universal and I would identify that as humanism. Why? Because a number of problems that men and women face actually will require a partnership to form between men’s rights and an authentic women’s rights movement to solve them. Consequently they do need to form a united front whilst retaining their independence. Secondly, such a union reinforces the basis of gender advocacy, which is that it is really about human rights, rather than women being this special group or men being this special group.

It is truly saddening to think that someone like Dr. Warren Farrell became aware of this decades ago whilst working with the feminist movement. Here we are in 2013 and still such an obvious and natural evolution has not taken place. Can’t feminists see that focusing solely on women’s issues is leading to a social imbalance that will eventually collapse society? This is why a men’s rights movement is needed to establish some form of balance. Liberating women from their traditional social role is excellent, but leaving men stuck in their traditional role creates a huge social imbalance. We should have liberated both genders. Women from their role as a baby maker and men from their role as a provider and protector. Over the last 50 years we have really only focused on liberating women. It will be left for my generation to restore the critical social balance between the genders and make sure that men’s issues are taken just as seriously as women’s issues. As Dr. Farrell envisioned, men and women need to be going from the “role mates” to “soul mates”. We can’t do that if we leave men behind.

We need to move not just one, but both genders, from the traditional social equilibrium state of survival to a new higher social equilibrium state of fulfilment. This transition has to achieve an equitable balance between the genders. Anything less will destablise our social and economic systems and lead to a societal decay (indeed as it has already started to).