ERIN O’CONNOR HAS SOME FURTHER CRITICISM of Germaine Greer’s latest op-ed, previously addressed by William Sjostrom:
Okay, so the substitutions sometimes cede into nonsense. But that only makes the temper of Greer’s “discourse” that much more clear: hers is a discourse of irrational blame and vitriolic hate, a discourse in which one group is described as wholly superior to another group whose inferiority is treated as natural and right, a discourse that quite literally does not make sense–except, insofar, as it participates in the deliberate nonlogic of demonization. And yet it is printed in one of the world’s most respected papers, the product of one of the twentieth century’s most influential feminists. Its place in that paper speaks to how profoundly respectable hatred of men has become in our enlightened culture, as well as to the role feminism has played in making such hatred a badge of liberal propriety.
The bit about men being malignant tissue says it all. As Greer calls men a cancer on an otherwise healthy female society, so Hitler said that “The Jews are a Cancer on the breast of Germany”; so radical Islamists call Jews a “cancer” on Palestine.
Strong stuff.
UPDATE: A couple of readers have expressed skepticism about the anti-male animus that this post, and some others I’ve put up over the last few days, indicate. (This message from reader Dan Hobby is typical: “Reading Glenn Sacks thoughts on this subject, one word comes to mind: pinhead.”) All I can say to them is, tell it to Doris Lessing:
I find myself increasingly shocked at the unthinking and automatic rubbishing of men which is now so part of our culture that it is hardly even noticed,” the 81-year-old Persian-born writer said yesterday.
“Great things have been achieved through feminism. We now have pretty much equality at least on the pay and opportunities front, though almost nothing has been done on child care, the real liberation.
“We have many wonderful, clever, powerful women everywhere, but what is happening to men? Why did this have to be at the cost of men?
“I was in a class of nine- and 10-year-olds, girls and boys, and this young woman was telling these kids that the reason for wars was the innately violent nature of men.
“You could see the little girls, fat with complacency and conceit while the little boys sat there crumpled, apologising for their existence, thinking this was going to be the pattern of their lives.”
Lessing said the teacher tried to “catch my eye, thinking I would approve of this rubbish”.
She added: “This kind of thing is happening in schools all over the place and no one says a thing.
“It has become a kind of religion that you can’t criticise because then you become a traitor to the great cause, which I am not.
“It is time we began to ask who are these women who continually rubbish men. The most stupid, ill-educated and nasty woman can rubbish the nicest, kindest and most intelligent man and no one protests.
“Men seem to be so cowed that they can’t fight back, and it is time they did.”
You can disagree with this if you like — though, frankly, I think doing so is a confession of utter blindness to reality — but quit telling me that this is some creation of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy. It’s not, and you only diminish your credibility by pretending (or, more embarrassingly, actually believing) otherwise.
ANOTHER UPDATE: It’s not new, either. Here’s an interview on the subject from 1994, with Camille Paglia and Christina Hoff Sommers. And, for that matter, Betty Friedan wrote about “female chauvinist boors” in McCall’s back in 1972, though I can’t find a copy of that essay online. And still people seem inclined to pretend that the problem doesn’t exist.