This was an interesting exchange over at Susan’s place. Mike C asked her if something I wrote merited being described in a certain manner:
Does this language from Vox Day also count as misogynistic? I am trying to figure out if this also falls into your categorization of misogynistic?
“Because women are collectively more short-sighted and more
self-centered than men, giving them an equal voice in society is
tantamount to a slow-motion execution for any society. This is not
theoretical, it is observable, as the equalitarian societies of Europe
are already demographically in demise and in the process of losing their
democracies and their property rights.I understand that many people believe women’s rights are important.
But are they more important than property rights? Are they more
important than democracy? What those who support women’s rights are
understandably reluctant to accept is that equalitarianism necessarily
requires the elimination of democracy, property rights, freedom of
movement, and even, in the end, capitalism and most of the tenets of
Western civilization. But like it or not, that is the choice that has
been made, and is being made, even today.The Founding Fathers of the USA were no more mindless sexists than the Conscript Fathers of the Roman Senate. They
knew full well what would happen if sexual equality was ever granted.
It is not a coincidence, still less ironic, that those who built the
greatest and freest human societies have always vehemently opposed
women’s rights, while the totalitarians who most avidly sought to curtail human freedom it have tended to support them.”To which Susan replied: “Totally.”
I don’t think this is correct. I don’t think it’s even possibly correct, in fact, I will assert that the notion is a simple category error. To claim that the observable, demonstrable, and provable
contradiction between women’s rights and the rights upon which Western
civilization were historically founded could even theoretically be described as misogynistic is tantamount to setting oneself
against logic, against history, and against reality itself.
As the Castrate said, it is so or it is not so. If women’s rights contradict the rights of natural law, or the rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, then they contradict them. If I am correct, and they do, then it is a simple matter of fact and neither my feelings about women or Susan’s feelings about Martians have anything whatsoever to do with the matter. The idea is not misogynistic for the same reason it is not romantic or anti-semitic or happy or purple. The term simply cannot apply, not even hypothetically.
But no one need take my
word for this. I plan to methodically prove it, conclusively, in a
series of forthcoming posts. As I mentioned on her blog, I’d even welcome Susan’s contribution, if she would care to provide
me with what she would consider to be the definitive “women’s rights”.
I would also welcome a comprehensive list of “women’s rights” as they are distinguished from simple non-sexually based rights from anyone, male or female, who considers himself to be a feminist or even just a defender of “women’s rights”. I can, of course, simply resort to Wikipedia, but I would prefer to utilize the list provided by a self-professed champion of them.