MISANDRYSit down, shut up and listen to the women - Gender Critical Feminists turn on male allies before they’ve even won the war.

submitted by ClassroomPast6178 from x.com

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[–]JulienMayfair 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Good post. I worked in academia from 1990-2010, and one of the strangest things I witnessed was how Women's Studies departments surrendered -- sometimes enthusiastically -- to gender theory and became Gender Studies departments in the 2000s. The radfems sounded alarms, but it seemed to make no difference. (As far as I could tell, true radfems never had that much power in academia.) I think part of it was that second wave feminism had accomplished many of its goals and was worried about becoming moribund, a movement without an objective. At the same time, gender theory seemed to be the cool, new, hyper-intellectual thing, so they embraced it without considering the outcome. It was a true Trojan Horse moment.

It is a strange thing to consider that women calling themselves feminists were both the biggest enablers and biggest critics of the rise of all things trans.

And it continues. At my alma mater, the vocal advocates for trans women in female sports are all women.

[–]LordoftheFliesAmeri-kin 2.0. Pronouns: MegaWhite/SuperStraight/UltraPatriarchy 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

was worried about becoming moribund, a movement without an objective.

Or people associated with it were worried about not enjoying the level of power and influence that they'd been accustomed to. When everyone who previously hung on your every word and opinion suddenly starts drifting away and paying attention to someone else, it probably sounds like a good idea to convert and become a fiery advocate yourself to regain what's been slipping away.

And then you get a taste of just what you can do with that new stuff, like getting entire companies to bend a knee to it and enact policies around it; sure, they do it cynically for their own profit, but they do it. Or getting to have massive sway over governmental policy, maybe to an extent greater than what you ever could manage before.

Heady stuff.

[–]JulienMayfair 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

In academia, specifically, prestige carries a lot of weight, and in the 1990s, the gender theorists like Butler and others seen to be on the cutting edge of something, even if they were just selling a line of bullshit wrapped up in sophisticated-sounding jargon.

I once attended a lecture by Fred Jameson, probably the highest-paid Marxist theorist at the time. All the professors were there. Afterwards, I heard them joking amongst themselves that they hadn't understood a thing he'd said. It was all about being seen to be at a Fred Jameson lecture.