Janice Fiamengo and Tom Golden are joined by Hannah Spier, M.D. a Norwegian psychiatrist who tells her story of choosing motherhood over career. Her story highlights the insane amount of feminist bias that permeates the world around the issue of a woman choosing to stay at home with her children.
I'm halfway through the video and already feel I have to comment. It's amazing yet not surprising that the women mental health professionals Dr. Spier describes working, who are mostly miserable, and many are unmarried/childless, yet these intelligent women, ostensibly educated in the workings of the human mind (to help clients learn how to make changes to improve their lives), are unable to consider that these problems could be linked.
I agree that feminism creates psychopathy, although I would argue that they had a baseline level of psychopathy already present, that led them to the psychopathy of feminism.
We are constantly adapting to a cultural transition that began some 50 years ago. The transition has now reached the point of being further entrenched with more observable neurosis. Madness.
We are witnessing the effects of top-down corporate-government enacted and sponsored social change however sold as (unilateral) equality between the sexes. Those forced measures were not consented to and spawned a disguised soft totalitarian infrastructure.
Indeed Steve! Good to see you. For those of you who don't know Steve, he is the professional videographer that filmed the feminist protest of the Warren Farrell talk in Canada. It was featured in the Red Pill Movie:
This is a story I would not have imagined. I was struck by the response of HS's colleagues to her return. (I see Trish's comment below; I had a similar response.) Very honest and inspiring, really good. Hats off to her husband for his reaction, too.
Oh it gets much worse, the trends reach us somewhat slower but we don’t have a countermovement. For example, my husband’s at one of the big banks and he says networking has become very challenging since all the events are exclusively for women. Not to mention affirmative action.
One feature of feminism is its agenda to dominate academic settings in order to promote its selfish motives, principally one of which is the denial of the psychological trait of gynocentrism and its consequences for all societies. This helps to explain why feminists are so hostile to evolutionary psychology
Long and erudite discussion. Had I been asked the questionthat comprises the title of this piece, I think I could have answered it in one word: Yes. ALthough that would have been both accurate and succinct, it would have played havoc with the discussion, so perhaps it was a good thing I was not part of the panel.
The next stage of 1984 is to make the children the boss of the house, and this is happening NOW. Women won't even know what's up and down when this fully materializes. And only THEN will they know what if feels like to be a man...
I grew up in the 1950's when women were treated like second-class citizens. Working class women never had the luxury of not working a job. If you were able to afford to stay home, you paid the price by being subject to your husband's whims. If you suffered domestic violence, priests and police told you it was your fault, and to stay home and obey your husband. Women couldn't get credit cards until the 1970's. and on and on. We needed feminism then and we need it to retain our rights now. Wake up, women.
I also grew up im the 1950's and have a very different memory. All of my teachers in the early grades were beloved and female. The Principal of my elementary school was female and all loved her, including the two male teachers. The workforce prior to WWII in the US was 25% female. At his point it is 47% so yes, it has increased but it came from an already established base of women choosing to work. My own mother was raised on a humble farm in the south and had lots of siblings. She was recruited by a city law firm with the offer of paying for law school if she would work for them. She told them to pound sand and did what she wanted which was to become a teacher. The feminist lies are horrid and have been accepted by millions of unsuspecting people. Don't be one of them.
not a woman? What difference does that make when I am simply relating what I saw as a boy. Try another way to negate my memory of history. That one doesn't work too well.
I am a woman, and I recall my childhood neighborhood in the 1960s-70s. Most of the women were stay-home wives/mothers. But we also had women in our town who did work. Some ran businesses, some had jobs. Some moms worked part time. They even had a club called The Busy Women (busy as in business), which had both social functions and community projects. The Busy Women club included wives (my mother took me to some meetings when I was in high school). The focus was on how these women could contribute to our town.
One of my neighbors was an elderly woman we all called Docky because she had been a doctor. In fact, Docky had earned her medical degree around the year 1900.
What I don't remember is women who took one path (worker or wife) trying to pressure another woman to change her life path (in the way Hannah Spier describes at her workplace). Since most moms were home during times kids weren't at school, there were opportunities for hanging out with the moms (I learned to love coffee while listening to the moms talk among themselves). These women were perfectly able to complain about a variety of things, but I don't remember complaints about being at the mercy of their men's whims.
The women I remember being unhappy - and sowing discontent - were the divorcees. One example was the mother of one of my classmates. I would see her and her kids at the local beach. One day, when I was 11, I ran into her. She told me she was getting divorced, and then said, "That day I saw you at the beach last week was the day we split up." This gave me a crushing feeling that she wanted me to know that I was somehow involved in such a dramatic and tragic event. It troubled me for years.
Thanks for this Trish. It's the history that has been trash binned. Some folks just get a spasm when they hear this sort of thing. It ain't the history they know is true. LOL
Thanks, Tom. What amazes me is that a lot of this history has been shoved in the bin by people old enough to have first-hand memories of how things were.
They still have those first-hand memories, but once they've been exposed to feminist thinking, they interpret them differently. They start seeing their whole life in retrospect through that feminist lens, which distorts everything into male oppression. My father put it quite well in a posthumous letter about his abusive wife: "The general view of life (or rather our life together) is increasingly one of fantasy. Incidents over the whole of our married life are dug up, dissected, and explained by a fantasy interpretation which it is impossible to dispel. If it were only a few incidents, perhaps there would have been some opportunity to get it straight, but it is the whole fabric which is distorted. It emerges as me being, throughout our married life, totally selfish and self-centred..."
<Women couldn't get credit cards until the 1970's?>
Credit cards started appearing in 1959, and in my country started being advertised in the 1970s. Even then a person had to meet certain criteria to obtain one. Husbands were and still are responsible for the debts incurred.
Not only that, it's easier than taking the time to learn to use logic, and to deploy it. It's also far more satisfying than realizing and admitting that you were incorrect about something.
I learnt to listen to what my body told me, and then question why it was reacting a certain way. I learnt if I was reacting emotionally or my emotions were triggered to look very deeply, and often it indicated I was being manipulated.
This is worth noting. Class analysis and economic analysis must always be kept in the mix. It is laughable that today's leftists leave this out except when it suits the agenda. Often times a simple class/economic analysis cuts to the core of an issue.
quote<First, the representation of the war itself was carefully designed to appeal to women. The brutal German invasion of Belgium in August 1914 was immediately characterized as a 'rape', and graphic images of sexual assault and the torture of women and children began to pour out of the occupied territories,......... the 'Rape of Belgium' brought forth evocative images of women in danger>unquote
during WW 1 the words used to describe the German invasion of Belgium are so similar to the words that have been used to convince you about what you have written.
A significant part of the tactics used by feminists has been to demonise the male gender. To achieve this they take the worst actions of a small minority of men and then extrapolate them to the whole male gender. This is the female bullying tactic of relational aggression, aimed at reputation destruction.
You mention domestic violence, Erin Pizzey when she opened her first refuge found that out of 100 women, 60 were as violent, if not more violent than the men they had left.
DV research went downhill, and researchers developed certain methodologies to hide the percentage of female offenders, such as not collecting data or avoiding asking certain questions.
<you paid the price by being subject to your husband's whims.>
Really??? This was written in 1590;
quote<“don’t we see that men’s rightful task is to go out to work and wear themselves out trying to accumulate wealth, as though they were our factors or stewards, so that we can remain at home like the lady of the house directing their work and enjoying the profit of their labors? That, if you like, is the reason why men are naturally stronger and more robust than us — they need to be, so they can put up with the hard labor they must endure in our service.”2>unquote
I couldn't be more impressed with Dr Spier and her personal story and integrity. A rare woman indeed.
That said I did have a double take around 46:56.
Men are victims of the romantic narrative and the absurdity of chivalry in 2024 yet no man has ever been in a marriage and "never put themselves in her shoes"
The psychopathy of seeing the world and everyone in it solely in terms of how it affects the self is a tenant of female nature. And is objectively dysfunctional at best for any role of import or responsibility - stats on the output of single mothers is a good example.
And the part about women "hiding" their deep seated fear of being ostracized from their In Group, while sympathetic and touching, is not justification for the abuse control of happy wife happy life all women impose upon those who love them and whom they profess to love themselves.
If these behaviors do indeed demonstrate psychopathy, is feminism really the root cause?
While acknowledging important (and deliciously intriguing) differences between men and women, I am not comfortable with how far ideologically convenient sex differences are taking over the emerging anti-feminist movement as discussed by the three contributors. I am no pro-feminist, but I have observed with increasing concern for quite some years (>30) that pro-male activism typically seems to rely on emphasising, at every possible opportunity, sex differentiation. I believe the unchallenged promotion of sex difference by activists of both sexes, will have unintended consequences. It already has - but not here, not now.
Bigoted in-group/tribal identification cannot exist without constant emphasis on, and self-serving exaggeration of group difference and resultant disdain for an unworthy or inferior other. Feminism would not exist without it. Here are a few more tribal distinctions that have always resulted in separateness and, unless arrested early, ultimately leading to conflict and occasionally societal destruction: catholics vs. protestants, moslems vs. christians, blacks vs. whites.
And while ever gendered difference is so consistently emphasised (as I sensed in this discussion), I contend that it is psychologically impossible to have genuine empathy with, or sympathy for, anyone of the other sex. And in the absence of conscious intent to explore and then discover human similarity with another person (or group), then empathy remains elusive. And without that, neither charitable love nor selfless caring for another can ever occur. (I happen to believe empathy is a taught skill; it is not innate. "Helping" professions please note!) And without the encouragement (internal effort or externally nudged) of a focus outside of oneself, psychological good health and life satisfaction will remain elusive.
I wish to repeat that I am not denying that sex differences exist. But while ever gendered differentiation is the personal (and activist) focus, toxic self-absorption will dominate. And gnawing misery will persist.
The problem we have faced for the last 50 years has been the ridiculous narrative pushed that told us there are no differences. Any challenging of that was shouted down as misogynist. If you see anyone exaggerating our differences please do call it out. However, after the last 50 years I am sure for some that even pointing out small differences will seem like lies. We are that brainwashed.
We are wonderfully different and that is a good thing. Evolution relies on our differences not our sameness. There is now growing evidence that mother and father getting the same hormone actually are pushed in different directions! We are different and that is a good thing.
Thanks Tom. I think you are missing my point which is that *emphasising* each and every sex difference precludes seeking, and ever having, empathic i.e., mutually loving relationships. The operative word is "emphasising" as opposed to say, noting and enjoying. I am specifically referring to psychological dilemmas faced by people seeking help for personal distress from the many "helping professions", such as psychologists, counsellors, and others.
On a global scale, I agree with your critiques of feminist ideology and methods. My take is that feminism, as a cultural and politically motivated movement, while loudly and falsely professing identical skills and talent, has relied on cruelly exploiting sex differences for women's supposed benefit. Feminism consistently lies about seeking only righteous "gender equality". I have been concerned that many pro-male activists while being at least truthful (in contrast to feminists) by acknowledging sex difference, also do harm by exaggerating those differences. And just one of many consequences is a self-defeating reluctance by ideologically captured men and women to find and relish the discovery of human similarity and common needs, wishes, desires and even similar physical pleasures - which can them be shared!
I contend that there has been an ever-escalating increase in gender-based antagonisms at a societal level for many decades and which has then determined unfair (almost exclusively to men) political and legal outcomes. But its basis is no longer a one-sided phenomenon. I find that emerging societal development very concerning indeed. Not for me. I am old. It's for my grandchildren and their children.
While for individuals, and particularly for distressed people, who seek to find solutions to their lonely anxieties, the inability to see matters from another person's perspective (empathy), is a direct result of falsely observing only sex-dependent difference. That's where feminist-inspired studies and feminised psychology has got it so wrong for well over 50 years. I know! I was in the middle of it.
Hi Richard - We surely agree on the lethality of feminism. My sense at this point is that we are living in a world with most of the population thinking there is something dreadfully wrong with both men and masculinity. Basically a brainwashing population. This requires strong words and focusing on differences in order to begin to make a dent in the population that has been convinced to take part in the hatred of a birth group. Focusing hard on differences, the differences that have been denied for 50 years, seems to me to be a productive path.
Richard, I think the place where you and Tom might be missing each other is the way that feminism has no coherent ideology, so feminists are free to make claims that , if juxtaposed, would be clearly incompatible. Feminists claim the sexes are identical. Feminists claim women require special consideration while men, society, workplaces, and schools make special accommodations for women so they could "catch up" to men. Feminists will claim women are identical to men. Feminists will claim women have unique needs. Which claim they make depends on the strategic goals of the moment. Feminism's not-quite-blank slate allows for women to have differences from men, but not evolutionarily-imbedded differences, only strategically and temporarily useful differences.
Women could do any job a man could do. Also, job requirements and workplaces must be changed to accommodate women. Women are as strong as men, but women suffered unique disadvantages due to previous exclusion or lack of accommodation.
Feminists reframed men's tendencies, interests and thought processes as inherently problematic, while women's tendencies, interests and thought processes deserved extra attention and respect in society, schools and workplaces.
While feminist demands are founded in the idea that women are absolutely functionally equal to men (while requiring unique considerations), they managed to suppress understanding of the differences between the sexes. By portraying women as a subset of men who deserve special accommodations because of damage caused by being targets of oppression for merely being women, feminists appear to acknowledge differences between the sexes, they obscure the actual, deep differences between us.
Knowledge and understanding of the natural inclinations of both sexes has been completely suppressed. Women think that women and men think, feel and act the same, while men are aware this isn't the case, but are pressured in schools, workplaces and (often broken) families, to conform their behavior and communications in ways favorable to feminism. Although it's framed as being favorable to women, in reality this conformity is favorable to feminism. (One of the most brilliantly evil moves of mid-20th Century feminism was labeling itself "women's liberation." That way, they appeared to represent all women, not just feminists).
One result is that recent generations of women lack any clue that men think, feel or act differently than men. Men do notice that women's thinking and emotions are very different from theirs, but also know it's dangerous to make their awareness known. Women, meanwhile are pressured to act in ways contrary to our deep biological tendencies, without realizing those tendencies are our true nature - those tendencies are treated as problematic divergence from the norm, like how Hannah Spier's colleagues viewed her desire to stay home.
Because feminism has created such chasms between men and women, I can see why you would be wary of the idea that understanding sex differences is one of the necessary elements in dismantling feminism's malign influence on our families, schools, workplaces and society. But on the other hand, a lot of the damage feminism has wrought has been by promulgating a false image of the differences between the sexes, while obscuring the real biologically-driven. In feminism, the only difference between men and women is that women have been damaged by men not treating women enough like men. Their proposed cure is endless special treatment of women to balance the alleged oppression inflicted on women throughout history.
Hello Trish. Thanks for a very considered response and the time it took to write. At a socio-political level I agree wholeheartedly with both you and Tom. Feminism is a toxic ideology. In addition, much of what you describe about interpersonal interactions, I personally experienced.
My concern, perhaps because of my training as well as introspective reflections (see my bio) is that listing the benefits or evils of feminism (depending on the listener's sex), though affirming, does not heal feminism's psychological damage either in professional therapy or in discussions with similarly prejudiced friends. Nor can it build resilience in children against its externally imposed pernicious ideology. And this, admittedly patronising, admonition of mine applies to therapy for both male and female patients as well as mentoring children of both sexes.
My purpose when I first wrote (not well enough articulated perhaps) was an attempt to focus on effective *therapy* for feminism's injured patients and which has similarities to competent child rearing. I thought the discussion did not address therapeutic and parental considerations in depth, but instead (and too often) got stuck on the dreadful politics of gender.
As an old man, I admit to feeling entitled to counsel that affirmation of gender-specific prejudice (*exaggerating* differences!) will never be effective therapy for troubled patients. Nor for divorced friends either. Nor is it good parenting.
I enjoyed thinking after reading your essay. Thanks.
Hi Richard, Thank you for your response. I found yours quite interesting, and enjoyable to read, too - which is why I decided to respond.
I guess I wasn't fully taking in the fact that you were focusing on the context of therapy, and how we help individuals to heal from the damage arising from feminism's influence on so many aspects of contemporary life. Perhaps this was due to the overall discussion in the video and in the comments ranging quite a bit away from issue of therapy. I appreciate your clarifying the context of your comment, while showing serious consideration to mine. How one would help an individual recover from damage inflicted by a society, family or education steeped in feminism is beyond my education or experience.
Certainly there is much work to be done to heal individuals injured by feminism's terrible influence. But, wouldn't the process include acknowledgement of the individual's strengths, weaknesses, skills and preferences? Many aspects of the individual are heavily influenced by the instinctual and physical realities of our biological sex, and the sexes of people we interact with. Let's take as an example Hannah Spier's experience of work colleagues peer pressuring her to keep working. A woman who is unaware of the biological reasons for her deep focus on time with her baby and female vulnerability to peer pressure isn't going to be able to see the whole picture and its implications beyond that particular job.
Because feminism pretends to act in women's name, and targets men as the enemy, it obscures the fact that feminism is as antagonistic to real female instincts, skills and interests as it is to men's. This generates friction between men and women because feminism's terrible influence appears, on the outside, to be something men do to women and women do to men. The fact that it's easier for men to see that women and men think differently, while women find it easy to believe men and women think and feel the same adds to the friction.
The differences that feminism acknowledges and promotes (which I can agree to label "gender specific prejudices") are manufactured for expediency in spheres including politics and family courts. Feminists don't acknowledge real difference. Just look at feminist responses to facts such as: the "pay gap" is caused by women choosing to work shorter hours and choosing less-demanding careers, women are only 5% of chess grandmasters are women, no women have been in the top 500 esports players.
Thanks for sharing this thoughtful exchange. Time to get out in the garden for a bit.
Hello Trish. Please see my response to Tom in which he asks what is the best approach. You sound like a wonderful and thoughtful woman - much like my daughters.
Hi Richard - Glad we agree on nearly everything about this mess. I am curious what you think the best approach might be to shift the hateful brainwashing of feminism. What do you think would work?
Hello again Tom. I hope the lovelyTrish gets to read this too. I would like to suggest that the most-ikely-to-succeed "therapy" is what you and I would simply call good parenting. A more complex definition might be a benevolent supervision of age-dependent autonomy, the goal being competent adulthood.
My best example of how that can be achieved would be one that I think you and Trish would already be aware of. It was discussed by Jordan Petersen and Warren Farrell some years ago now, in a brilliant expose of their wonderful wisdom and intellects. One of the most memorable little snippets (that offered confirmation bias for my paternal experience) was the answer to, "what is being learned by a child during rough and tumble play?" And which happens typically with an involved dad. And with anti-feminist mums too.
Farrell reported that restraint is learned, but even more critically, so also is empathy *with* and sensitivity *towards* another living being, be that a person or animal. These are bloody good things to *learn* as a child. They are learned socialisation and interpersonal behavioural skills. They are not innate.
Thus restraint, empathy and sensitivity are the skills that therapists will need to teach/aim for when re-parenting immature, child-like and narcissist feminists to help them grow up! I agree with Hannah Spier that the "helping" professions have lost their way with their feminised affirming care models. I suffered their BS for several years during marriage and after divorce, and which delayed my assuredness that was needed to become a good and effective single dad.
I jest a little, but if masculine "parenting" works with children, it might work with feminists, both female and male ones - like I was a very long time ago (mid-70s).
Rule of thumb #1: Treat/teach feminists like 2yo children.
Well said Tom.
I'm halfway through the video and already feel I have to comment. It's amazing yet not surprising that the women mental health professionals Dr. Spier describes working, who are mostly miserable, and many are unmarried/childless, yet these intelligent women, ostensibly educated in the workings of the human mind (to help clients learn how to make changes to improve their lives), are unable to consider that these problems could be linked.
Amazing isn't it?
Indeed.
P.S. I'd click the like on your comment, but lately substack doesn't seem to be registering/counting it when I do.
Thank you, Tom, Janice, and Dr. Spier.
I agree that feminism creates psychopathy, although I would argue that they had a baseline level of psychopathy already present, that led them to the psychopathy of feminism.
So true Frank. Reminds me of the interview Janice and I did of Carrie Gress. She taught us a good deal about the psychopathology of the feminist leaders. A real eye opener. https://menaregood.substack.com/p/the-end-of-woman-how-smashing-the
Thank you, Tom, I will take a look.
We are constantly adapting to a cultural transition that began some 50 years ago. The transition has now reached the point of being further entrenched with more observable neurosis. Madness.
We are witnessing the effects of top-down corporate-government enacted and sponsored social change however sold as (unilateral) equality between the sexes. Those forced measures were not consented to and spawned a disguised soft totalitarian infrastructure.
I am comparing Feminism and NPD. so far I find no difference
Yes, many of the leaders in the 20th century had significant mental problems.
To put it another way: does psychopathology create psychopathology?
Indeed Steve! Good to see you. For those of you who don't know Steve, he is the professional videographer that filmed the feminist protest of the Warren Farrell talk in Canada. It was featured in the Red Pill Movie:
https://youtu.be/Q7MkSpJk5tM?si=H_h7EJtpNLVrDeFi&t=1265
His youtube channel has been banned more than once I think and now is here
https://www.youtube.com/@StudioBrule
This channel has been the source for much of Janice Fiamengo's Fiamengo File work
Always good to see you Steve!
Thanks for this really interesting and insightul perspective.
You are very welcome Tania, thanks for having a look.
This is a story I would not have imagined. I was struck by the response of HS's colleagues to her return. (I see Trish's comment below; I had a similar response.) Very honest and inspiring, really good. Hats off to her husband for his reaction, too.
great interview with Hannah and thanks to the three of you.
Thanks to Hannah I now feel confirmed that Feminism is alive and well here in Switzerland.
I didn't realise it had taken over so much.
Oh it gets much worse, the trends reach us somewhat slower but we don’t have a countermovement. For example, my husband’s at one of the big banks and he says networking has become very challenging since all the events are exclusively for women. Not to mention affirmative action.
What a horror!!
Tom! How did we get there?
Simply look at the articles published in women's magazines in the 1970, 80, 90 and the pop psychological quizzes.
One feature of feminism is its agenda to dominate academic settings in order to promote its selfish motives, principally one of which is the denial of the psychological trait of gynocentrism and its consequences for all societies. This helps to explain why feminists are so hostile to evolutionary psychology
Well said. Gynocentrism runs silent and it runs deep.
They're hostile to evolutionary psychology because it undermines their central tenet that gender is a social construct.
The ideology doesn't only apply to gender or genderism. The broader notion is referred to as blankslatism.
Indeed. Just the idea that there is such a thing as human nature is anathema to feminists, cultural marxists, and their fellow travellers.
Long and erudite discussion. Had I been asked the questionthat comprises the title of this piece, I think I could have answered it in one word: Yes. ALthough that would have been both accurate and succinct, it would have played havoc with the discussion, so perhaps it was a good thing I was not part of the panel.
It might have been a short answer but it would also have been true.
The next stage of 1984 is to make the children the boss of the house, and this is happening NOW. Women won't even know what's up and down when this fully materializes. And only THEN will they know what if feels like to be a man...
I grew up in the 1950's when women were treated like second-class citizens. Working class women never had the luxury of not working a job. If you were able to afford to stay home, you paid the price by being subject to your husband's whims. If you suffered domestic violence, priests and police told you it was your fault, and to stay home and obey your husband. Women couldn't get credit cards until the 1970's. and on and on. We needed feminism then and we need it to retain our rights now. Wake up, women.
I also grew up im the 1950's and have a very different memory. All of my teachers in the early grades were beloved and female. The Principal of my elementary school was female and all loved her, including the two male teachers. The workforce prior to WWII in the US was 25% female. At his point it is 47% so yes, it has increased but it came from an already established base of women choosing to work. My own mother was raised on a humble farm in the south and had lots of siblings. She was recruited by a city law firm with the offer of paying for law school if she would work for them. She told them to pound sand and did what she wanted which was to become a teacher. The feminist lies are horrid and have been accepted by millions of unsuspecting people. Don't be one of them.
You aren't a woman.
not a woman? What difference does that make when I am simply relating what I saw as a boy. Try another way to negate my memory of history. That one doesn't work too well.
You have a very rosy view. That wasn't my experience.
I am a woman, and I recall my childhood neighborhood in the 1960s-70s. Most of the women were stay-home wives/mothers. But we also had women in our town who did work. Some ran businesses, some had jobs. Some moms worked part time. They even had a club called The Busy Women (busy as in business), which had both social functions and community projects. The Busy Women club included wives (my mother took me to some meetings when I was in high school). The focus was on how these women could contribute to our town.
One of my neighbors was an elderly woman we all called Docky because she had been a doctor. In fact, Docky had earned her medical degree around the year 1900.
What I don't remember is women who took one path (worker or wife) trying to pressure another woman to change her life path (in the way Hannah Spier describes at her workplace). Since most moms were home during times kids weren't at school, there were opportunities for hanging out with the moms (I learned to love coffee while listening to the moms talk among themselves). These women were perfectly able to complain about a variety of things, but I don't remember complaints about being at the mercy of their men's whims.
The women I remember being unhappy - and sowing discontent - were the divorcees. One example was the mother of one of my classmates. I would see her and her kids at the local beach. One day, when I was 11, I ran into her. She told me she was getting divorced, and then said, "That day I saw you at the beach last week was the day we split up." This gave me a crushing feeling that she wanted me to know that I was somehow involved in such a dramatic and tragic event. It troubled me for years.
Thanks for this Trish. It's the history that has been trash binned. Some folks just get a spasm when they hear this sort of thing. It ain't the history they know is true. LOL
Thanks, Tom. What amazes me is that a lot of this history has been shoved in the bin by people old enough to have first-hand memories of how things were.
Indeed, and sadly we are running out of people with first hand memories of the actual history who might speak out.
They still have those first-hand memories, but once they've been exposed to feminist thinking, they interpret them differently. They start seeing their whole life in retrospect through that feminist lens, which distorts everything into male oppression. My father put it quite well in a posthumous letter about his abusive wife: "The general view of life (or rather our life together) is increasingly one of fantasy. Incidents over the whole of our married life are dug up, dissected, and explained by a fantasy interpretation which it is impossible to dispel. If it were only a few incidents, perhaps there would have been some opportunity to get it straight, but it is the whole fabric which is distorted. It emerges as me being, throughout our married life, totally selfish and self-centred..."
<Women couldn't get credit cards until the 1970's?>
Credit cards started appearing in 1959, and in my country started being advertised in the 1970s. Even then a person had to meet certain criteria to obtain one. Husbands were and still are responsible for the debts incurred.
The debtors prison.
That is the script you were taught that has been used to brainwash you.
It is emotive and deliberately so because logic and rational thought are locked in the trunk once emotions are driving.
Not only that, it's easier than taking the time to learn to use logic, and to deploy it. It's also far more satisfying than realizing and admitting that you were incorrect about something.
I learnt to listen to what my body told me, and then question why it was reacting a certain way. I learnt if I was reacting emotionally or my emotions were triggered to look very deeply, and often it indicated I was being manipulated.
This is worth noting. Class analysis and economic analysis must always be kept in the mix. It is laughable that today's leftists leave this out except when it suits the agenda. Often times a simple class/economic analysis cuts to the core of an issue.
Alison,
quote<First, the representation of the war itself was carefully designed to appeal to women. The brutal German invasion of Belgium in August 1914 was immediately characterized as a 'rape', and graphic images of sexual assault and the torture of women and children began to pour out of the occupied territories,......... the 'Rape of Belgium' brought forth evocative images of women in danger>unquote
during WW 1 the words used to describe the German invasion of Belgium are so similar to the words that have been used to convince you about what you have written.
Alison, are you a soldier or a scout? (ted talk)
A significant part of the tactics used by feminists has been to demonise the male gender. To achieve this they take the worst actions of a small minority of men and then extrapolate them to the whole male gender. This is the female bullying tactic of relational aggression, aimed at reputation destruction.
You mention domestic violence, Erin Pizzey when she opened her first refuge found that out of 100 women, 60 were as violent, if not more violent than the men they had left.
DV research went downhill, and researchers developed certain methodologies to hide the percentage of female offenders, such as not collecting data or avoiding asking certain questions.
<you paid the price by being subject to your husband's whims.>
Really??? This was written in 1590;
quote<“don’t we see that men’s rightful task is to go out to work and wear themselves out trying to accumulate wealth, as though they were our factors or stewards, so that we can remain at home like the lady of the house directing their work and enjoying the profit of their labors? That, if you like, is the reason why men are naturally stronger and more robust than us — they need to be, so they can put up with the hard labor they must endure in our service.”2>unquote
'whims'.
In a previous comment I mentioned 'desires'.
is it so that it is only men that have desires?
Not a woman has a desire, sexual I'm thinking now, and it is all just blamed on Men....
is that what these frigid feminists think like?
That ALL desires only come from men?
Am I reading this right that Women don't have desires of any kind..
You all are lost in some fantasy of a bygone era.
I couldn't be more impressed with Dr Spier and her personal story and integrity. A rare woman indeed.
That said I did have a double take around 46:56.
Men are victims of the romantic narrative and the absurdity of chivalry in 2024 yet no man has ever been in a marriage and "never put themselves in her shoes"
The psychopathy of seeing the world and everyone in it solely in terms of how it affects the self is a tenant of female nature. And is objectively dysfunctional at best for any role of import or responsibility - stats on the output of single mothers is a good example.
And the part about women "hiding" their deep seated fear of being ostracized from their In Group, while sympathetic and touching, is not justification for the abuse control of happy wife happy life all women impose upon those who love them and whom they profess to love themselves.
If these behaviors do indeed demonstrate psychopathy, is feminism really the root cause?
Are you sure it is at 46:45? I looked at that part and didn't see anything that connects with your comment. Maybe I am missing something?
While acknowledging important (and deliciously intriguing) differences between men and women, I am not comfortable with how far ideologically convenient sex differences are taking over the emerging anti-feminist movement as discussed by the three contributors. I am no pro-feminist, but I have observed with increasing concern for quite some years (>30) that pro-male activism typically seems to rely on emphasising, at every possible opportunity, sex differentiation. I believe the unchallenged promotion of sex difference by activists of both sexes, will have unintended consequences. It already has - but not here, not now.
Bigoted in-group/tribal identification cannot exist without constant emphasis on, and self-serving exaggeration of group difference and resultant disdain for an unworthy or inferior other. Feminism would not exist without it. Here are a few more tribal distinctions that have always resulted in separateness and, unless arrested early, ultimately leading to conflict and occasionally societal destruction: catholics vs. protestants, moslems vs. christians, blacks vs. whites.
And while ever gendered difference is so consistently emphasised (as I sensed in this discussion), I contend that it is psychologically impossible to have genuine empathy with, or sympathy for, anyone of the other sex. And in the absence of conscious intent to explore and then discover human similarity with another person (or group), then empathy remains elusive. And without that, neither charitable love nor selfless caring for another can ever occur. (I happen to believe empathy is a taught skill; it is not innate. "Helping" professions please note!) And without the encouragement (internal effort or externally nudged) of a focus outside of oneself, psychological good health and life satisfaction will remain elusive.
I wish to repeat that I am not denying that sex differences exist. But while ever gendered differentiation is the personal (and activist) focus, toxic self-absorption will dominate. And gnawing misery will persist.
The problem we have faced for the last 50 years has been the ridiculous narrative pushed that told us there are no differences. Any challenging of that was shouted down as misogynist. If you see anyone exaggerating our differences please do call it out. However, after the last 50 years I am sure for some that even pointing out small differences will seem like lies. We are that brainwashed.
We are wonderfully different and that is a good thing. Evolution relies on our differences not our sameness. There is now growing evidence that mother and father getting the same hormone actually are pushed in different directions! We are different and that is a good thing.
Thanks Tom. I think you are missing my point which is that *emphasising* each and every sex difference precludes seeking, and ever having, empathic i.e., mutually loving relationships. The operative word is "emphasising" as opposed to say, noting and enjoying. I am specifically referring to psychological dilemmas faced by people seeking help for personal distress from the many "helping professions", such as psychologists, counsellors, and others.
On a global scale, I agree with your critiques of feminist ideology and methods. My take is that feminism, as a cultural and politically motivated movement, while loudly and falsely professing identical skills and talent, has relied on cruelly exploiting sex differences for women's supposed benefit. Feminism consistently lies about seeking only righteous "gender equality". I have been concerned that many pro-male activists while being at least truthful (in contrast to feminists) by acknowledging sex difference, also do harm by exaggerating those differences. And just one of many consequences is a self-defeating reluctance by ideologically captured men and women to find and relish the discovery of human similarity and common needs, wishes, desires and even similar physical pleasures - which can them be shared!
I contend that there has been an ever-escalating increase in gender-based antagonisms at a societal level for many decades and which has then determined unfair (almost exclusively to men) political and legal outcomes. But its basis is no longer a one-sided phenomenon. I find that emerging societal development very concerning indeed. Not for me. I am old. It's for my grandchildren and their children.
While for individuals, and particularly for distressed people, who seek to find solutions to their lonely anxieties, the inability to see matters from another person's perspective (empathy), is a direct result of falsely observing only sex-dependent difference. That's where feminist-inspired studies and feminised psychology has got it so wrong for well over 50 years. I know! I was in the middle of it.
Hi Richard - We surely agree on the lethality of feminism. My sense at this point is that we are living in a world with most of the population thinking there is something dreadfully wrong with both men and masculinity. Basically a brainwashing population. This requires strong words and focusing on differences in order to begin to make a dent in the population that has been convinced to take part in the hatred of a birth group. Focusing hard on differences, the differences that have been denied for 50 years, seems to me to be a productive path.
Richard, I think the place where you and Tom might be missing each other is the way that feminism has no coherent ideology, so feminists are free to make claims that , if juxtaposed, would be clearly incompatible. Feminists claim the sexes are identical. Feminists claim women require special consideration while men, society, workplaces, and schools make special accommodations for women so they could "catch up" to men. Feminists will claim women are identical to men. Feminists will claim women have unique needs. Which claim they make depends on the strategic goals of the moment. Feminism's not-quite-blank slate allows for women to have differences from men, but not evolutionarily-imbedded differences, only strategically and temporarily useful differences.
Women could do any job a man could do. Also, job requirements and workplaces must be changed to accommodate women. Women are as strong as men, but women suffered unique disadvantages due to previous exclusion or lack of accommodation.
Feminists reframed men's tendencies, interests and thought processes as inherently problematic, while women's tendencies, interests and thought processes deserved extra attention and respect in society, schools and workplaces.
While feminist demands are founded in the idea that women are absolutely functionally equal to men (while requiring unique considerations), they managed to suppress understanding of the differences between the sexes. By portraying women as a subset of men who deserve special accommodations because of damage caused by being targets of oppression for merely being women, feminists appear to acknowledge differences between the sexes, they obscure the actual, deep differences between us.
Knowledge and understanding of the natural inclinations of both sexes has been completely suppressed. Women think that women and men think, feel and act the same, while men are aware this isn't the case, but are pressured in schools, workplaces and (often broken) families, to conform their behavior and communications in ways favorable to feminism. Although it's framed as being favorable to women, in reality this conformity is favorable to feminism. (One of the most brilliantly evil moves of mid-20th Century feminism was labeling itself "women's liberation." That way, they appeared to represent all women, not just feminists).
One result is that recent generations of women lack any clue that men think, feel or act differently than men. Men do notice that women's thinking and emotions are very different from theirs, but also know it's dangerous to make their awareness known. Women, meanwhile are pressured to act in ways contrary to our deep biological tendencies, without realizing those tendencies are our true nature - those tendencies are treated as problematic divergence from the norm, like how Hannah Spier's colleagues viewed her desire to stay home.
Because feminism has created such chasms between men and women, I can see why you would be wary of the idea that understanding sex differences is one of the necessary elements in dismantling feminism's malign influence on our families, schools, workplaces and society. But on the other hand, a lot of the damage feminism has wrought has been by promulgating a false image of the differences between the sexes, while obscuring the real biologically-driven. In feminism, the only difference between men and women is that women have been damaged by men not treating women enough like men. Their proposed cure is endless special treatment of women to balance the alleged oppression inflicted on women throughout history.
Hello Trish. Thanks for a very considered response and the time it took to write. At a socio-political level I agree wholeheartedly with both you and Tom. Feminism is a toxic ideology. In addition, much of what you describe about interpersonal interactions, I personally experienced.
My concern, perhaps because of my training as well as introspective reflections (see my bio) is that listing the benefits or evils of feminism (depending on the listener's sex), though affirming, does not heal feminism's psychological damage either in professional therapy or in discussions with similarly prejudiced friends. Nor can it build resilience in children against its externally imposed pernicious ideology. And this, admittedly patronising, admonition of mine applies to therapy for both male and female patients as well as mentoring children of both sexes.
My purpose when I first wrote (not well enough articulated perhaps) was an attempt to focus on effective *therapy* for feminism's injured patients and which has similarities to competent child rearing. I thought the discussion did not address therapeutic and parental considerations in depth, but instead (and too often) got stuck on the dreadful politics of gender.
As an old man, I admit to feeling entitled to counsel that affirmation of gender-specific prejudice (*exaggerating* differences!) will never be effective therapy for troubled patients. Nor for divorced friends either. Nor is it good parenting.
I enjoyed thinking after reading your essay. Thanks.
Hi Richard, Thank you for your response. I found yours quite interesting, and enjoyable to read, too - which is why I decided to respond.
I guess I wasn't fully taking in the fact that you were focusing on the context of therapy, and how we help individuals to heal from the damage arising from feminism's influence on so many aspects of contemporary life. Perhaps this was due to the overall discussion in the video and in the comments ranging quite a bit away from issue of therapy. I appreciate your clarifying the context of your comment, while showing serious consideration to mine. How one would help an individual recover from damage inflicted by a society, family or education steeped in feminism is beyond my education or experience.
Certainly there is much work to be done to heal individuals injured by feminism's terrible influence. But, wouldn't the process include acknowledgement of the individual's strengths, weaknesses, skills and preferences? Many aspects of the individual are heavily influenced by the instinctual and physical realities of our biological sex, and the sexes of people we interact with. Let's take as an example Hannah Spier's experience of work colleagues peer pressuring her to keep working. A woman who is unaware of the biological reasons for her deep focus on time with her baby and female vulnerability to peer pressure isn't going to be able to see the whole picture and its implications beyond that particular job.
Because feminism pretends to act in women's name, and targets men as the enemy, it obscures the fact that feminism is as antagonistic to real female instincts, skills and interests as it is to men's. This generates friction between men and women because feminism's terrible influence appears, on the outside, to be something men do to women and women do to men. The fact that it's easier for men to see that women and men think differently, while women find it easy to believe men and women think and feel the same adds to the friction.
The differences that feminism acknowledges and promotes (which I can agree to label "gender specific prejudices") are manufactured for expediency in spheres including politics and family courts. Feminists don't acknowledge real difference. Just look at feminist responses to facts such as: the "pay gap" is caused by women choosing to work shorter hours and choosing less-demanding careers, women are only 5% of chess grandmasters are women, no women have been in the top 500 esports players.
Thanks for sharing this thoughtful exchange. Time to get out in the garden for a bit.
Garden Trish? What are you growing???
Hello Trish. Please see my response to Tom in which he asks what is the best approach. You sound like a wonderful and thoughtful woman - much like my daughters.
Hi Richard - Glad we agree on nearly everything about this mess. I am curious what you think the best approach might be to shift the hateful brainwashing of feminism. What do you think would work?
Hello again Tom. I hope the lovelyTrish gets to read this too. I would like to suggest that the most-ikely-to-succeed "therapy" is what you and I would simply call good parenting. A more complex definition might be a benevolent supervision of age-dependent autonomy, the goal being competent adulthood.
My best example of how that can be achieved would be one that I think you and Trish would already be aware of. It was discussed by Jordan Petersen and Warren Farrell some years ago now, in a brilliant expose of their wonderful wisdom and intellects. One of the most memorable little snippets (that offered confirmation bias for my paternal experience) was the answer to, "what is being learned by a child during rough and tumble play?" And which happens typically with an involved dad. And with anti-feminist mums too.
Farrell reported that restraint is learned, but even more critically, so also is empathy *with* and sensitivity *towards* another living being, be that a person or animal. These are bloody good things to *learn* as a child. They are learned socialisation and interpersonal behavioural skills. They are not innate.
Thus restraint, empathy and sensitivity are the skills that therapists will need to teach/aim for when re-parenting immature, child-like and narcissist feminists to help them grow up! I agree with Hannah Spier that the "helping" professions have lost their way with their feminised affirming care models. I suffered their BS for several years during marriage and after divorce, and which delayed my assuredness that was needed to become a good and effective single dad.
I jest a little, but if masculine "parenting" works with children, it might work with feminists, both female and male ones - like I was a very long time ago (mid-70s).
Rule of thumb #1: Treat/teach feminists like 2yo children.
Coffee time.
Very well said Trish. Thank you for your clarity.
Thanks, Tom.