The First Wave of Feminism
Like the entire history of feminism, the first wave was driven by a combination of social, economic, and sexual factors, or rather ‘forces’, that were largely contingent and blind.
The first successfully organised ‘feminist’ political activism involved campaigns not for the vote, nor even for ‘equality’, but rather against prostitution and for the raising of the age of consent.
Women had been stirred into political protest through social and technological changes that had resulted from Industrialisation and that were threatening their sexual and economic interests.
The campaign for the vote was a secondary and much smaller movement, gaining credence through the acceptibility of female activism that the first campaign had won.
The suffragettes achieved their aims as a result of violence and of male Enlightenment thinking which saw women’s enfranchisement as a natural progression of other civil rights movements.
In fact, women did not exercise their newly won franchise very differently to their husbands, and when they did vote differently, it was to vote in facist dictatorships throughout Europe.
It was not until the 1960’s, and the second wave of feminism, that women began voting differently to men….
The Second Wave of Feminism
The 1960’s saw the beginning of possibly the most remarkable event in human history. The end of ‘patriarchy’. Within the space of a generation, a social system that had endured in every corner of the globe for over 10 millenium had more or less crumbled.
In every corner of the globe…except the Islamic world.
In his book ‘The Decline of the Male’, anthropologist Lionel Tiger identifies the introduction of the contraceptive pill as the trigger for this unparallelled social revolution, the ‘second wave of feminism’.
For Lionel Tiger, the pill shifted reproductive power from men to women, for men could no longer be sure as to the paternity of their offspring.
I don’t accept all of the details of Tiger’s thesis, but I agree wholeheartedly that the pill was a catalyst for the second wave of feminism. An unforeseen technological innovation had revolutionised sexual relations and, in a blind and uncontrollable way, had transformed society almost overnight.
According to most feminist thinkers (and many MRAs), the pill gave women power over men. I disagree.
In fact, the very thing that was supposed to free women from men, left them – or at least older/unattractive women – dangerously exposed in the free sexual market that had suddenly been created.
Suddenly, women became active in politics. Suddenly, women demanded (and won) the right to university education, to a carreer, to easy divorce, to an abortion. Suddenly women began voting differently to men.
The pill did not give women power over men.
The pill forced women to take power from men.
But, of course, this did not happen in the majority of Muslim societies. Under Islam, there is still no free sexual market, and thus unattractive Muslim women have no need for feminism.
The Third Wave of Feminism
Just as the first wave of feminism has been wrongly reduced to the suffragette movement, the third wave of feminism is wrongly being associated with insignificant but highly visible feminists such as Jessica Valenti.
In fact, it would be fairer to describe the astonishing and sudden representation of women at all levels of government as the Third Wave of Feminism.
In the space of the last decade, from having virtually zero representation in high government, the female sex has come to near dominate many of the leading democracies of the West.
Currently, the Home Secretary or equivalent in the UK, France, Germany and the USA are all female. The chancellor of Germany is female. Women have recently narrowly lost presidential elections in the USA and France only because of the staggering incompetence of the candidates facing ‘unique’ male rivals (Obama and Sarkozy). Even macho South American holdouts such as Argentina and Chile now have female feminist presidents.
Alongside formal governmental representation, largely female dominated non-governmental pressure groups have suddenly come to hold massive sway over an increasingly powerful United Nations, as well as other international bodies such as the European Union.
Why has this astonishing Third Wave, no less extraordinary than the second, suddenly come about? That this is the first generation of women raised as feminists no doubt has played a part but it cannot alone explain the sheer rapidity of change. Like the first and second waves of feminism, the third has been propelled by technological changes threatning the interests of ordinary women.
The globalisation of society and of communications has threatened to further open up the free sexual market to an extent as great as the introduction of the pill itself did.
Suddenly men had before them a whole new array of alternatives to a ‘real’ sexual relationship, from the cheap Polish hooker at the street corner, to the nubile, young slut showing herself on cam from her bedroom half way across the world.
This was a brave new sexual world that an already politicised generation of middle-aged women could not tolerate for long…and certainly not entrust to men to control or put an end to.
The Future of Feminism
The future of feminism will be dictated by the same forces that have shaped its history – blind and largely uncontrollable economic and technological changes altering the balance of sexual power between men and women.
The further increase in mass global communications, advances in robotics, artificial intelligence and the growing realism of sex toys, are all rapidly coalescing into a perfect storm that will either achieve sexual and emotional independence for men…or a fourth wave of feminism that might reduce ourselves and society to a level unimaginable even in the atavistic fema-supremecist society of today..
“a fourth wave of feminism that might reduce ourselves and society to a level unimaginable even in the atavistic fema-supremecist society of today”
It’s important that men, as a whole, accurately perceive the value of technology to achieve sexual and emotional independence BEFORE it’s too late.
For a good critique of the First Wave of Feminism (written during the first wave’s heyday) good reads are Ernest Belfort Bax’s essays The Fraud of Feminism which you can read here: http://menstribune.com/bax.htm and The Legal Subjection of Men which you can read here: http://menstribune.com/Belfort_Bax.html and Why I am an Anti-Suffragist which you can read here: http://www.marxists.org/archive/bax/1909/05/anti-suffragist.htm
These essays are must reads for anyone who seriously thinks that Feminism “started off fighting for equality” then “became corrupted by a cabal of radical feminist lesbians in the 1970s”. Feminism has NEVER been about equality it has always been about MORE STUFF FOR WOMEN!
I’d say that women didn’t take power away from men, the men in power willingly gave women power over lesser males because they could profit from the destruction of relations with the two sexes. Feminism wouldn’t have succeeded if the government didn’t want it to.
Plausible but not necessary.
My thoughts were once similar to yours. But later I decided that their is no need to invoke a conspiracy theory for everything.
Here we have a parsimonious theory of feminism that requires only the action of ‘blind’, natural forces.
It can be taken as axiomatic that men always want to get sex as cheaply as possible and that women want to make men pay as much as possible for it.
What then is the expected reaction if, starting in the mid 1800’s, technologies (such as the vulcanization of rubber) start making contraception more viable than it had ever been before in human history? The result would have been an upsurge in prostitution and thus cheaper sex.
And what should we expect the general female reaction be to this event? To act on their instinct of jealousy and attempt to shut the whole thing down.
Of course they needed an excuse to act on that jealousy. And they needed an alibi for that jealousy. And they found both it in the form of the ‘poor oppressed victim’ meme that is now the most conspicuous element of feminist thought.
Hello.
Note to evil whitemale empire:
Yes “Killa Magilla” is/was me at the spearhead. (Welmar already knew that though, I think.)
I have been blocked there more times than I care to count; and banned out right at their forum pages a few months ago. On the main blog comments’ pages my stuff is lost in “moderation limbo”–I can see my posts there but no one else can). So that Killa Magilla handle (a nod to pro-rasslins’ fixed fights) is a kinda-like sarcastic thing I use to bust his ball.
Your last post to me there (the spearhead/ ‘guyland’ thread) is on target too. It seems you and “LSP/MRA” and one other guy (similar to you [his name escapes me right now]) gets it. Good.
I _do_ understand that we all can’t just live in the hills as uncivilized pre-Roman anti capitalists barbarians who never mature past the the 5th-6th grade pecking order level. But at least we all need to understand what is happening here. And it isn’t that we come from matriarchies that turn into patriarchies by being “growthful” capitalists in democracies that fight “soviets” (while actually fighting for them in our own democratic countries where these “communists” have long since taken over and have metastasized into american “freedom” BS.)
And some day maybe my hard kill em all rhetoric needs to temper. But not now.
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And to LSP MRA (if you see this). You got banned from the spearhead forum months ago(right after, um, Usher did). I tried to get your email to write you and see where you were posting but couldn’t. It is good to see you still in action.
Welmer et al is NOT going to let us communicate /touch base there.
Send me emails (both of you)–if you must/want to– at my blog page. I can’t promise any action [I suspect that pisses you off MRA], given my doing-my-own-thing lifestyle. But at least I will know where you [all] is.
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Note to this site owner: Sorry to use your site for this post but I wanted to get through at a place where EvWMEmp posts.
”But, of course, this did not happen in the majority of Muslim societies. Under Islam, there is still no free sexual market, and thus unattractive Muslim women have no need for feminism.”
MOST women are average and ordinary, not “pretty” or “hot” – forget about “gorgeous”. Most women are Plain Janes, some are downright ugly, just like us men – Ordinary Joe’s.
Violence and injustice against, yes, ordinary, average, not particularly attractive Muslim women, men and children DOES happen.
I would say that unattractive Muslim women do need “feminism” if by “feminism” we mean equal legal rights.
Have you ever travelled through some of the world’s more backward areas?
Average looking women (and men) are facing injustice quite a big – with or without a “free” sexual market.
What do you mean by men’s sexual and emotional independence? Do you feel that women have attained sexual and emotional independence, do not need this independence, are not worthy of this independence, or that men and women cannot both have this independence at the same time and therefore one must sacrifice independence to the other? Do you think in the past men had sexual and emotional independence or are you suggesting that women have always thwarted your gender and that you’re aim is to achieving what male consciousness has not yet achieved?
I would agree about the government bit.
It’s no longer about independence, if indeed it ever was. It’s about power.
Independence is inalienable to the person who chooses to remain single, to live alone. Of course, that’s no way to raise children … and whether you attribute it to God or genetics, “Be fruitful and multiply” is hard-wired into us. For our species, it takes years to raise a child to self-sufficiency; and for all but the last couple hundred years of our species’ history, children haven’t survived well with only the mother to raise them. Children with both parents, or with a more extended family group, survive better.
So we have pair-bonding; so we have ongoing emotional attachment to our mates, our parents, and those with whom we grew up. We have “Family.” It’s pro-survival, and it works. But with the benefits of Family, we have increased responsibility; we have increased dependence, too, as the parents have to depend on each other as well. And we have conflicts of interest – so we need a system wherein someone has the final say; therein lies “Power”.
Power and responsibility are inseparable in fact. You are responsible for your actions; any attempt to deny or evade that, is fraud. The parent is responsible for the child, as the child’s survival depends on the parent’s actions. The breadwinner is responsible for the family, as their survival depends on that bread. And in any group larger than a family, there are people, leaders, who make decisions for the group and take the responsibility for the group’s survival and well-being.
As society grows larger and more complex, the leaders – or rulers – or governments – assume more responsibility for the society, and thus assume more power over society. And every so often the leaders come to ignore King Canute’s lesson about the tides. Your legislature can “pass a law against the tide,” figuratively speaking, but that law won’t make it safe for you to build your house on the flood-plain.
During the past century, Society has striven to “divorce power from responsibility.” I liken this to “passing a law against the tide.” Society has given power to people who don’t take responsibility for the way they wield it; it’s taken that power from the producers and providers, along with an ever-increasing proportion of their products and provender, and it has re-defined “responsibility” to mean “guilt and blame”.
If one is “dependent” on another, whether financially, or emotionally, or sexually, neither of them can be “independent.” Can they?
Is it fair for one (or one class) to derive all the benefits, and the other (or another class) to shoulder all the responsibility, for a relationship? For a family? For a group? For society? That’s what is going on now; feminism has grabbed the power, but seeks to saddle men with all the responsibility. It’s grossly out of balance.
The only way it can “get back into balance” is if the responsibility goes with the power; either the one who makes the decision has to do the work, or the one who does the work gets to make the decision. Anything else is a recipe for collapse.
Actually, Chile is now headed by a man again, Michele Bachelet having completed her term of office. However, Brazil has a female president now.
I think feminism has pussified today’s male in society.
Given how women are barely capable of making thoughful decisions, I would beg to differ.
Very true.
ManWomanMyth says:
Big Government loves Women.
Women loves Big Government.
This website is SICK. It really saddens me that people still have these outdated attitudes towards women. Do you REALLY think Muslim women have it better than women in the West? Based on the reactions of Iranian women to the anti-feminine movement of the Muslim regime (namely, protests and other efforts that get them whipped and sent to prison) I’d hazard a guess that these abused and downtrodden women are not happy with the way things are.
You should try walking in the shoes of a woman some day and see how you like it.
Well wtf don’t you ask western feminists why they are not doing more for muslim women, and why western women are converting in droves to Islam? And yes, surveys have shown that women in muslim societies are not only happier than western women, they are happier than muslim men!
I wonder why…?
*Cough* Lack of sexual choice for men.
Women covering themselves up. *Cough*
Interesting article.
I think the pill was just fine. It’s the laws that went with it that caused the problem. Men now had no saying over whether they want a child or not. That’s the biggest problem in my opinion.
I don’t know much about the Islamic world, but the little that I know tells me that women are actually treated as superior to men in the Islamic world. The only thing that they don’t allow is for women to act like sluts.
Anyway, nice and interesting article. I didn’t know a lot of that.
When thinking about the plight of women under Islam, we should compare their plight to that of men under Islam, not to that of the Western woman. To each woman beheaded in Saudi Arabia, dozens of men are beheaded in Saudi Arabia. To each woman stoned in Iran, dozens of men are hanged in Iran. Sure, Iranian men have a right to kill their cheating wives. But they also have the right to kill their wives’ (presumed) lovers. Indeed they may exercise the latter right more often than the former. And if you think you would be well-off in a traditional Muslim society because you could threaten your wife with death lest she cheats on you, remember you would be under threat each time you as much as look at another man’s wife. Under Islam too, the pattern is one of men murdering each other while women stay relatively unscathed.
You know.. I’m all for the MRM fighting for legal rights in court, and fighting misandry in the media. But what I don’t get is your slut-shaming, or attacking young and old women. “to the nubile, young slut showing herself on cam from her bedroom half way across the world”. You’re using this “free sexual market” to attack feminists, yet you still reduce the women who use this market as sluts. Though I highly doubt these “middle-aged feminists” are all that worried that men would rather fuck an 18 year old than a 40 year old, but who cares? Let them be alone and middle-aged. Either way, with porn, sex toys, male prostitutes, male strippers… they have as much of their own outlets for sex as men do.
I’m not into slut shaming. A slut for me is a girl who gives her sex for free. Unlike most women, who seek the highest transactional value, especially feminists (who make it their life’s purpose), and who are the real disgusting whores. I’m with the slut walkers here (although they are fake sluts). The word slut for me is simply a synonym of ‘horny’ or ‘sexy’, or rather ‘sexually kind’.
I’m almost unique in this regard in the MRM, FYI.
Sure. Female sexual jealousy is completely overrated. This is why pretty girls get bullied online. This is why feminists obsess with criminilising men who simply look at pictures of sexy 17 year olds in bikinis but who don’t do anything about websites that make money from showing videos of 13 year old girls stomping on the heads of other 13 year old girls.
Yea, women spend years of their lives, huge percentages of their income, on cosmetics, fashion, trying to gain a sexual advantage over other women, yet women in power would never seek to gain sexual advantage over other females through selfish leglislation.
I couldn’t give a fuck what middle-aged women want to do – just so long as they know that if feminists continue raping male sexuality, they’re heading for a war in which they’ll ultimately be annihilated. I would feel sorry for older women and what they have to contend with in a free sexual market, but utterly raping men loses them all sympathy from me. I have no regrets about pointing out what disgusting old bags these feminist rapists and the middle-aged women who give them their power are.
1/ you forgot to mention that women can have these things without the same fear of prosecution and punishment as men. 2/ Women have different reproductive strategies than men, and they aren’t as visually stimulated or satisfied by porn as men (although they love their ‘abuse fiction’ and watching 15 year old teen sluts be exploited and shamed by Oprah or whoever as tea-time entertainment).