Feminism and Other Cultures

I've been called everything from a pussywhipped idiot to a misogynist; and in most cases those claims say more about people making them than they do about me.

My agenda is simple. I want men and women to get along. That means the men knowing what women want; women knowing what men want; and the two negotiating workable solutions.

Ultimately it makes sense to be in favor of neither men nor women. There will always be both, and some will choose to act rightfully and others will choose to act wrongly. It makes sense to support men and women who choose to be good to their partners; and it makes sense to confront men and women who choose to treat the other gender like trash.

When the same people who claim to be in favor of feminism support the most misogynistic ideology on the planet – Jihadist Islam – we know that we are seeing people not thinking straight. The white man is not the only possible source of oppression and misogyny, and there are plenty of people who practice such things who are not the white man. Compared to ISIS, the white man is quite mild. There are plenty of white men who do terrible things to women; but there are many cultures around the world in which the brutality is worse.

I have known a woman from India who had feminist views, whose female relatives tried to arrange to get her raped so that she know the difference between men and women. In Russia, 14,000 women a year die from domestic violence. In Middle East, it is worse than in either Russia or in India. A woman who truly seeks women's well-being will confront these people to the same extent that she will confront chavinist pigs in the Western world. And if she fails to do that, then she cannot be claimed to be in support of women's well-being.

There is a lot that need to be done around the world to confront these disgusting practices. The problem is that many women who think themselves feminists are only seeing the capacity for misogyny in the Western culture and fail to see the capacity for the same in the rest of the world. In the name of tolerance they support cultures that are severely misogynistic and that treat women far worse than women in the West are ever treated. And that makes these people hypocrites.

Misogyny is not only the artifact of a Western society; it exists in all sorts of places, and in some of these places it is much worse than it is in the West. A woman who truly is in favor of women's rights or women's empowerment will see this and act accordingly. Much has been done in the West to improve women's lot, but much less has been done in places such as the Middle East. And a true feminist will recognize this and direct her efforts accordingly.