Feminism and COUNT TO A TRILLION
The feminists of my youth made the reasonable demand that legal barriers to entry be abolished, and that woman and their work be judged on merit. Toward this end, they proposed that neither sex be granted any special privilege based on sex.
The feminists to whom I object make the opposite demand, that they be judged not on their merit, but to be granted special privileges based on sex alone.
This is the opposite of the former demand.
Moreover, the modern feminist expands her demand to include the abolition of marriage, the normalization of fornication, adultery, homosexuality and perhaps other sexual abnormalities as well, and that no discussion on any of these topics is possible, since even to entertain a contrary opinion as a hypothetical is a thoughtcrime of unforgivable severity.
The demand is literally unreasonable: it is a demand that reason never be used to examine certain thoughts decreed to be either sacrosanct or heretical.
The demand is unreasonable in a second sense: no one attempting to conform to the demand can anticipate what the demand is, because it is deliberately kept vague. The goalposts move.
The modern feminist does not want her demands met; she merely wants the sense of moral superiority that comes from making an accusation unfettered by sense or fairness. (If she wanted her demands met, her attention would be directed toward Mecca).
Let me use a real example. It is not the best nor clearest example, but it happened to me, so I have it close at hand, so to speak.
I wrote a book where in a space expedition organized by a fictional non-Western power two centuries hence included an all-male crew. Not one but two feminist critics (one male, one female) raked me over the coals for daring to imagine that any nation, Western or not, would at any time in the future, near or far, organize an expedition without a co-ed crew.
This expedition was not necessarily the good guys in the tale. Nothing said in the text showed that the author approved or disapproved of coed crews, nor did any critic ask my opinion. Merely for portraying the thing as possible was sufficient to condemn the author.
Of course, what I wanted to do was make it a mystery as to how the superhuman female came to be born aboard a ship where there were no women, but the idea that the author was trying to tell a story to entertain is of interest only to literary critics.
The Grand Inquisition is not interested in art, but in Approved Political Thought.
These two critics, or, rather, Inquisitors, merely disapproved, loudly, of the idea of portraying a non-coed crew as possible, and leveled personal comments at me, as if there were no one who could imagine no coed space expeditions except persons of reprehensible moral character, limited education, and sundry personal defects.
Do you see the difference between the two types of feminism?
The second one is not making a demand that can be met, because it is really not making a demand at all, merely leveling a false accusation.
Such accusations are known to be false before they are leveled. A true accusation is based on fact, and the cult of political correctness seeks to avoid facts as vampires avoid crucifixes.
The demand being made on me, personally, by these two nutbugs was that no society in which drawing a distinction between the sexes is thinkable ever be portrayed in a make believe story about the make believe future.
Thank you, no. My stories are not some sort of written essay offered to readers asking them to grade me on my political correctness. I am not trying to join your cult, and I have nothing but contempt for your cult beliefs.
The woman I take orders from, when it comes to my stories, is called the muse. She is a goddess, not a feminist.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
