Juno News - Modern leftist feminism is making everyone miserable

00:00:00.080 Modern leftist feminism is one of the most harmful forces in our society. 1.00

00:00:04.080 I'm Candice Malcolm and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.

00:00:10.560 Hi everyone, thank you so much for tuning into the podcast. So as you know, we usually cover

00:00:14.320 politics, federal politics in Canada, all things kind of political in Canada. Sometimes we like

00:00:18.720 to take a break from the day-to-day politics in our life and look at the bigger picture,

00:00:23.040 look at culture and dive into some of the cultural critiques that I myself have and that are prevalent

00:00:28.880 out there. And one of my biggest critiques is against modern feminism, the Me Too movement,

00:00:34.000 and the way that it denigrates men. It tells men that they're toxic, that they're destructive,

00:00:38.560 while also ironically and contradictorily telling women to be more like men. So these disastrous

00:00:44.240 mixed messages in our society have had a catastrophic impact, especially on young 0.98

00:00:49.040 people trying to find, you know, someone to spend their life with, someone to get married with. And

00:00:54.480 I think it's so important to, to look at these, look at these harmful forces and to debunk them.

00:00:59.920 I'm so pleased today to be joined by one of Canada's foremost public intellectuals who clearly

00:01:04.880 and courageously debunks the harmful messages of modern feminism. So I'm pleased today to be joined

00:01:10.560 by Janice Viamengo. Janice is a retired professor of English literature at the University of Ottawa.

00:01:16.320 For many years, she has been an outspoken critic of modern feminism,

00:01:20.160 and is one of the most prominent anti-feminist crusaders on social media. Janice hosts the 0.99

00:01:25.280 Fiamengo Files on Studio Brulee, where she challenges modern far-left feminism and the 1.00

00:01:30.320 woke indoctrination at academia and universities. Back in August 2021, Studio Brulee was removed from

00:01:36.800 YouTube, it was censored. However, you can still find Janice's video on a new channel they created,

00:01:41.120 Studio B. Janice is also the author of an excellent book, Sons of Feminism, Men Have Their Say,

00:01:46.240 which was published back in 2017. So Janice, thank you so much for joining us. It's a pleasure to see

00:01:51.280 you and have you on the show. Well, thank you very much, Candice. That's a very generous introduction.

00:01:56.400 Thank you. I feel very flattered. It's wonderful to be on your show. Thank you.

00:02:01.520 Yeah, it's so great to have you. So since I spoke to you last, you have retired from your position at

00:02:06.560 the University of Ottawa. And I also recently learned that your YouTube channel was shut down and censored,

00:02:10.800 which is such a shame because you have so many excellent videos up there. I was telling you before the

00:02:15.360 interview started that I started watching those videos back when you were covering the Gian Gomeschi

00:02:19.440 trial. I know you covered the Brett Kavanaugh trial and you have so many interesting insights. So can you

00:02:25.120 tell us a little bit about, first of all, you leaving the University of Ottawa and also what happened with

00:02:31.200 your YouTube channel? Yeah, well, I retired in 2019. And I was fairly happy to leave the university,

00:02:40.080 although I was sad to leave many of my wonderful colleagues. But I find that the university, as

00:02:46.320 probably everybody who is not a leftist would agree, it's a fairly uncomfortable place for dissident

00:02:55.360 intellectuals or dissident thinkers in general, especially for those of us sort of on the conservative

00:03:00.720 side of cultural politics. It's a place where you don't feel that you're able to make arguments about

00:03:09.040 a whole wide range of hot button issues, you know, from a from a wide variety of perspectives. So so I

00:03:16.240 retired then and part of what I was looking forward to doing was was doing more writing and of course doing

00:03:24.080 writing more video scripts, because that had been something I was doing since 2015 at Studio Brulé.

00:03:32.640 And I had a long running series on academic feminism, and its impact on modern culture. And my take

00:03:43.200 generally was that what happens in academia, unfortunately, never stays in academia, it moves

00:03:48.880 out into the wider world. And it has real world impact so that ideas about the oppressive male gaze,

00:03:56.800 or about women's lived experience and standpoint theory, or about the creation of docile bodies

00:04:05.520 through patriarchal power, all of those ideas become public policy, they become part of journalism,

00:04:14.000 they become part of health policy, they invade the sphere of law, all of the feminist 1.00

00:04:21.680 complicating of the idea of sexual consent, whether women can actually consent to sex in a patriarchal,

00:04:29.920 allegedly patriarchal society in which women don't really have power or agency. All of those ideas have 0.98

00:04:38.160 had a very significant impact in the wider society, often a very, very damaging one for individual men,

00:04:46.720 for freedom of speech, for the presumption of innocence, in all sorts of quite horrific ways. And

00:04:54.800 so I wanted to try to chronicle that and to show people where these ideas came from in academic feminism. 0.72

00:05:02.080 And yeah, and then last summer, so we were going along my producer Steve Brule and I were making

00:05:09.280 more videos, and all of a sudden, we were permanently banned from YouTube. And of course, they never tell

00:05:15.360 you why they just tell you that you've in some way contravened the community guidelines. And so that was

00:05:22.240 the end of, you know, all of these videos that we had produced, we lost all of the view numbers, of course,

00:05:29.120 and the comments underneath, which were often fascinating conversations, that was really

00:05:34.320 disappointing. But we have started up again now. And we're called Studio B. And so we're on YouTube

00:05:42.400 again. And I hope people will, will come in and find us there. I'm doing a new series on the history of

00:05:51.120 feminism now, focusing especially on the 19th century and the origins of the feminist movement.

00:05:59.760 And my point is to show that although we have this idea that feminism started as a really good idea, 0.51

00:06:05.760 you know, it was all about equality. Certainly, there were some feminists who wanted to take their 1.00

00:06:11.440 equal share of the burdens as well as the rights of citizenship. But my point is that actually feminism was 1.00

00:06:18.640 always deeply implicated in man-hating, in toxic resentment, and in female moral superiority. And 1.00

00:06:29.440 so I'm trying to bring out some of those strands in my analysis of early figures who were involved

00:06:35.280 in the movement and the various issues that those early feminists tackled. 0.79

00:06:40.080 Well, that was going to be my next question, because I know that you refer to yourself as an

00:06:44.480 anti-feminist. The first time I ever heard that I was in Washington, DC. And I happened to go to a

00:06:49.760 seminar hosted by Christina Hoff Summers, one of my friends brought me. And I was just so like,

00:06:55.760 it was so enlightening to me to see her speak. And I know that she's also kind of takes that name,

00:07:02.000 an anti-feminist, but she would consider herself a first wave and probably even a second wave feminist. 1.00

00:07:06.880 Whereas, I don't know that you have that same connection. So I was going to ask you,

00:07:12.400 if you do consider yourself a feminist in any way, I think a lot of people agree that third wave and

00:07:19.120 fourth wave feminism has really turned into a very negative masculine man-hating environment. And 1.00

00:07:26.080 not just that, but also the whole intersectional white supremacist accusations that we now hear.

00:07:32.960 But could you maybe walk us through what the difference would be between yourself and Christina

00:07:37.760 Hoff Summers and what it is about first and second wave feminism that you, that you, I think, I think, 0.98

00:07:42.160 I don't want to put words into your mouth, but I think that you, um, reject.

00:07:45.120 Yeah, thank you. Um, that's a great question. I think, um, uh, Christina Hoff Summers, whom I admire

00:07:52.400 a great deal. She's done wonderful work. Her book, Who Stole Feminism is just a primer in all of the

00:07:58.720 inaccuracies and myths of feminist criticism and, and so-called feminist research. She's, she's a wonderful woman,

00:08:06.640 but she calls herself an equity feminist. And there are other women around who are also critical of

00:08:12.080 many of feminism's exaggerations and inaccuracies. Women like Cathy Young and Camille Paglia and various 0.95

00:08:20.240 others. Um, a wonderful, uh, book, um, or, or critic named Daphne Pattai, who's got a book about sexual, the

00:08:28.400 sexual harassment industry. I think she would also call herself an equity feminist. And, um, yeah, I don't 1.00

00:08:35.120 call myself any kind of feminist. I obviously believe that every person, regardless of their

00:08:42.480 sex or any other inborn characteristics should have an opportunity to make a contribution to society 1.00

00:08:49.520 and that they shouldn't be hindered by any of their inborn characteristics. Um, but, uh, I don't believe

00:08:57.040 that there was ever a time that feminism was free of female moral superiority and attacks on, on, uh, 1.00

00:09:04.640 masculinity. For instance, if you go back to 1848, which is sometimes considered the beginnings of the

00:09:13.200 first wave feminist movement in the United States, this was a women's rights convention at Seneca Falls, 0.97

00:09:19.280 New York. And, uh, those ladies, Elizabeth Cady Stanton was the primary mover and shaker, but there were

00:09:26.560 other, there were some Quaker women involved and they were advocating for women's greater freedoms

00:09:32.080 and rights, including the right to vote. And they wrote a document, uh, called, um, I'm blanking on the

00:09:40.960 name now. Um, the Declaration of Sentiments is what it's called. And it says, uh, as its central thesis,

00:09:49.280 that the history of mankind is a history of repeated user patients and injuries by man against woman with

00:10:01.520 the express purpose of establishing a tyranny over her. That's the whole history of mankind is men 1.00

00:10:11.840 oppressing women. So that notion that the whole world can be divided up into an oppressor class 1.00

00:10:19.360 and an oppressed class, which we now see, you know, everywhere in intersectional feminism, 1.00

00:10:24.720 and that the oppressor class is blameworthy and toxic and responsible for evil, while the oppressor,

00:10:34.640 sorry, oppressed class is innocent, you know, morally innocent, not responsible for evil. That idea was

00:10:43.600 there at the core of first wave feminism and you can trace it right through to the present day. So I 0.55

00:10:49.520 don't believe there ever was a feminism that was really very interested in equality. It was always about 0.99

00:10:56.320 punishing men for the alleged sins of their fathers. It was never about recognizing what men bring

00:11:04.640 to civilization. It was never about recognizing the significance of masculinity in creating cultures

00:11:12.000 where women and children could flourish. It was never about expressing any gratitude for men. It was

00:11:18.560 always about blaming and about asserting the alleged moral superiority of women who were supposedly,

00:11:25.360 you know, much more nurturing, much more empathetic, wouldn't start wars, responsible for everything

00:11:31.920 good and loving in the world. And so that notion of collective blame that all men now, especially,

00:11:39.280 of course, all white, able-bodied, heterosexual men are responsible for everything evil. And even if 0.95

00:11:46.400 they've never done anything bad in their lives, should have to shoulder that burden and apologize for

00:11:52.560 their alleged privilege and take a step back and allow their sisters to come forward and collect the 1.00

00:11:58.720 special scholarships and be hired through affirmative action programs and be given all sorts of special

00:12:05.280 programming and advantages while they just have to accept that because they were born male, that they

00:12:11.680 are second-class citizens, that they're not only disposable but they're blameworthy and hated, rightly hated. 1.00

00:12:18.480 I just think that is a terrible ideology. There's nothing good to be had from it and we should just

00:12:26.080 jettison it entirely. Well, it sounds a lot like communism and the sort of modern intersectional

00:12:32.720 situation where, you know, everyone is an oppressor and an oppressor. And one of the things about

00:12:38.000 feminism that has struck me since I was in university myself is that it's so counter to our own lived

00:12:44.240 experience in human nature. Like everybody knows that there are bad guys out there, right? And the thing

00:12:50.960 that you need in society to counteract bad guys is good guys, right? Like that's, that's, that's what our whole

00:12:56.720 society is about. Like having police officers there to protect you, you know, having a male 0.67

00:13:02.800 friend walk you home at night, you know, when you're in university, getting married and having that partnership,

00:13:08.640 someone there to have children and have that, that, that unity that you need, someone to go out to, you know,

00:13:16.400 take care of the family, someone else to stay home with the children. And yet this message is, is, is so

00:13:22.160 prevalent, especially in, in academic circles. Why isn't it refuted and debunked more often? Because to me,

00:13:28.000 it's so counter to human nature that it, it almost doesn't even need to be said because it's, it's almost laughable.

00:13:33.680 Yeah, it, it is so bizarre. Uh, the contradictions in feminism are so evident to anyone who thinks about it, 1.00

00:13:42.640 even for a few minutes, exactly the points that you just made. Men are told over and over again,

00:13:48.400 that they are by nature, violent, and that their masculine qualities like aggression, assertiveness,

00:13:55.760 competitiveness, risk taking, etc. All these things are allegedly toxic, they should become more like

00:14:02.800 women. But then they're also expected to step forward if they see a woman in distress. And they're

00:14:10.560 expected even sometimes to risk their lives, and men do risk their lives for women, even for strangers.

00:14:18.240 Um, and, uh, somehow that toxic aspect of their masculinity is required in particular situations

00:14:26.240 if they're encountering another toxic man or a threat to a woman. So the, the, the contradictions

00:14:33.840 right there in how men are supposed to behave are never really clearly resolved. And as you say,

00:14:40.800 we all know that, um, you know, in our society, there are many men who absolutely love women and

00:14:49.920 are interested in working and indeed sacrificing and have created this incredibly, um, flourishing,

00:14:58.880 secure civilization that we're now fortunate enough to live in, um, out of, in many cases, love for women

00:15:06.560 and the desire to create safe spaces for women and children to flourish in, uh, and yet none of that

00:15:12.560 is acknowledged. So we live in a strange society in which, um, the, I think the, the mutual recognition

00:15:20.800 and reciprocity between the sexes that is so important for a functioning society has broken down.

00:15:27.440 Men are still expected to care for and support and applaud women. They're expected to encourage women 0.84

00:15:34.880 to enter all of the spheres that were once mainly masculine spheres of endeavor, including the military,

00:15:41.520 policing, firefighting, all those areas aren't, have now been open to women and they're supposed to, 0.99

00:15:47.520 men are supposed to welcome women into those spaces. And yet it's not clear what women are supposed to

00:15:53.840 do in response to men and what, what men are entitled to in our society. That even word entitlement has

00:16:00.720 become kind of a dirty word. Uh, so yeah, there are just so many contradictions that I think really

00:16:07.600 prevent, especially young people being indoctrinated into this toxic ideology, that prevents us from

00:16:14.800 recognizing what is good in our society and what should be preserved.

00:16:19.040 One of the other contradictions that I always noted was that, uh, from the time I was in university,

00:16:24.080 I took one women's studies course and I found it to be so lacking any intellectual rigor. It was so 1.00

00:16:30.000 frustrating to me to hear the discourse of the other students. There would be like, like not exaggerating,

00:16:35.520 uh, a girl would cry like almost every class just talking about something. And it was, it was just,

00:16:40.400 I couldn't even attend the class. I actually made an arrangement with the professor where I would do

00:16:44.640 the lectures, um, in the library and I w I wouldn't go to class because it was too infuriating to me.

00:16:49.680 But that's an aside, um, that, that, that we were told that men have all of these negative qualities.

00:16:55.680 And yet at the same time, women, especially in my generation, were told to be more like men.

00:17:00.160 Um, you know, when it came to sexuality, uh, even like public drunkenness and, and, and, and you see

00:17:06.400 more and more women going out and drinking and that's like part of the culture. Um, something 1.00

00:17:10.880 that, that, that didn't used to be the case, for instance, in my mother's generation. Um, and, and,

00:17:15.280 and focus so much on career, like to the extent where it's like you wake up and you're 30 and you're

00:17:21.280 like, oh, I forgot to get married and have kids. And, and, and, and I'm like not setting myself up for

00:17:26.560 an important, uh, well, well-rounded life because I've been focused so much on career. And I know so many

00:17:32.080 women, um, in my age group in their thirties, uh, who, who have neglected that sort of like personal

00:17:38.320 aspect. So, so whilst telling men that they should be less like men, we're telling women to be more

00:17:43.440 like men, more like men. And I think that the result is that both men and women are sort of miserable 0.94

00:17:49.200 unless they have some wisdom to go back and look at the sort of traditional lifestyles that, that,

00:17:55.440 that people had, you know, what did your parents do? What did your grandparents do? What did your

00:17:59.040 great grandparents do? And, and looking at that wisdom, as opposed to the sort of modern day

00:18:04.320 advice that people are given. So I, I'm wondering what your advice is to young people, people in

00:18:10.160 their twenties, people in university now, both men and women about how to engage in relationships,

00:18:16.560 what the proper role for men and women is. Cause I think I, I know so many people now that,

00:18:21.440 you know, they're not married because they can't find someone who, you know, what they're looking for

00:18:26.800 because they think that, Oh, that men, my age are terrible or women, my age are terrible. And

00:18:30.400 I can kind of understand and relate, but I'm wondering what, what your advice is for young

00:18:34.960 people about gender roles. It's a really big issue. And you know, you're right that that women are 1.00

00:18:43.040 encouraged to think that their fulfillment and sense of life satisfaction is going to come from

00:18:50.800 achieving what men have traditionally been exhorted to achieve. And, you know, there are all sorts of

00:18:56.960 studies now coming out showing that women in general are much less happy and less satisfied with their

00:19:04.240 lives than they were earlier. In fact, there was a huge study by two professors out of the University

00:19:10.720 of Pennsylvania that looked at all sorts of different surveys. It was one of these meta studies

00:19:15.840 that collected data over the last 50 years. And it clearly found that starting in the 1980s,

00:19:22.160 women in general have progressively become less and less satisfied with their lives, 1.00

00:19:29.040 both absolutely in comparison to women of previous generations, and also in comparison to men,

00:19:35.760 interestingly enough. And so, you know, as women's economic opportunities have clearly improved, 1.00

00:19:44.320 as women are freer to do, you know, take on professional careers. You could even say, 1.00

00:19:50.480 as women are freer, as you pointed out, to engage in more masculine and less moral kinds of behaviors. 0.99

00:20:00.240 Women can divorce their husbands and live off their husband's earning, they can abort their children 1.00

00:20:06.320 with impunity, they can walk in the slut walk and declare their right to be as sexually promiscuous as 1.00

00:20:13.520 they want and nobody dare say no. And yet they're not happier. And the researchers themselves, who

00:20:20.320 are feminist researchers, really couldn't, they had no way of offering an explanation. And they ended up 1.00

00:20:27.920 falling back on things like, well, the feminist movement, the gains of the feminist movement have

00:20:32.800 actually improved the lives of men more than they've improved the lives of women. That's what they were

00:20:37.280 reduced to speculating, or women still take on more of the emotional burden of caring and looking after 1.00

00:20:45.760 a household. And that's why they have greater stress, you know, they made up all sorts of answers. And it

00:20:52.160 seemed to me that a big part of the answer was that women no longer have a sense of what it means to be a good 1.00

00:21:00.160 woman in the world. Women are no longer exhorted to pursue virtue, feminine virtue. Men still have an 0.98

00:21:08.720 idea of what it means to be a good man, despite all the slander, all the anti male discourse around,

00:21:14.880 which is a very heavy thing for men to have to take on, but they still know what a good man is. A good

00:21:19.920 man is a man who achieves and makes a contribution to his society. He looks after his family, he protects and

00:21:27.360 provides, he seeks justice, he defends the weak, you know, we have all of those, those classic

00:21:33.840 masculine virtues, they're still in place. Whereas what is a good woman now? If you ask a feminist what 1.00

00:21:40.080 a good woman is, she'll just laugh and say that those are ideas that tried to create women and turn 1.00

00:21:47.120 them into dupes of the patriarchy. So she'll say a good woman is a woman who smashes patriarchal oppression 1.00

00:21:53.840 and subverts the social order. We used to have ideas about femininity, about being a good help meat, 1.00

00:22:03.120 about being nurturing and caring, about looking after one's family, the maternal virtues, you know,

00:22:11.120 all of those kinds of things, being chased, being sexually virtuous, being faithful, all of that. And

00:22:18.880 I think it's time that we have to seriously start thinking again about what the feminine virtues are,

00:22:26.000 and why they have mattered historically, and why they still matter today.

00:22:30.480 Oh, that's so interesting. Yeah, I listened to recently, Jordan Peterson did an interview with,

00:22:37.200 I think it was Ben Shapiro, and Ben asked something about like, is there is there a

00:22:42.160 a example in like, mythology or in like Disney movies or something of like, the female that 0.99

00:22:49.920 that everyone ought to aspire to that women ought to aspire to. And I think Jordan Peterson talked

00:22:53.840 about Belle from Beauty and the Beast, because, you know, she was, she liked to read and she was

00:22:58.960 interesting, and she was introspective, she didn't care about society. And there was this, you know,

00:23:02.960 the sort of main guy in the movie that everyone liked in the town, I don't know if you're familiar

00:23:10.240 with the story of Beauty and the Beast, but Gaston, he, you know, he was the hunk in the town, and all the

00:23:14.720 women liked him, but Belle didn't like him, because she thought that he was too arrogant. And then instead,

00:23:18.960 she chose this other man. So the story was kind of more about her in regard to, you know, getting married,

00:23:26.240 or who she chose to partner with. But it was just the question itself was an interesting question,

00:23:30.720 because we have a lot of stories of men and great men still in our culture, whereas less so for women.

00:23:37.840 So maybe I'll put that question to you. Are there any women in literature, you have an English literature 0.99

00:23:42.880 background, that you would point to as what you think of as an ideal woman in myth or in stories?

00:23:49.600 Oh, gee, that's a good question. I don't think I have a good answer. But, you know, my favorite author

00:23:54.400 is Jane Austen. And she was deeply interested in the question of the virtues, both the Christian and

00:24:04.560 the classical virtues. And she is interested in masculine virtues, certainly, but she focuses

00:24:11.200 especially on heroines, and on how they have to learn these various virtues of, you know, and they're 0.51

00:24:20.640 the traditional virtues of bearing up under suffering, and being faithful, and enduring, and examining

00:24:35.680 the self in order to look clearly at one's weaknesses, overcoming selfishness, and narcissism,

00:24:46.880 caring more about others than about oneself, you know, those, those are the, the very traditional

00:24:52.720 kinds of virtues. And I, and I think as I get older and older, I appreciate the, the importance of that,

00:25:03.120 of caring about others, and, you know, not not being selfish, making a contribution to one's family,

00:25:12.800 finding the balance in one's life, so that one can give to the people one loves. I think being

00:25:19.440 nurturing, being empathetic, we're told that those are the virtues that that women naturally possess, 1.00

00:25:25.440 but I think modern feminism often encourages women to be the opposite of those things. So, so for me, 1.00

00:25:33.040 that's a, that's a, Austin's heroines offer really interesting examples of good women learning to 0.98

00:25:41.840 examine themselves, and to become stronger and better.

00:25:45.520 Well, that's interesting. That's great advice. Well, I did have one other question that I wanted

00:25:49.520 to ask you about. You mentioned researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, and it reminded me that I

00:25:53.360 wanted to ask you about this trans swimmer named Leah Thomas. So, the NCAA swimming champions are

00:25:59.120 happening, championship is happening this week. And there's a trans swimmer on the University of

00:26:03.680 Pennsylvania team. So, a biological male who competed with the men's team, and then had a

00:26:09.200 transition or began identifying as a woman. And now that, that, that Leah Thompson swims with women 0.99

00:26:16.080 has just shattered all of the records. And I've been reading into it, I take some interest in it,

00:26:21.120 because it's a fascinating sort of human events story. And when I read about it, I mean,

00:26:25.360 there's two emotions that I feel one is like, just a kind of remorse, like, I feel sorry for

00:26:31.920 this individual, because it's such a spectacle taking away from the sport, I feel sorry for the

00:26:36.240 girls involved, I feel pity for everybody involved in the situation, because it's so

00:26:41.200 excruciating, seeing this tension between a clearly, you know, biological male who can swim at a

00:26:48.400 pace is just nothing like what these women consume. And then also, a sense of anger and frustration that, 1.00

00:26:54.480 you know, you have this separate division, NCAA still split sports into men and women. And the

00:27:00.400 whole purpose of women's sports as a dedicated, separate event for men's is so that women can 1.00

00:27:06.160 succeed and women can have their own, you know, can compete on a level playing field. And it's just so, 0.97

00:27:12.240 so much injustice here, that it's so out of hand. So I wanted to get your take on this,

00:27:17.600 because it kind of adds in another element to your critiques on feminism. How do trans women, 1.00

00:27:23.680 like Lea Thomas, fit into that? 0.99

00:27:25.680 Yeah, well, that's a really big subject. And I agree with you that, you know, my heart goes out to

00:27:33.120 everybody involved. And the trans issue in general is a really complicated one. But if we're going to

00:27:42.160 focus just on trans women in women's sport, it's a fascinating instance of one of the consequences 1.00

00:27:53.600 of a significant part of feminist theory. And it also really exposes some of the incoherencies of the

00:28:01.360 feminist position on gender. Now, it seems to me just to cut to the chase, it seems to me clear that

00:28:08.160 Leah Thomas is a man biologically. I don't have any problem calling Leah Thomas she and treating her 0.79

00:28:19.120 as a woman in general society. But Leah Thomas has only made the decision to transition a couple years

00:28:27.200 ago. She's been, I think, doing a year of hormone therapy. Her body is still a male body. And to pretend 0.98

00:28:36.720 that it isn't that it isn't so much significantly stronger and faster than a female body. I mean,

00:28:43.680 men have a larger muscle mass, a much larger heart and lungs. Their upper body strength is significantly

00:28:53.120 greater than women's. Men have much greater hand grip strength. You know, their bones are heavier and 1.00

00:29:03.280 larger. You know, a year of hormone therapy doesn't change that. And so if we can't recognize the

00:29:11.120 fundamental truth of biological reality, we are really at sea as a society. And you know, and there

00:29:19.840 are other examples of this happening all across sport. There was a case of a mixed martial art fighter

00:29:27.920 named mixed martial arts fighter named Fallon Fox who actually broke a woman's skull in a competition.

00:29:37.600 And the woman said that she'd never encountered strength like that in all the years she'd been

00:29:42.880 competing in mixed martial arts. Because Fallon Fox has a man's body. And there are many other examples

00:29:50.480 of this. And yet, you know, I can't help sometimes but feel a kind of rueful, not satisfaction. Well,

00:29:58.800 yeah, it is satisfaction. I have to admit, I do, I feel a kind of satisfaction. Because feminists have for 1.00

00:30:04.960 decades claimed that almost all of gender, sex itself as a biological condition, is a social construct. You

00:30:15.920 can find, you know, PDFs of articles by major feminist theories. There's one by Judith Lorber and Yancy

00:30:23.680 Martin called The Socially Constructed Body, where they essentially argue that although there is an

00:30:29.520 underlay of biological reality, it we really don't even know what it is, because it is so thoroughly

00:30:36.640 constructed. And they're, they're talking about women in sport. And their fundamental argument is that

00:30:43.600 there is really no difference between women and men in sport that we can definitely point to. And

00:30:49.440 that much of what we think we know about the differences between male and female bodies is as

00:30:54.800 a result of social conditioning, women are supposedly trained, you know, from the time they're two or three, 1.00

00:31:01.440 to act differently from men, they move differently in space, they they're told they throw like a girl,

00:31:07.840 and therefore they do throw like a girl, like they make those arguments over and over again. If we had 0.94

00:31:13.520 not allowed those arguments to achieve credence in academia, and then moving out into the wider world,

00:31:20.400 we would not be where we are now, with this bizarre situation, where a good portion of feminist 0.91

00:31:30.080 intellectuals and others claim that simply by deciding that a man wants to be a woman, that that man becomes

00:31:39.280 a woman, it's truly bizarre. And on the other side, of course, then there is this sort of aggrieved, 0.98

00:31:47.600 entitled anger on the part of other feminist women who do not appreciate the encroachment into women's 1.00

00:31:59.280 sports and other female domains of male persons claiming to be women. And but that falls often 0.62

00:32:09.040 back into a kind of feminist grievance argument about how these men are oppressing women. This is

00:32:17.760 just another example of patriarchal oppression. These men want to be women because allegedly,

00:32:24.400 you know, men hate women, and but somehow want to destroy women and take over their spaces.

00:32:31.840 And so, and I think, you know, that really gets at that tension that is so much a part of feminism. On 1.00

00:32:38.560 the one hand, women are no different from men, we should never say that women can't do certain things,

00:32:43.200 because that's sexist. And yet now, suddenly, again, we hear that women need special rights, they need 0.91

00:32:50.240 special women only spaces, where, you know, male bodies must not intrude. All the while, though,

00:32:58.320 over the last 30 years, male spaces have been continually eroded. You know, if men in a fire

00:33:06.000 hall said, you know, look, we're really uncomfortable with the idea of having women working as firefighters 0.98

00:33:11.440 along us because they are simply, they don't have the strength, they can't do what is required to

00:33:17.520 fight fires. Same with the military, all sorts of standards have been lowered in these various

00:33:23.280 formerly male domains in order to admit women and to pretend that there is no significant difference

00:33:29.120 between women and men. So I think we have to stand on the bedrock ground of biological reality. If we've 0.77

00:33:37.600 lost that, we really can't have sane conversations about any of these issues. And I'm not that sympathetic

00:33:45.760 to either side of the feminist debate on the question of trans women in sports, because I think both,

00:33:53.920 you know, buy into various feminist postulates, either anger at men, and exaggerated claims about 1.00

00:34:03.360 toxic masculinity and patriarchal oppression, or the gender as a social construct position,

00:34:10.320 neither of them is helpful in finding a sane solution to these kinds of conflicts.

00:34:15.840 I tend to agree. I sometimes just sort of sit back and laugh at the two sides of the left, you know,

00:34:22.320 warring over this issue. The only reason I want this issue to be resolved is because I have a daughter,

00:34:29.600 and I want her to be able to enjoy women's sports like I did growing up. I loved playing sports. I was on a

00:34:35.120 hockey team, I played with the boys until I hit about 12. And then I went on to a girls team, I played soccer,

00:34:40.880 baseball, and I love that. And the idea that perhaps if we continue down this path, like the idea of women's sports

00:34:47.600 just simply won't exist, because we'll go back to to mixing. So that's, that's, that's part of the reason why I think

00:34:53.600 it's important to push back at least and try to find some truth here because truth seems to be left

00:35:00.800 behind. Well, Janice, thank you so much for your time. Thank you for your clear explanation of these

00:35:05.600 issues. It's always really a pleasure to speak to you. So I really appreciate your time today. Thanks

00:35:09.600 for joining the show. Well, thank you. I really enjoyed it. Obviously, we could go on for much

00:35:13.600 longer. There's so many fascinating issues. So thanks a lot for having me on your wonderful program.

00:35:18.400 Well, thank you. I'm definitely gonna have to have you back again. So Janice Piemengo,

00:35:22.960 thank you so much. I'm Candice Malcolm. And this is The Candice Malcolm Show.

Juno News - March 14, 2022

Modern leftist feminism is making everyone miserable

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