In this episode of the Red Ice Radio Network's Red Ice Talk podcast, I speak with the founder of AVoiceformen, Henrik Pongren, about feminism in Eastern Europe and its impact in the post-communist countries.
00:00:30.000This is Radio 314 on the Red Ice Radio Network.
00:01:00.000We'll also talk about how these extreme feminist values translate into schools, government, and pop culture.
00:01:06.420Welcome, Lucien. How are you this evening?
00:01:09.560Hello. Thank you for having me here tonight. Well, I'm doing great.
00:01:14.580It's a pleasure to have you. Also joining us is Henrik Pongren from Red Ice Radio.
00:01:18.500I wanted to include a Swede in this conversation.
00:01:21.480Yeah. Hi, Lana. And hi to you as well, Lucien. Good to talk to you.
00:01:24.900Hello, Henrik. Great that you're here also.
00:01:27.820Well, last time I spoke with Paul Elam, the founder of avoiceformen.com,
00:01:31.340and I received many great comments from men and women after the interview.
00:01:34.700However, I did receive a few upset, offended comments from women who, by the way,
00:01:40.080didn't even listen to the interview the entire way.
00:01:42.920And in the first 10 minutes, we actually spoke about self-empowerment and being responsible for personal choices.
00:01:48.320So even that is offensive nowadays. What do you think about that?
00:01:51.060Yes, it is offensive. And I can speak about Europe more than about other areas of the world.
00:01:59.020But in Europe, in particular, we are cultivating a culture where personal accountability,
00:02:06.560characterization by merit and individual responsibility are now, how do you say, anathema.
00:02:12.960They're basically considered now to be extremist ideas.
00:02:16.640And I think Henrik can confirm that in Sweden is now considered an extremist idea to even imply that men and women are different
00:02:24.600and that human nature is now something that is, I don't know, a sin.
00:02:30.740It's a heresy to talk about these kinds of issues, particularly in Scandinavian societies.
00:02:36.240But now in many other European nations, such as Spain or Italy,
00:02:40.980Italy now has what I call a gynocentric dictatorship, as a matter of fact.
00:02:45.140In your bio, you talk about how you've seen a lot of ugly stuff growing up in Eastern Europe.
00:02:51.020So let's talk about what you've seen growing up since it connects with your work to AVoiceForMen.com.
00:02:56.840What do you want to know in particular?
00:02:59.760What you've grown up seeing there in Eastern Europe, because it's much different growing up in America.
00:03:04.680Yes, it is. Considering the fact that I am not that old.
00:03:08.440But on the other hand, I live in a family, I grew up in a family where longevity is kind of like the norm, you know.
00:03:16.100I mean, my great-grandmother lived through the end of the 19th century, the entire 20th century,
00:03:22.800and the first 14 years of the 21st century.
00:03:25.860So she got a lot of things to tell me about.
00:03:28.260The problem that I have with what happened here is that it's now already being repeated through the European Union.
00:03:39.300For instance, we've seen here in Eastern Europe exactly the steps that are now being taken both in the European Union and North America.
00:03:49.180That is the nationalization of health care, the increasing involvement of the state in private businesses,
00:03:55.560and including in private lives, that is regulating how people stay home to raise children and all the other things.
00:04:02.360These kinds of things were kind of like the norm until the year of 1989 in Eastern Europe.
00:04:09.040So let's talk about how Eastern Europe went from oppressive Marxist-lenist governments to oppressive progressive, as they say, Marxist-feminist governments.
00:04:19.660Yeah, I'm laughing because the word progress appears literally everywhere, particularly when the European Union is talking.
00:04:29.060I mean, if you want to understand how a document of the European Union works, it's basically progress, moving forward, and stuff like that, and nothing else.
00:04:40.780And the meaning of the word is rendered irrelevant, basically.
00:04:47.700Basically, Romania was a special case.
00:04:50.800In most of the other Eastern European nations, when the communism fell, it was something like a soft revolution.
00:04:58.460That is to say, the public, when they say, okay, enough with this crap, get out of here.
00:05:10.540In Poland, for instance, even the communist authorities themselves decided, okay, let's move to a more capitalist society, to a more free society.
00:05:21.460And they gathered a lot of, let's say, freedom-oriented individuals.
00:05:29.060Like, I don't remember that guy's name.
00:05:34.420There was an individual that changed the entire economy and basically took all the measures necessary.
00:05:40.700And here we are today, Poland is the only country in the European Union that has never seen a recession, for instance.
00:05:47.420But in Romania, things were entirely different than most of the other nations.
00:05:52.560In here, violence was necessary to overthrow the Marxist-Leninist tyranny.
00:05:57.960The Ceausescu government was unwilling to relinquish power.
00:06:04.180After the fall of the Berlin War, most of the other, in fact, all the other socialist nations, except Romania, opened their borders and started opening themselves to freedom.
00:06:53.660But what matters is that after a week of violence in many cities of the nation, particularly in the capital and in the extreme west city of Timișoara,
00:07:04.680eventually the government was thrown away.
00:07:08.820And Nikolai Ceausescu and his wife Elena Ceausescu were executed in Tergoviste on December 25th, 1989.
00:07:16.180And after that, unfortunately, however, in power got basically the second line of the Politburo.
00:07:25.440And because the second line of the Politburo got in power, they were eventually thrown out in 1996, but they came back to power in 2000.
00:07:34.480However, by the year 2000, that second line of the Politburo had reformed itself to what is now openly called in the European Union, socialism with a human face.
00:07:46.620Yes, that's the open name, and I'm sure Henry can confirm in Sweden is openly called like that, socialism with a human face.
00:07:54.820And because in the meantime, a lot of the old Bolsheviks have died and have been replaced by newer generations, the newer generations were more than in the socialist party and in the socialist oriented group of politicians were more than keen to adopt the ideas of the European Union, which are not that far away from the old Soviet Union.
00:08:19.700And this is the reason why I sometimes call the EU as the EUSSR, because it's basically the same thing.
00:08:27.700The decision making process is incredibly similar to the old Soviet Union.
00:08:34.300And the way it works, the corruption that is automatically built in within the apparatus of the European Union, a lot of things are incredibly similar to what it used to be in the Soviet Union.
00:08:45.180Yeah, it's the same thing, just a different face.
00:08:47.220And I also find it's interesting, too, most political feminist voices from the beginning of the movement were Marxists.
00:08:56.600There is an entire debate about that, of whether feminism originates from Marxism or the other way around, or if they are connected at all.
00:09:06.100Sure, there were feminist-oriented individuals before Marxism, that's correct.
00:09:11.540But in the present day, in 2013, militant political feminism is a part, basically, of Marxist militancy.
00:09:25.120For instance, Lev Davidovich Bronstein, or how he is called in the English language circles, Leon Trotsky, once wrote during the Bolshevik Revolution and soon after, he said that in order to change the conditions of life, we must learn to see them through the eyes of women.
00:09:43.260And there was also Inessa Armand, who was the first leader of the women's department in the 1917 Russian Revolution, the Bolshevik Revolution.
00:09:52.180She made an observation during one of her speeches saying that if women's liberation is unthinkable without communism, then communism is unthinkable without women's liberation.
00:10:02.120So, basically, in the 20th century, and particularly in the 21st century, feminism is more than Marxist-oriented, is an intrinsic part of Marxist militancy.
00:10:17.180However, there are also a lot of other issues that are less known.
00:10:22.920For instance, in 1974, here in Bucharest, it took place, the World Population Council of the United Nations, and at that time, there was a Brazilian doctor, for instance, saying that he has an idea of how to develop a male contraceptive pill.
00:10:43.700And he requested funding from the United Nations to do that, and the most relevant opposition to this idea basically came from Marxist-feminist women who shouted no male pill throughout the conference, and eventually the Brazilian doctor was denied funding.
00:11:08.060And we can see that in the last 40 years, particularly in this area of the world, this kind of anti-male policies are usually coming from Marxist-oriented politicians.
00:11:25.400Well, I'm amazing that male lawmakers are also voting in favor of this too, though, right?
00:12:03.640And I'm pretty sure that this will not go away anytime soon.
00:12:09.380Well, it's funny because just the other day I was telling Henrik too, I was watching a documentary about beehives and insects and ant colonies.
00:12:16.600And it's all, I mean, it's a great metaphor for Marxism or collectivism, but it's built mostly by the large population of sterile females.
00:12:23.780Yeah, they have a few male drone workers, but everything is to support the queen bee who lays the eggs.
00:12:35.980It's all about the health care for the children, right?
00:12:38.180Yes, well, this thing about it's all about the children has, it also has a socialist flavor, but a national socialist one.
00:12:48.060You know, Hitler himself was the one who said that if you can convince the overwhelming majority of the population that the state has the best interests of the children in mind,
00:12:57.780you can literally do anything and the population will applaud.
00:13:02.700And in the case of national socialist dictatorship, it kind of worked.
00:13:07.880And unfortunately, it's still working.
00:13:10.640We see, and I've recently read about a bad, not a bad one, but rather a sad story from Sweden where the state literally kidnapped the children of a family
00:13:25.000because that family said, we're going to homeschool the child.
00:13:29.400Yeah, we had Kisti Johansson with us and talked about the abduction of their child, Dominik Johansson, by Swedish Social Services.
00:13:35.440It's one of these horrible cases where they have fallen between the cracks.
00:13:39.040It was just at the time when they made it illegal to homeschool in Sweden.
00:13:42.900And despite this, they had gotten the approval by one end of the government, but the local city or county government did not approve of it.
00:13:49.180And they ended up stealing their child from them when they were attempting to leave the country, pretty much.
00:14:06.420Now, the German government, for instance, is petitioning the United States government to extradite a couple of Germans with their kids that are now living in Texas, if I'm not mistaken,
00:14:18.600because they fled Germany for the simple reason that the state was forcing them to put the kids through sex ed courses and other things that the parents disagreed.
00:14:30.600And they said, the hell with it, and we're going to move to the United States.
00:14:34.000And now the German government is petitioning the U.S. government to extradite them back.
00:14:38.100And it's likely that the United States government will say yes.
00:14:41.680It's yet to be resolved, but I have little doubt that the United States will say no.
00:15:05.740Again, because of these crooks in human nature that most of individuals, most of human individuals have, that is to protect women at all costs.
00:15:15.460So there is a genuine sentiment in this.
00:15:19.280But the ideologues that usually run the business of a state, of a particular state, are, of course, using it to advance political goals.
00:15:38.400An entire library could be written about this.
00:15:40.820First of all, you have to understand that at least now the European Union still doesn't have the authority to impose this in the entire European Union upon all the 28 unfortunate nations that are part of this club.
00:15:59.240However, there are a lot of countries that have already taken steps to implement these kinds of things.
00:16:06.340Because Croatia and Sweden are basically the leaders in this progress thing.
00:16:14.740But Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, Norway, even though Norway is not part of the EU, but still are also not far off behind.
00:16:24.120What I found the most egregious part in this kind of business was a case in Croatia where there are basically feminist organizations invited into the schools to preach to 10-year-olds to 8-year-olds that all men are rapists.
00:16:42.420And that the male sexuality is inherently oppressive and stuff like that that are basically from the manual of militant feminism.
00:16:55.860And Sweden also put out, what is it, Scum, the Scum video, which is a radical feminist manifesto.
00:17:01.060Yes, the Society for Cutting Up Men, yes.
00:17:02.960And it's amazing because Sweden is so anti-gun and yet in the video they're shooting a guy, no problem, dancing around happy.
00:17:08.980I would argue that Sweden is not necessarily anti-gun in itself as Romania is, for instance.
00:17:16.160We have the toughest laws regarding guns in the world.
00:32:59.900And judging from the example of the Soviet Union, I think it will eventually lead up to a very violent and unpleasant crash of the European Union
00:33:10.520and all the 28 unfortunate nations that are within it.
00:33:13.720And after that, probably, unfortunately, some other ideologues will then take over and 50 years from now we'll have another European Union
00:33:26.760because human beings learn only one thing from history.
00:33:30.600That is, that human beings learn absolutely nothing from history.
00:33:33.520And I pretty much think that, I mean, the European Union in its current state and with this bad, this wrong construction of the euro currency cannot hold any time longer.
00:33:49.180Probably by 2025, there will be no European Union.
00:33:53.140And just like the collapse of the Soviet Union, it will leave us with immense ethnic problems and economic problems that will last for a while.
00:34:02.880And after the things will get calmer, probably, again, some other ideologues will build just another union.
00:34:08.260Well, this is when I've heard women say, well, that's because we need women in charge, women presidents and women politicians.
00:34:14.860But to me, a politician is a lying politician, no matter what sex they are.
00:34:19.760Well, most of the politicians, yes, they are liars.
00:36:08.100I don't know if that's helping or not.
00:36:10.420What I do know is that usually, or it used to be, not anymore now, but usually in politics,
00:36:18.820it usually ends up being the most popular politician or the most qualified individual for the job.
00:36:25.900And Margaret Thatcher got there without any quotas and without any affirmative action or positive discrimination.
00:36:32.500Angela Merkel is now basically dictating in most of the European nations, and she got there without any quotas and without any positive discrimination.
00:36:41.220South Korea is led by a female leader that got there without any kind of quotas and any kind of positive discrimination.
00:36:48.480So I would say that it's more about a question of really wanting to be there than a question of discrimination.
00:36:57.560I wanted to know how you came across the information.
00:36:59.700You were talking about Sweden, how basically a man is literally a second-class citizen under the law in regards to violence, custody of children,
00:37:06.500even body searches, even foreign men married to a Swedish woman testifying in court.
00:37:12.260It's always the woman first and the man second.
00:37:15.340So how did you come across that information?
00:38:30.060My point has been to try to highlight the shadow side that is very much unseen to the rest of the world because the media never talks about it.
00:38:39.200There are so many double standards in Sweden, and now you get an oppression of a different kind.
00:38:44.320But will these things ever be highlighted?
00:38:46.240I mean, especially when we have things like the Millennium series by Stieg Larsson that people are obsessed with, though they have never been to the country or been visited in any of this series.
00:38:57.040It only shows men's violence against women.
00:38:59.300And this is how some people believe it's like in Sweden.
00:39:02.200It's a complete reversal of what actually is going on right now.
00:39:05.960Yeah, I wasn't surprised that the novel Man Somhattak Vinna was made in Sweden.
00:39:10.880And I wasn't surprised that the movie, the highly successful movie translated in English, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, was also made in Sweden.
00:39:19.840Yeah, apparently the organization called Roksrik, Sorganisarhune for Kvinner Roksiajerisverige, basically the national organization for women in Sweden, apparently they won the cultural war out there in Sweden.
00:39:33.940I mean, if you watch documentaries such as Jönskriget or the Swedish gender war, you get the idea that they basically won the cultural war and the men in there are basically moving out.
00:39:47.360I was reading in the local, the English language newspaper for news in Sweden and in many other countries,
00:39:56.020they were saying that more people emigrated from Sweden than immigrated.
00:40:02.660And a lot of the comments were asking, well, how many men were between those that permanently emigrated from Sweden?
00:40:09.040And I would guess that most of the people that are permanently leaving Sweden are men, Swedish men.
00:40:16.340Yeah, and actually a lot of the Swedish men are marrying foreign women because they don't want to be with the Swedish women anymore just because they're such hardcore feminists.
00:40:24.420Yeah, I don't want to sound bad, but who would want to marry a Swedish woman?
00:40:31.460I'm pretty sure that there are a lot of decent Swedish women out there, but the culture that is now in place in Sweden is so hostile to men that it seems like a better solution to just leave Sweden
00:40:48.880and move either to Denmark, which is quite closely, culturally close to Sweden, or to move completely outside of Europe.
00:40:58.800Yeah, it's too far gone at this point.
00:41:00.520Well, that documentary you mentioned, the gender war, Sjöns Krið, that is an amazing documentary.
00:41:07.920And I wish everyone listening to take a look at that one.
00:41:09.940We had it linked up on the website some time ago.
00:41:12.060The problem here then, as well, is that you have a very sly level of propaganda and education taking place in Sweden, not only for young women, but also for young men.
00:41:20.820And they are taught to look down on themselves and their behavior is violent by default.
00:41:25.640And there is a number of things that are psychologically damaging to a lot of the younger generations.
00:41:31.500So in my view, this is ultimately about propaganda and education.
00:41:35.520So how do you combat something like this?
00:41:37.800Well, the best way to combat it is just like Evin Ubar did with her documentary, Sjöns Krið.
00:41:45.780Basically, I mean, she came from Turkmenistan, for crying out loud, a highly oppressive Soviet republic.
00:41:52.560I mean, they still refer themselves as the Soviet Republic of Turkmenistan, even though the Soviet Union no longer exists.
00:41:58.960I mean, she emigrated from there to Sweden, which she perceived to be a free nation, and got there and said,
00:42:05.220hold on, something doesn't add up here.
00:42:07.800And she offered a very neutral, or in some way neutral, but rather a perspective of an outsider who has already seen how state repression looks like,
00:42:19.280and basically discovered pretty much the same thing.
00:42:22.260As for the quote-unquote education, well, every single totalitarian regime has tried to take over the education.
00:42:30.300And once it took over the education, things went smoothly in less than two decades.
00:42:36.680It happened literally everywhere where a totalitarian regime lasted more than 10 years.
00:42:42.280So, I think this is the same thing happening in Sweden as well.
00:42:49.500And the problem is that, unlike other European nations, in Sweden, literally opposing points are banned.
00:42:57.920I mean, I was reading about that thing that they call Sjönskraft Perspektiv,
00:43:03.860or about the gender power perspective, something like that would be the translation in English.
00:43:11.780And basically Sjönskraft Perspektiv was considered to be the Bible of the Uppsala University in Sweden.
00:43:19.220And anyone that dared to oppose that, be it professor or student, was either fired, if it was a professor,
00:43:27.340or excommunicated, if it was a student, was expelled.
00:43:33.880So, in this regard, and this is the same thing happening in primary education, or in lower levels of education in Sweden.
00:43:41.020I was reading about a man that is now suing the Swedish state at the European Court of Human Rights.
00:43:47.680I mean, he was basically thrown away and put to jail because he dared to come to a school and said,
00:43:54.180look, what you're learning in sex ed is not entirely accurate.
00:43:59.880Here's a brochure with a little more accurate information.
00:49:16.680Dividing the society along sex lines apparently seems to be a more effective way to control the society than to divide the society along racial lines or ethnical lines or what have you.
00:49:31.720So it's even more powerful because gender is their closest affiliation.
00:49:35.420Yes, because, you know, once you divide people along the sex lines, you can always have in place tools to control the children and control the family.
00:49:47.740We have to remember that in the United Kingdom, for instance, they have those secret family courts.
00:49:52.920Nobody knows what's happening in there.
00:49:54.700All we know is that the overwhelming majority of men who want some custody of their children, they lose it.
00:50:03.200But nobody really knows what's happening in there because the family court system in the United Kingdom is hidden, is secret, is by law, nobody can question.
00:50:15.280And the system of family courts in the UK can even issue an order for individuals to shut up about it.
00:50:26.140And if you don't shut up about it, you can go to jail.
00:50:31.400What are some other big feminist lies that female politicians are spewing out into Europe right now?
00:50:36.960Well, for instance, there was recently a feminist lie in the United Kingdom Parliament where they said that female prisoners are treated badly in prison and therefore the government should do something and treat them even better for the simple reason that they are female.
00:50:56.360But those politicians failed to realize that even if you account for the same crime, the same record and so on and so forth, there is still a 40 percent disparity in sentencing between men and women.
00:51:13.640I mean, if I go into a store and steal something and then if you go to do the same thing, there is a huge chance that you will not serve prison at all whilst the book will be thrown at me.
00:52:02.840There is also the politically incorrect thing about immigration.
00:52:09.840I mean, now, since all nations are forced to have totally open doors to anyone, this creates a lot of friction within European societies.
00:52:21.840And I say European societies because unlike the European Union, I acknowledge that the 28 unfortunate nations that are part of this club are not the same.
00:52:31.840The Eurocrats would like to thank you that they are pretty much the same.
00:53:39.840Yeah, and again, I don't necessarily question the idea of doing something to stop the French and Germans from going to war against each other.
00:53:49.840I mean, it was a sensible thing to do at the end of World War II.
00:53:54.840Let's sit around the table and start cooperating and let's stop fighting each other.
00:53:58.840Because the French and Germans went to fight against each other three times in 70 years.
00:54:26.840And now the European Union will vote in the plenary of the European Parliament right after the vacation, could be in October or early September, on a motion that will require private companies to have at least 40% women in their boards just because the European Union wants so.
00:54:54.840And it's basically a resolution to force companies to have at least 40% women on boards.
00:55:01.840And there was a Danish politician, her name is Britta Thompson, who openly stated that in the European Union, you are not allowed to choose who to sit in your board.
00:55:12.840Why do these companies put up with this?
00:55:17.840I mean, there has been a tremendous amount of basically moving from one country to another and eventually moving into Serbia or Ukraine, you know, countries that are very close to the European Union, but outside enough not to be affected by these kinds of crap.
00:55:34.840Well, I'm surprised that more women don't find these kinds of things demeaning, implying that women are not capable of ending up on the boards of these companies themselves.
00:55:51.840And I also consider that these kinds of measures are essentially offensive to women because you're basically saying that they always need a leg up to do that and they can't make it on themselves.
00:56:04.840And using this kind of rationale is even closer to what they called patriarchy.
00:56:12.840I mean, the moment you need the state to do things for you, then that's no longer equality.
00:56:19.840That's basically equality of outcome or equality by force or substantive equality as it is called now in the European Union.
00:56:27.840And that's exactly what has been tried in Eastern Europe for so many years.
00:56:39.840And there was a guy named Vladimir Bukovsky who served the time in Gulag for campaigning for human rights and individual freedom in the Soviet Union in late 60s.
00:56:48.840He eventually defected from the USSR and he now lives in the United Kingdom.
00:56:52.840And he always says to Euro fanatics, look, look, guys, I have lived in your future and it didn't work.
00:57:26.840Mrs. Lisa said that so many feminists enter into the business with a clean heart and they are eventually victims of a psychological warfare.
00:57:39.840I would argue that feminism has never been a force of good because even during the suffragettes where everyone thinks that, oh, at least that part of feminism was legitimate.
00:57:50.840First of all, we have to remember that in the same period there was something we called White Feather Campaign, where basically women were shaming men for not enlisting to die.
00:58:25.840And yeah, there's a lot of women that aren't feminists too that see through that.
00:58:29.840But unfortunately, these younger generations are really getting swept up by it because it's being taught in universities and schools, women's studies.
00:58:36.840And Mr. Rockefeller was funding a lot of the women's studies here in America, by the way.
00:58:40.840Well, in here, the first women's studies ever funded was during the Belakun dictatorship in Hungary, and it was orchestrated by Georg Lukács, a dissenter Marxist ideologue.
00:58:53.840And this is a matter of factual reality.
00:59:01.840And if you really want to look for dangerous individuals in these days, you can also look for another Hungarian individual named Georg Sörös or George Soros, as the English language goes.
00:59:13.840I mean, the guy has been already connected to violent thugs such as Femen or such as Vainai in Russia, the war, which is also an anarcho-Marxist movement with feminist leanings, and Femen, who is considering itself to be feminist.
00:59:31.840And yeah, these kinds of connections exist, and denying them won't do any good.
00:59:36.840Yeah, for me, and I talked about this with Paul, to me, feminism from the very beginning was a step in the wrong direction because it's going to government for something and building the government up to be even bigger.
00:59:47.840Yes, and Karen Strohan, which is basically the spokesperson for AVFM and the men's rights movement in general, she once said that feminism is basically socialism in panties, and I couldn't agree more with that.