00:08:06.720But she calls herself an equity feminist.
00:08:09.120And there are other women around who are also critical of many of feminism's exaggerations and inaccuracies.
00:08:16.600Women like Cathy Young and Camille Paglia and various others.
00:08:21.840A wonderful book or critic named Daphne Pattai, who's got a book about the sexual harassment industry.
00:08:30.000I think she would also call herself an equity feminist.
00:08:32.260And, yeah, I don't call myself any kind of feminist.
00:08:37.620I obviously believe that every person, regardless of their sex or any other inborn characteristics,
00:08:44.740should have an opportunity to make a contribution to society and that they shouldn't be hindered by any of their inborn characteristics.
00:08:53.680But I don't believe that there was ever a time that feminism was free of female moral superiority and attacks on masculinity.
00:09:05.740For instance, if you go back to 1848, which is sometimes considered the beginnings of the first wave feminist movement in the United States.
00:09:15.880This was a women's rights convention at Seneca Falls, New York.
00:09:20.540And those ladies, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, was the primary mover and shaker.
00:09:26.320But there were other there were some Quaker women involved.
00:09:29.100And they were advocating for women's greater freedoms and rights, including the right to vote.
00:09:34.060And they wrote a document called, I'm blanking on the name now, the Declaration of Sentiments is what it's called.
00:09:44.860And it says, as its central thesis, that the history of mankind is a history of repeated usurpations and injuries by man against woman with the express purpose of establishing a tyranny over her.
00:10:08.280That's the whole history of mankind is men oppressing women.
00:10:12.860So that notion that the whole world can be divided up into an oppressor class and an oppressed class, which we now see everywhere in intersectional feminism, and that the oppressor class is blameworthy and toxic and responsible for evil, while the oppressed class is innocent, morally innocent, not responsible for evil.
00:10:41.640That idea was there at the core of first wave feminism, and you can trace it right through to the present day.
00:10:49.440So I don't believe there ever was a feminism that was really very interested in equality.
00:10:55.240It was always about punishing men for the alleged sins of their fathers.
00:11:00.340It was never about recognizing what men bring to civilization.
00:11:05.640It was never about recognizing the significance of masculinity in creating cultures where women and children could flourish.
00:11:14.240It was never about expressing any gratitude for men.
00:11:18.280It was always about blaming and about asserting the alleged moral superiority of women who were supposedly, you know, much more nurturing, much more empathetic, wouldn't start wars, responsible for everything good and loving in the world.
00:11:33.620And so that notion of collective blame that all men now, especially, of course, all white, able-bodied heterosexual men are responsible for everything evil.
00:11:45.480And even if they've never done anything bad in their lives, should have to shoulder that burden and apologize for their alleged privilege and take a step back and allow their sisters to come forward and collect the special scholarships and be hired through affirmative action programs and be given all sorts of special programming and advantages.
00:12:06.860Well, they just have to accept that because they were born male, that they are second-class citizens, that they're not only disposable, but they're blameworthy and hated, rightly hated.
00:12:18.300I just think that is a terrible ideology.
00:12:22.300There's nothing good to be had from it, and we should just jettison it entirely.
00:12:27.600Well, it sounds a lot like communism and the sort of modern intersectional situation where, you know, everyone is an oppressor and an oppressor.
00:12:37.120And one of the things about feminism that has struck me since I was in university myself is that it's so counter to our own lived experience in human nature.
00:12:45.480Like, everybody knows that there are bad guys out there, right?
00:12:48.720And the thing that you need in society to counteract bad guys is good guys, right?
00:12:55.280Like, that's what our whole society is about, like having police officers there to protect you, you know, having a male friend walk you home at night, you know, when you're in university, getting married and having that partnership, someone there to have children and have that unity that you need,
00:13:14.240someone to go out to, you know, take care of the family, someone else to stay home with the children.
00:13:19.320And yet, this message is so prevalent, especially in academic circles.
00:13:25.100Why isn't it refuted and debunked more often?
00:13:27.560Because to me, it's so counter to human nature that it almost doesn't even need to be said because it's almost laughable.
00:13:37.680The contradictions in feminism are so evident to anyone who thinks about it, even for a few minutes.
00:13:43.920Exactly the points that you just made.
00:13:45.760Men are told over and over again that they are, by nature, violent and that their masculine qualities like aggression, assertiveness, competitiveness, risk-taking, etc., all these things are allegedly toxic.
00:14:03.680But then they're also expected to step forward if they see a woman in distress.
00:14:09.260Yes, and they're expected even sometimes to risk their lives, and men do risk their lives for women, even for strangers.
00:14:18.920And somehow that toxic aspect of their masculinity is required in particular situations if they're encountering another toxic man or a threat to a woman.
00:14:31.380So the contradictions right there in how men are supposed to behave are never really clearly resolved.
00:14:39.840And as you say, we all know that, you know, in our society, there are many men who absolutely love women and are interested in working and indeed sacrificing and have created this incredibly flourishing, secure civilization that we're now fortunate enough to live in.
00:15:03.120Out of, in many cases, out of, in many cases, out of, in many cases, love for women and the desire to create safe spaces for women and children to flourish in, and yet none of that is acknowledged.
00:15:13.420So we live in a strange society in which the, I think the mutual recognition and reciprocity between the sexes that is so important for a functioning society has broken down.
00:15:27.680Men are still expected to care for and support and applaud women.
00:15:32.560They're expected to encourage women to enter all of the spheres that were once mainly masculine spheres of endeavor, including the military, policing, firefighting, all those areas have now been open to women.
00:15:46.760And they're supposed to, men are supposed to welcome women into those spaces.
00:15:50.560And yet it's not clear what women are supposed to do in response to men and what men are entitled to in our society.
00:15:58.980That even word entitlement has become kind of a dirty word.
00:16:03.700So, yeah, there are just so many contradictions that I think really prevent, especially young people being indoctrinated into this toxic ideology,
00:16:13.480prevents us from recognizing what is good in our society and what should be preserved.
00:16:20.200One of the other contradictions that I always noted was that from the time I was in university,
00:16:24.120I took one women's studies course and I found it to be so lacking any intellectual rigor.
00:16:29.800It was so frustrating to me to hear the discourse of the other students.
00:16:33.260There would be like, like not exaggerating, a girl would cry like almost every class just talking about something.
00:16:39.400And it was, it was just, I couldn't even attend the class.
00:16:42.060I actually made an arrangement with the professor where I would do the lectures in the library and I wouldn't go to class because it was too infuriating to me.
00:16:49.780But that's an aside that, that, that we're told that men have all of these negative qualities.
00:16:55.600And yet at the same time, women, especially in my generation, we're told to be more like men.
00:17:00.500You know, when it came to sexuality, even like public drunkenness and, and, and, and you see more and more women going out and drinking.
00:17:08.680And that's like part of the culture, something that, that, that didn't used to be the case, for instance, in my mother's generation and, and, and focus so much on career, like to the extent where it's like you wake up and you're 30 and you're like, oh, I forgot to get married and have kids.
00:17:23.740And, and, and, and I'm like not setting myself up for an important, uh, well, well-rounded life because I've been focused so much on career.
00:17:31.500And I know so many women, um, in my age group in their thirties, uh, who, who have neglected that sort of like personal aspect.
00:17:38.780So, so whilst telling men that they should be less like men, we're telling women to be more like men, more like men.
00:17:45.000And, and I think that the result is that both men and women are sort of miserable unless they have some wisdom to go back and look at the sort of traditional lifestyles that, that, that people had, you know, what did your parents do?
00:18:00.480And, and looking at that wisdom, as opposed to the sort of modern day advice that people are given.
00:18:05.960And so I, I, I'm wondering what your advice is to young people, people in their twenties, people in university, now both men and women about how to engage in relationships, what the proper role for men and women is.
00:18:18.600Cause I think I, I know so many people now that, you know, they're not married because they can't find someone who, you know, what they're looking for because they think that, oh, that men my age are terrible or women my age are terrible.
00:18:30.040And I can kind of understand and relate, but I'm wondering what, what your advice is for young people about gender roles.
00:18:39.560And, you know, you're right that, that women are encouraged to think that their fulfillment and sense of life satisfaction is going to come from achieving what men have traditionally been exhorted to achieve.
00:18:55.220And, you know, there are all sorts of studies now coming out showing that women in general are much less happy and less satisfied with their lives than they were earlier.
00:19:06.520In fact, there was a huge study by two professors out of the university of Pennsylvania that looked at all sorts of different surveys.
00:19:14.480It was one of these meta studies that collected data over the last 50 years.
00:19:18.720And it clearly found that starting in the 1980s, women in general have progressively become less and less satisfied with their lives, both absolutely in comparison to women of previous generations and also in comparison to men, interestingly enough.
00:19:36.940And so, you know, as women's economic opportunities have clearly improved, as women are freer to do, you know, take on professional careers, you could even say as women are freer, as you pointed out, to engage in more masculine and less moral kinds of behaviors.
00:19:59.180Women can divorce their husbands, women can divorce their husbands and live off their husbands earning, they can abort their children with impunity, they can walk in the slut walk and declare their right to be as sexually promiscuous as they want, and nobody dares say no, and yet they're not happier.
00:20:18.000And the researchers themselves who are feminist researchers really couldn't, they had no way of offering an explanation and they ended up falling back on things like, well, the feminist movement, the gains of the feminist movement have actually improved the lives of men more than they've improved the lives of women, that's what they were reduced to speculating.
00:20:39.080Or women still take on more of the emotional burden of caring and looking after a household and that's why they have greater stress, you know, they made up all sorts of answers and it 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 woman in the world.
00:21:01.900Women are no longer exhorted to pursue virtue, men still have an idea of what it means to be a good man, despite all the slander, all the anti-male discourse around, which is a very heavy thing for men to have to take on, but they still know what a good man is.
00:21:19.780A good man is a good man is a good man is a good man is a good man is a good man who achieves and makes a contribution to his society, he looks after his family, he protects and provides, he seeks justice, he defends the weak, you know, we have all of those classic masculine virtues, they're still in place.
00:21:36.260Whereas what is a good woman now, if you ask a feminist what a good woman is, she'll just laugh and say that those are ideas that tried to create women and turn them into dupes of the patriarchy.
00:21:49.500So she'll say a good woman is a good woman is a good woman who smashes patriarchal oppression and subverts the social order.
00:21:56.980We used to have ideas about femininity, about being a good help meet, about being nurturing and caring, about looking after one's family, the maternal virtues, you know, all of those kinds of things, being chaste, being sexually virtuous, being faithful, all of that.
00:22:18.720And I think it's time that we have to seriously start thinking again about what the feminine virtues are and why they have mattered historically, and why they still matter today.
00:22:30.580Oh, that's so interesting. Yeah, I listened to recently, Jordan Peterson did an interview with I think it was Ben Shapiro. And Ben asked something about like, is there is there a example in like, mythology or in like Disney movies or something of like, the female that that everyone ought to aspire to that women ought to aspire to.
00:22:52.360And I think Jordan Peterson talked about Belle from Beauty and the Beast, because, you know, she was she liked to read and she was interesting, and she was introspective, she didn't care about society. And there was this, you know, the sort of main guy in the in the movie that everyone liked in the town, I don't know if you're familiar with the story of Beauty and the Beast, but guest on, he, you know, he was the hunk in the town, and all the women liked him.
00:23:15.360But Belle didn't like him, because she thought that he was too arrogant. And then instead, she chose this other man. So the story was kind of more about her in regard to, you know, getting married or who she who she chose to partner with. But it was just the question itself was an interesting question, because we have a lot of stories of men and great men still in in in our culture, whereas less so for women. So maybe I'll put that question to you. Are there are there any women in literature, you have an English literature background,
00:23:43.320that you would point to as what you think of as an ideal woman in, in, in, in myth or in stories?
00:23:49.360Oh, gee, that's a good question. I don't think I have a good answer. But, you know, my favorite author is Jane Austen. And, and she was deeply interested in the question of the virtues, both the Christian and the classical virtues, and her, she is interested in masculine virtue, certainly, but she focuses especially on, on heroin.
00:24:13.180And on how they have to learn these various virtues of, you know, and they're the traditional virtues of bearing up under suffering, and being faithful, and enduring, and examining the self, in order to look clearly at one's weaknesses.
00:24:42.260Overcoming selfishness, overcoming selfishness, and narcissism, caring more about others than about oneself, you know, those, those are the, the very traditional kinds of virtues. And I, I, and I think as I get older and older, I appreciate the, the importance of that of caring about others, and, you know, not, not being selfish, making a contribution to one's family,
00:25:12.240finding the balance, finding the balance, finding the balance, finding the balance in one's life, so that one can give to the people one loves. I think being nurturing, being empathetic, we're told that those are the virtues that women naturally possess, but I think modern feminism often encourages women to be the opposite of those things.
00:25:31.020So, so for me, that's a, that's a, that's a, Austin's heroines offer really interesting examples of good women learning to examine themselves and to become stronger and better.
00:25:44.840Oh, that's interesting. That's great advice. Well, I, I did have one other question that I wanted to ask you about. You mentioned researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, and it reminded me that I wanted to ask you about this trans swimmer named Leah Thomas.
00:25:56.520So the NCAA swimming champions are happening, championship is happening this week. And there's a trans swimmer on the University of Pennsylvania team. So a biological male who competed with the men's team, and then had a transition or began identifying as a woman.
00:26:12.420And now that, that, that Leah Thompson swims with women has just shattered all of the records. And I, I've been reading into it. I, I take some interest in it because it's a fascinating sort of human events story. And when I read about it, I mean, there's two emotions that I feel. One is like just a kind of remorse. Like I feel sorry for this individual because it's such a spectacle taking away from the sport. I feel sorry for the girls involved. I feel pity for everybody involved in the situation because it's so excruciating.
00:26:41.420Excruciating seeing this tension between a clearly, you know, biological male who can swim at a pace. It's just nothing like what these women can swim at. And then also a sense of anger and frustration that, you know, you have this separate division. NCAA still splits sports into men and women.
00:26:59.240And the whole purpose of women's sports as a dedicated, separate event for men's is so that women can succeed and women can have their own, you know, can compete on a level playing field. And it's just so, so much injustice here that it's, it's so out of hand. So I wanted to get your take on this because it kind of adds in another element to your critiques on feminism. How do trans women, like Leah Thomas, fit into that?
00:27:25.820Yeah, well, that's a really big subject.
00:28:27.780So she's been, I think, she's been, I think, doing a year of hormone therapy. Her body is still a male body. And to pretend that it isn't, that it isn't so much significantly stronger and faster than a female body. I mean, men have a larger muscle mass, a much larger heart and lungs.
00:28:49.140Their upper body strength is significantly greater than women's. Men have much greater hand grip strength. You know, their bones are heavier and larger. You know, a year of hormone therapy doesn't change that. And so if we can't recognize the fundamental truth of biological reality, we are really at sea as a society.
00:29:47.800And there's a man's body. And there's a man's body. And there are many other examples of this. And yet, you know, I can't help sometimes but feel a kind of rueful, not satisfaction. Well, yeah, it is satisfaction. I have to admit, I do. I feel a kind of satisfaction.
00:30:47.800definitely point to and that much of what we think we know about the differences between male and
00:30:53.600female bodies is as a result of social conditioning women are supposedly trained you know from the
00:30:59.540time they're two or three to act differently from men they move differently in space they they're
00:31:06.320told they throw like a girl and therefore they do throw like a girl like they make those arguments
00:31:11.200over and over again if we had not allowed those arguments to achieve credence in academia and
00:31:18.840then moving out into the wider world we would not be where we are now with this bizarre situation
00:31:25.220where a good portion of feminist intellectuals and others claim that simply by deciding that a man
00:31:36.340wants to be a woman that that man becomes a woman it's truly bizarre and on the other side of course
00:31:43.520then there is this um sort of a grieved entitled anger on the part of uh other feminist women who
00:31:54.060do not appreciate the encroachment into women's sports and other female domains of
00:32:02.620male persons claiming to be women and but that falls often back into a kind of feminist um grievance
00:32:12.800argument about how these men are oppressing women this is just another example of patriarchal oppression
00:32:21.000these men want to be women because allegedly you know men hate women and but somehow want to destroy
00:32:29.120women and take over their spaces and so and and that i think you know that really gets at that tension
00:32:35.640that is so much a part of feminism on the one hand women are no different from men we should never say
00:32:41.700that women can't do certain things because that's sexist and yet now suddenly again we hear that women
00:32:48.040need special rights they need special women only spaces where you know male bodies must not intrude
00:32:56.160all the while though um over the last 30 years male spaces have been continually eroded um you know
00:33:04.580if if men in a fire hall said you know look we're really uncomfortable with the idea of having women
00:33:10.220working as firefighters along us because they are simply they don't have the strength they can't do
00:33:15.600what is required to fight fires same with the military all sorts of standards have been lowered
00:33:21.860in these various formerly male domains in order to admit women and to pretend that there is no
00:33:28.120significant difference between women and men so i think we have to stand on the the bedrock ground
00:33:35.540of biological reality if we've lost that we really can't have sane conversations about any of these
00:33:42.360issues uh and i'm not that sympathetic to either side of the feminist debate uh on the question of trans
00:33:50.500women in sports because i think both um you know buy into various feminist postulates either
00:33:57.560anger at at men uh and and and exaggerated claims about uh toxic masculinity and patriarchal oppression
00:34:07.100or the gender as a social construct position neither of them is helpful in finding a sane solution to
00:34:14.520these kinds of conflicts i tend to agree i i sometimes just sort of sit back and laugh at the two
00:34:20.460uh sides of the left you know warring over this issue uh the the only reason i i i i want uh
00:34:27.220this issue to be resolved is because i have a daughter and i want her to be able to enjoy
00:34:31.240women's sports like i did growing up i loved playing sports i was on a a hockey team i played with the boys
00:34:36.920until i hit uh about 12 and then i went on to a girls team i played soccer baseball and i love that
00:34:42.640and the idea that perhaps if we continue down this path like the idea of women's sports just simply
00:34:48.220won't exist because we'll go back to to mixing so that's that's that's part of the reason why i think
00:34:53.740it's important to uh push back at least and try to find some truth here because truth seems to be
00:34:59.920left behind well janice thank you so much for your time thank you for your clear explanation of these
00:35:05.740issues it's always really a pleasure uh to speak to you so i really appreciate your time today thanks for
00:35:09.860joining the show well thank you i really enjoyed it obviously we could go on for much longer there's
00:35:14.320so many fascinating issues so thanks a lot for for having me on your wonderful program well thank you
00:35:19.600i'm definitely gonna have to have you uh back again so janice human go thank you so much i'm
00:35:23.920kenis malcolm and this is the kenis malcolm show