Perpetuating Stereotypes (Feminist Edition)

Feminist Julie Bindel claims that "marriage can never be feminist". On that much we agree. You can watch and listen to her arguments below.

I get the feeling that Ms. Bindel's video will backfire more often than not. Why? Because Ms. Bindle perpetuates stereotypes about feminists. Compare Ms. Bindle to the women she mocks in her video.

Enlightened feminist Julie Bindel

Poor misguided sap #1

Poor misguided sap #2

Poor misguided sap #3

When selling something, the salesperson matters. That's especially true if you're selling something intangible, like an idea. A product can sell itself if it's good enough. An idea can't. The salesperson needs to embody that which he/she is selling. Ms. Bindel is selling feminism as a means to freedom, and ultimately happiness, yet she she comes off as dour, bitter and generally unpleasant. The impression one gets from the video is that of a woman whose choices have made her miserable, and would love some equally miserable company.

If I didn't know better I'd wonder if Ms. Bindel's video was a parody made by her ideological opponents. But I do know better, because I've been exposed to feminists. Stereotypes about feminists exist for a reason. Behold exhibit A (language warning).



Behold exhibit B.

When selling something, the salesperson matters. That's especially true if you're selling something intangible, like an idea.

I could do this all day, but there's only so much I can take. All these feminists are perfect examples of why "liberals" want conservatives to shut up, while conservatives want "liberals" to keep talking. In fact, when exhibit B went viral, a fellow feminist penned an angry (what else?) email that "provided a list of demands that included a request that [student journalist Kassy] Dillon be prohibited from writing or publishing for Campus Reform or any Mount Holyoke-affiliated student publication".

In other words, a student journalist provided a feminist with a soapbox from which to broadcast her message, and feminists are so embarrassed by their peer and her message that they want to punish the journalist. 

I can't say that I blame them. 

This brings us back to Ms. Bindel's video. She's a terrible salesperson for feminism, not because she gives a false impression of feminism and its adherents, but because she gives an accurate impression of them.  Feminism does, in fact, make women miserable, and miserable company. A 2009 paper published by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco (clearly a bastion of conservative thought) put it this way: 

By many objective measures the lives of women in the United States have improved over the past 35 years, yet we show that measures of subjective well-being indicate that women’s happiness has declined both absolutely and relative to men. The paradox of women’s declining relative wellbeing is found across various datasets, measures of subjective well-being, and is pervasive across demographic groups and industrialized countries.

It's not a paradox. There is no paradox. There is an obvious correlation between increased acceptance of feminist though throughout industrialized countries and increased female misery. Looking at and listening to the women who've most wholeheartedly embraced feminism, no one should be surprised. This is why - like most conservatives - I want feminists to be seen and heard as much as possible. Because I suspect that when most young women are exposed to their misery and hysteria, their reactions will resemble that of this young woman. 




What about the substance of Ms. Bindel's arguments? I'll let Steven Crowder handle that. 




UPDATE (30 May 2016): The Guardian tackles the question of why women are more miserable than ever "despite" feminist "progress", comes tantalizingly close to the answer, and still misses the mark. 

The social history of Switzerland, where women weren’t allowed to vote until 1971, reveals the subtleties of employment expectations on happiness. A decade after Swiss women gained suffrage, the country’s citizens voted in a referendum on whether the constitution should be amended to state that women deserve equal pay for equal work. 

Different parts of Switzerland voted very differently. Unsurprisingly, cantons (Swiss states) with a high proportion of votes in favor of the amendment were recorded as having a small gender wage gap some years later. But strangely, working women in areas with strong traditional values – where most people had voted against equal pay – were happier than working women in liberal cantons. 

Right. "Strangely". No correlation to see here, folks. Move along.