You may recall my personal nemesis, Satoshi Kanazawa, from this longwinded bit of commentary I did in 2007 in response to his ridiculous article, “Ten Politically Incorrect Truths about Human Nature.”
Well, Kanazawa is back! And not a minute too late, as I was starting to forget the bullshit that is evolutionary psychology! Without this reminder, I might have slipped into the comfort of thinking that evolutionary psychologists had realized the error of their ways and focused their research elsewhere (perhaps, my idealist mind ventured, they have begun looking into ways they can help prevent rape instead of excusing it with monkey-brain imperatives). Alas! No! I must be vigilant — the evo-psychos haven’t disappeared! They’ve simply dropped off my radar in order to return with even more stupidity, like stupid, stupid evo-psych zombies.
Kanazawa’s return illustrates that he’s rid his writing of any pretenses that he’s a reasonable, rational human being who cares about doing good things in the world: he has titled his most recent bit of evo-psych idiocy “Why modern feminism is illogical, unnecessary, and evil.” Thanks for the warning, Kanazawa! I was planning to give it the old good-faith go, but with a title like that, I know I’d just be wasting my time!
It’s a short article, so Kanazawa really has to pack in his misogyny and anti-feminism efficiently. I have to give him credit where it’s due, though: after a weekend of reading freshman argument essays featuring non-arguments, terrible organization, and unclear or absent transitions between ideas, Kanazawa does an excellent job of staying on point. He doesn’t fuck around, and I can respect that. It’s too bad my students are capable of better logic and better understanding of controversial topics such as feminism than Kanazawa, though.
Some choice passages:
First, modern feminism is illogical because, as Pinker points out, it is based on the vanilla assumption that, but for lifelong gender socialization and pernicious patriarchy, men and women are on the whole identical.
Oh, Kanazawa. I can’t tell if you’re being intentionally obtuse or if you genuinely believe that feminists argue that men and women are identical. I don’t know of a single feminist — or a single person, period — who sincerely believes that men and women are the same. What feminists do argue is that, despite our fundamental biological differences, men and women should be treated equally and/or with equity. The basic belief is that women are human. Hello, keep up, this is basic shit.
Further, modern feminism is unnecessary, because its entire raison d’être is the unquestioned assumption that women are and have historically always been worse off than men. The fact that men and women are fundamentally different and want different things makes it difficult to compare their welfare directly, to assess which sex is better off; for example, the fact that women make less money than men cannot by itself be evidence that women are worse off than men, any more than the fact that men own fewer pairs of shoes than women cannot be evidence that men are worse off than women.
Ah, yes, the “unquestioned assumption” that patriarchy harms women, right. Because there’s absolutely no evidence whatsoever that, as a class, women are stalked, abused, raped, tortured, killed, and so on, by men, because they are women. This is just ideological propaganda we silly feminists pull out anytime we aren’t getting our way, right?
Oh, and the comparison between discrepancies in pay for the same job and in numbers of shoes owned, that’s classic! It’s not only belittling the real problem of the wage gap, but using a misogynist analogy to do it! I told you guys that Kanazawa was efficient!
It is also not true that women are the “weaker sex.” Pinker documents the fact that boys are much more fragile, both physically and psychologically, than girls and hence require greater medical and psychiatric care.
Um, which feminists are arguing that women are the weaker sex? Jesus, get your fucking stereotypes right, at least. The problem, Kanazawa? The problem is that people like you act as if women are the weaker sex — your evo-psych bullshit plays a humongous role in perpetuating such harmful and annoying beliefs. Part of feminist activism is to get it into your brains that women are just as capable of doing basic, everyday tasks, such as lifting a grocery bag or opening a door, as men are. Not that difficult!
Another fallacy on which modern feminism is based is that men have more power than women. Among mammals, the female always has more power than the male, and humans are no exception. It is true that, in all human societies, men largely control all the money, politics, and prestige. They do, because they have to, in order to impress women. Women don’t control these resources, because they don’t have to. What do women control? Men. As I mention in an earlier post, any reasonably attractive young woman exercises as much power over men as the male ruler of the world does over women.
AHAHAHAHA. This is the oldest expression of misogyny in the book! You’re a hoot, Kanazawa. You just don’t quit with the hilarity.
I’ll let Andrea at Heartless Doll take this one for me:
See, ladies!? If you’re young and beautiful, you’re like Donald Fucking Trump! You don’t need feminism! Fuck all those ugly old ladies, anyway, right!? All you have to do is use your sexuality to manipulate idiot men with boners for brains–don’t you want to do that? Don’t you want to fuck me to get ahead, my little graduate assistant?!–and you are on top of the world! Or at least on top of the guy who’s on top of the world, and that’s just as good!
And after claiming that feminism makes everyone unhappy (unless you’re in a relationship with a feminist, I guess), Kanazawa ends with a bang:
At any event, the culpability of modern feminism in making women steadily unhappy, because it is based on false assumptions about male and female human nature, is difficult to deny. Men’s happiness has not declined in the last 35 years, because there has not been masculinism; nobody has insisted on the radical notion that men are women[.]
DUDE. FEMINISM ISN’T ABOUT MAKING WOMEN INTO MEN. “MASCULINISM,” IF SUCH A THING WERE TO EXIST, WOULD NOT MAKE MEN INTO WOMEN. YOU ARE A GIANT IDIOT.
In the ancient asshat tradition of telling you what you think, and then telling you how very wrong you are to think it, Kanazawa begins his wankery with the disclaimer that it was a woman who pointed it out to him. He then goes on to demonstrate precisely how self evo psycho a man needs to be to claim that it isn’t the oppression one suffers on a daily basis that makes one unhappy. No, no, no, it is the unhinged desire to make it stop that causes the sad.
Criminy!
Oh stone the fucking crows! “Men don’t have power they just control all the stuff”. LOL What a total dropkick. Good to see you back in fine blogging form, L.
Oh dear god. Seriously, this is insane.
Linda Radfem, I completely agree. XD Women have such incredible power over men and because they have such incredible, awesome power they must please men to actually exercise their power. That’s what power is all about: having it but only being able to exercise it through someone else’s will. *facepalm*
And, kurukurushoujo, don’t forget – only young reasonably attractive women are even in the running for the manipulate what the man has olympics. Isn’t that one of the feminist arguments in a nutshell? Perform for the patriarchy or suffer the consequences? Suffer them anyway if you become unattractive, and be blamed for that, too. The rest of us are screwed, but it’s ok with for us, I guess, because at least the top of the manipulation heap is an ever-rotating set of women. If one woman is doing well, that should be enough to keep all of this feminine monolith happy, I guess. It’s sorta like the queen of England – a symbol of power who actually has none, whereas each man must have his lust for the illusion of power fullfilled at all times or they are put upon. It boggles the mind, unless you postulate that the starting point of the argument is misogyny, then the ravings have a sort of coherence.