Addendum (1/4). The following from Phil Sheridan (hyperlinks added by BV)
Re the Cathy Young piece you linked to:
She's another right-of-center feminist critic of feminism. Some of her writing is very good. But consider one thread of feminist history. Antioch College's silly sex rules in the 90's were treated as a joke and then dismissed. Antioch later folded. Yet today we have the Department of Education 'Dear Colleague' letter that encourages universities to expel accused men (even those exonerated by the legal system) in kangaroo courts and Yale's incomprehensible rules of sexual engagement. And the fight continues on the legal treatment of rape, inching ever closer to the radfem goal: all PIV [penis in vagina] sex is rape (if a woman says it is). So long as sex happens and feminists talk, this endgame can not be ruled out. Feminist legal scholars are happy to misrepresent or deny basic constitutional rights (e.g. the First Amendment debate at Concurring Opinions and at Mark Bennet's blawg about Prof. Mary Anne Frank's new Revenge Porn law) and even question how a just society can have rights that are incompatible with feminist ideals.
While Cathy Young and Christina Hoff Sommers make valid points, their stuff is not up to the task of undermining the foundational ideas of feminist theory. Unless that is done, we are just throwing our bikes in front of the steamroller in the hope that it will stop. Better is Steven Goldberg (Why Men Rule) on the physiological basis for male dominance (it's not malevolent), Roy Baumeister (Is There Anything Good About Men?) on male sexual starvation and male relationship/communication style as the foundations on which all our institutions rest, and David Benatar (The Second Sexism) on how female oppression by men is an illusion that relies on carefully ignoring the way culture uses and discriminates against men as well. Simon Baron Cohen has also done some relevant research on male and female brains. Whaddya know -- all these authors are men! Surely women can think similar thoughts (and some definitely do), but the mainstream lady pundits tend not to. Maybe they realize they'd be ejected from the mainstream if they did.
I certainly need to 'bone up' on these matters -- to use an expression calculated to 'stick it to' any crazy feminazis who may be reading this, in keeping with my rule of no day without political incorrectness and in keeping with my growing realization that we need more pushback against the extremists and less civility, civility being reserved for the civil --- but, nevertheless, I hope Sheridan agrees with me that revenge porn really is awful stuff and that it would be a good thing if there were some legal remedies that could pass constitutional muster. I hope that Sheridan would agree with me that the late Al Goldstein of Screw magazine notoriety really was a scumbag and not the brave defender of free speech that too many people celebrate him as being, as if the "freedom of speech, or of the press" mentioned in the First Amendment to the U. S. Constitution was intended to protect a moral cretin like Goldstein who, among other outrages, took nude photos of Jacqueline Onassis and then published them.
I really don't see that an ACLU shyster is any better than an idiot feminazi.
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