Gender Wars: Causes and Solutions

[Ilya Shambat]

Male and Female

The errors involved in this matter are age-long. There are many who
believe such things as that men are of God and women of Satan, that
women are amoral or evil, or that women are meant to be subservient to
men. There are others who believe that men are abusers, that male
sexuality is rape, and that male perspective is by its nature
destructive. Neither of these is a prescription for a livable world.

Men and women are, first and foremost, people. This means: The natural
aspect and the uniquely human aspect. There is the natural aspect to
both masculinity and femininity; there is also the uniquely human
aspect of choice that is possessed by both men and women. The first
makes the two different by nature; the second is common to both women
and men and is the place of their similarity. Both must be seen and
respected for what they are.

As with all things of nature, both the male and the female physical
aspect are morally neutral and capable of both right and wrong, but in
ways that, being based on different natures, are different from one
another. And as with all things of choice, both the men and the women
are capable of both good and bad. There is no reason to see one as
being superior and the other inferior, any more than there is reason
to see one as good and the other as bad. Both are capable of both good
and bad. In the physical nature, they differ, with the difference
being natural, hence value-neutral. In the volitional aspect, they are
equal and must be regarded as such.
One constant error of women who stress equality is that of negating
the physical aspect and the associated differences between men and
women. They work from the position of the volitional aspect, where the
two are equal, and see the physical aspect as a hindrance to that
equality. This leads them to militate against women’s physicality,
sexuality, and other natural aspects, denying it to themselves and
other women. But the natural aspect is inherent to all who live, both
men and women, and no good can come from denying it.
The interaction to work between men and women is the one that
recognizes both the natural and the volitional aspect. On matters in
which the volitional aspect is in charge, the logical way is full
equality. On matters pertaining to physical aspect, the logical way is
seeing the natures involved and working to optimize their interaction,
the effects of their interaction and the benefit of male and female
physical natures toward one another and what they affect, while
checking for negative effects of each and of the interaction.
Physically, the man and the woman are different and will always be
different. That does not mean that one is by nature the ruler and the
other by nature the slave, and it most certainly does not mean that
one is good and the other is bad. We are dealing here with aspects of
nature, which being aspects of nature are morally neutral. We are
dealing with a non-valued duality, which being non-valued must be
approached as all non-valued dualities are to be approached: from the
position of optimization of benefit for each component, each other,
and their interaction and its effects on the rest of the world.
For both men and women to be complete and integrated beings, in both
cases both the physical, natural aspect and the human, volitional and
intellectual, aspect, must be valued, cultivated and affirmed. Within
each person, whether the person be male or female, both aspects should
be respected, developed and learn to work with one another in a manner
that is suitable for all non-valued dualities, with eye toward
optimization of the effects of both and of their interaction with one
another. In this will be developed complete human beingness, both for
people male and female, and people will become more integrated beings
possessing familiarity with both their natural and the volitional
aspect and able to enjoy the fruits of both as well as of their
interaction, and likewise to impart of their fruits.
The gender relations must therefore be seen from this dual standpoint.
On matters of volitional consciousness, men and women must be seen and
regarded from the position of absolute equality as both possessing the
same capacity – of volitional choice. On matters of nature, men and
women must be seen and regarded according to the natures involved,
with eye toward optimization of the experience for each other, for
themselves, for their interaction and its effects on the world. Both
the volitional and the natural aspect must be seen for what they are
and treated accordingly. The first must be dealt with according to its
nature, and the second dealt likewise according to its, with the eye
toward fulfillment of both; making the most of their interaction;
protecting each other from harm by the other; and minimizing negative
interaction between the two.

This means, among other things, confronting and ending violence
against women as much as abuses by women of ill will toward men. It
means doing away with necrophilic beliefs that see women as stupid or
evil as much as with other necrophilic beliefs that claim romance to
be rape, love to be a patriarchal myth, or beauty to be a mythological
construct that robs women of self-esteem. It means making it possible
for men and women to fully enjoy their physical existence and to come
together to produce and raise new life. And it also means allowing
women equal voice in all matters involving choice and intelligence,
from science and media to business, government and art.

True Reasons for Domestic Violence

To effectively fight domestic violence one must know the causes of
domestic violence. And the first step toward knowing that is knowing
what they are not.

It is not love, beauty, romance or sexuality. The sexless Puritans are
highly violent toward their wives; the unattractive women are just as
subject to violence as the attractive ones; and in cultures, such as
India and Middle East, that have forbidden romantic love and where
marriages are arranged by families, the violence is worse.

It is not low self-esteem. There are plenty of self-confident football
types who are brutal toward their wives and plenty of shy guys who
aren't.

It is not personality disorders. Not only are there many cultures in
the world where violence against wives is the social norm, but there
are in fact cultures in the world that think there's something wrong
with the man if he is not violent toward his wife.

It is not thinking oneself a victim. There are plenty of take-charge
business and military types who are severely violent toward their
wives.

So what are the causes of domestic violence? The best way to ascertain
that is to look at cultures in which it is the norm and compare them
to cultures in which it isn't. And again and again, the answer one
gets is this:

The beliefs that encourage domestic violence.

Beliefs such as:

That women are evil;
That man must be head of the family;
That masculinity means controlling the woman;
That women are "sluts," "bitches" or "whores";
That women are exploiters of men;
That women are responsible for the world's suffering;
That women should be second-class citizens and put up and shut up.

Unlike what many in psychology believe, the way one treats the other
person is based, not on what one thinks about oneself, but of what one
thinks about the other person. So if one has good self-esteem and
thinks well about oneself but thinks badly about the other person,
then one would not be good to the other person. So men's treatment of
women is a result, not of what they believe about themselves, but of
what they believe about the women - whether about women in general or
about the particular woman with whom they have partnered.

Furthermore, unlike what many in psychology believe, it is people's
conscious convictions that determine a vast chunk of their decisions.
Looking at history we see the vast extent to which people's conscious
convictions charted the course of history. And now, as ugly
misogynistic beliefs have become more and more prevalent, surprise
surprise - we are seeing a vast rise in violence against women, even
though we have not seen noticeable changes in men's self-esteem or in
the number of people with personality disorders.

And it is only by addressing and changing these ugly beliefs that
actually do cause domestic violence, instead of wasting everyone's
time on things that don't, that it will become possible to do anything
effective about domestic violence.

Debunking Beliefs That Add to Domestic Violence

Here then is my effort to assist the struggle against domestic
violence by debunking such beliefs.

"Women are immoral" - there are far more male murderers, thieves and
rapist than there are female murderers, thieves and rapists. The
convict population is vastly male.

"Women are the source of evil in the world" - which is why Hitler,
Stalin, and Genghis Khan were all women, as are most of the world's
most influential conmen, polluters and murderers.

"Man must be head of the family" - tyrannical home arrangements fail
to adequately prepare people for democracy. Democratic family
arrangements very much do.

"Man must be in charge of the woman" - in a free country everyone is
meant to be in charge of themselves.

"Western civilization is owed to patriarchy" - Western civilization
became the Western civilization largely through efforts of two women,
Queen Mary de Medici in Italy and Queen Elizabeth I in England. The
first ushered in the Italian Renaissance that ended the Dark Ages and
vitalized Europe's industry, science and learning; the second took
England from a feudal backwater to great global civilization. Prior to
that, in the fully patriarchal Middle Ages, the white man was at the
bottom of the world and could not hold up his head to Africa's
Timbuktu or Persia's Baghdad Caliphate, much less the Tang China or
Moghul India.

"Patriarchy is the root of prosperity" - which is why patriarchal
Afghanistan and Somalia are so prosperous, and why non-patriarchal
Connecticut, California, Finland and Netherlands are so poor.

"Women are emotional, men are rational" - the men who believe such
things are the least rational men out there. A truly rational person
realizes that everything with a brain is capable of reasoning.

"Women should put up with anything" - this incentives ugly,
destructive, abusive practices on the part of the men and allows the
same to continue unchecked. The only way that such be corrected is
that women not have to put up with such things.

"Women should be silent" - this excludes from decision making the
knowledge, the intelligence and the efforts of one half of humanity,
predictably resulting in ruinous group think, ignorance, vast waste of
potential, and vast degradation in condition of the world.

"Women should be second-class citizens" - there is no more rationality
in a gender apartheid than there is in a racial one. Once again, in
this situation is excluded from decision-making the knowledge and
perspective of one half of humanity, resulting in ruinous group think,
ignorance, vast waste of potential, and vast degradation in condition
of the world.

"Man owes it to the male gender to control women" - nobody owes
anything to a gender. People owe to those who have contributed to and
been benefactors of humanity in all spheres of its existence, of whom
as many are female as are male. And among the male benefactors, most
were socially progressive and hated violence against women.

"Women are exploiters of men" - there are plenty of women who want
nothing to do with men at all, but I doubt you would prefer their
company.

"Women are unfaithful" - it takes two to have an affair.

"Women are sluts, bitches and whores" - I'll say such things to your
sister, your grandmother and your daughter and see what you say or do
in response.

"Women are evil" - women who actually are evil have nothing to do with
men who believe such things and avoid them like the plague. The women
who do find themselves in the lives of such men are women who are
caring, compassionate, and like men enough to be with men, and are for
these virtues horribly punished by the men with whom they have
partnered.

The more such beliefs are challenged in society, the less there is
intellectual support for domestic violence, the more people have a
chance at a life that is not affected by the same.

Whom the "Pro-Family Agenda" Actually Serves

The "pro-family" candidates keep claiming such things as that family
is the foundation of the society and that the commitment between man
and wife is the greatest commitment out there. In fact, the "pro-
family" arguments do not relate to, and are not invoked in, the
situations that actually feature love and commitment. Instead, they
are only used to support those people who want others to stay in
situations where there is no love or commitment and to destroy many
other situations in which there are both.

First, there are many "traditional" marital situations in which love
and commitment are absent. Many marriages are either coerced or
manipulated - either through family, town, social set or religion
pushing someone into a wrongful marriage, or through someone pulling a
con job. How many men woo with roses and keep with fists, guns and
whips (and in some cases sulfuric acid)? How many women get men by
their gonads and then sue them for all their money when they get a
chance? How many families, towns, religions, social groups, push young
people into marital situations with people they do not love, and in
many cases with people they do not know? The "pro-family" agenda wants
the situations based on bullying, coercion and conmanship not only be
lifelong, but for the people who do such things to continue control
through generations. And since it is these situations - and not the
loving, caring family situations - that people want to leave, it is in
these situations that the "pro-family" arguments are invoked. Which
means that the "pro-family" agenda is nothing but an accessory to
deception, brutality and oppression and serves only those who practice
such things. Which practices through this mechanism become the actual
basis of the society.

Furthermore, there are many situations in which there is love and
commitment that are not nuclear families. Having known a number of
homosexual people of both genders, I've seen as much, if not more,
love between them, than in most heterosexual pairings. And among
heterosexuals, there are many loving situations that never get a
chance to actualize in marriage. When man and woman love each other
but the families do not want them together - when man and woman love
each other but they are from different religious groups - when man and
woman love each other but are from different sides of town - they are
typically prevented from marrying one another regardless of how deep
their love for one another is. The "pro-family" agenda does not help
such people to come together in loving, committed marriages; instead
it sides with the people who want to keep them apart. Which means once
again that the "pro-family" agenda prosecutes actual love and
commitment and empowers oppressors against both.

The actually loving, committed marriages never go to court and never
reach public media, because neither party is looking to leave such a
marriage. The marriages that do reach the courts are ones in which
someone is doing something wrong. Which means that the "pro-family"
agenda does not touch, positively or negatively, the good marital
situations, but only becomes an issue in cases of deception,
brutality, bullying, or other forms of wrongdoing. And that means only
one thing: That the "pro-family" agenda serves those who commit these
wrongs and nobody else. The husbands and wives who have love and
commitment to one another are neither empowered nor hurt through "pro-
family" policies, as such don't relate to them. It is only the men and
women who treat their partners and their children wrongfully that
benefit from institutions that make it hard for one partner to leave
the other, or for the people from different religious groups and
social sets to get married, or for young people to get away from their
home town, or for people to practice other relationship arrangements
than the nuclear family.

The "pro-family" agenda therefore does nothing for relationships that
are loving and committed. It serves only those who are interested in
committing wrongdoing, either against the spouse or against the kids.
As such it is nothing like what it claims itself to be. It's not about
strengthening loving, committed families, because such never find
themselves in the court house. Instead, it is about empowering
deception, corruption, brutality and other forms of wrongdoing; and
its effect is to encourage these practices and make these practices
the actual foundation of the society.

False Advertising and the Culture of Insincerity

An economic concept that's useful in human interaction is the concept
of false advertising. In relationships, this problem becomes formative
to destructive relationships, and a culture of insincerity results
therefrom.

The false advertiser presents a genial front and acts nice and
reasonable. Then when he has found the woman, and she is his, he turns
into a monster. The people cannot believe that he does the things that
he does, because according to the impression he gives to them he is a
nice person. And the person against whom the perpetrator commits his
abominations is blamed for all things that result, and is attacked
even further if she tries to leave the perpetrator.

In business, advertising as one thing while having a different product
is known as false advertisement. It is a crime, and one that is
severely punished. But in relationships there is no clause about false
advertising. Instead, the person at the receiving end of the
abominations is blamed for all things, and is blamed even further if
she tries to go on her own.

This of course results in tremendous ongoing hypocrisy and
insincerity. And it is a hypocrisy and insincerity that requires for
its perpetuation a destruction of sincerity wherever it can be found.
Thus, the sincere woman is entrapped; the sincere man is seen as being
fundamentally criminal. And it is through this attack on sincerity
that the culture of false advertising and insincerity goes on.

Insincerity, for its continuation, requires further destruction of
sincerity wherever it can be found. Thus, any true feeling, any true
idea, any true existence, comes under vicious attack. And the result
is a putrid swamp of falsehood and viciousness and hypocrisy that
ensnares all the living. And then this swamp claims for itself the
sanction of religion or of morality.

For this abomination to end, it becomes requisite to see all false
advertising for what it is, and to instead demand truthful portrayal
of self, of feeling, and of attitude. And then one more obstacle to
truth and justice will be removed, resulting in a more transparent
society and a more honest way of life.

Economics of Abuse and Protectionism

In climate of freedom, people go to places or situations that are good
for them. The place that is good for people will have more people
wanting to enter than wanting to leave. The place that is bad for
people will have more people wanting to leave than wanting to enter.
The better the place, the less oppressive it has to be for the people
to be in it. The worse the place, the more oppressive it will need to
be in order to keep people from leaving.

The greater the legal, moral, psychological, economic, political or
physical barriers are made to keep people from leaving, the greater is
the evidence of the destructive character of the arrangement. A place
that has worked out a livable lifestyle will not need to keep people
from leaving, and those that do leave will be replaced by a greater
number of people coming in. Whereas a place whose arrangement is
destructive, oppressive, or injust, will need to do everything that it
can to keep the people born in it or lured into it from going
elsewhere. Thus, we see such done by the worst places in the world -
places such as Afghanistan, Iran and the former Soviet Union - and the
worst places in the First World - places such as right-wing small
towns and conservative Muslim and Christian communities - and not done
by places, such as New York, San Francisco, Melbourne, Montreal,
Paris, and Amsterdam, where life is good and whose people have no
reason for trying to escape.

The same is the case with families and relationships. A person who's
good to his partner does not need to fear his partner leaving him; and
if his partner does leave him, there will be others who are willing to
take her place. Whereas a person who's bad to his partner has every
reason to fear her wanting to get away. The more done by the person to
control, oppress or undermine his partner, the greater the evidence of
the arrangement being a raw deal for the partner, the more rightful
she is in seeking to leave the arrangement. And the more obstacles put
in the way of people seeking to do that - either by organs official or
unofficial - the greater the evidence of a large-scale injustice
contained in the arrangement.

Abuse and oppression are therefore not only an injustice in itself,
but also evidence of a greater injustice. Abuse is an attempt to
reduce the value of the person in order that the person acquiesce to a
raw deal, as oppression is to keep the person in an unfair and
wrongful place. The worst abuses are either done by the people who do
not deserve to be with the other person in order to justify being with
her when one knows that one does not deserve her, or by those who want
to treat the partner like trash whatever her value relative to one's
own. In both cases, we see evidence of injustice. And in both cases,
the partner is right for seeking to leave the relationship.

The same is the case for societies, communities, families and
religions. The worse the lot in which such put people, the more they
will need to do in order to keep people from getting away. Whether
this be done through overtly oppressive and brutal tactics or through
the more subtle, more manipulative and less easily evidenced tactics,
is a matter of tactical sophistication but not of characterological
difference. The more we see done of this, whatever the tactics, the
greater the evidence of the wrongful quality and wrongful character of
the societies, communities, families or religions involved.

In the same way as trade distortions such as tariffs and quotas need
to be put in place where the domestic producers are not competitive
with foreign producers, so do distortions to people'snatural search
for better deal need to be put in place where they are being treated
injustly. The less competitive the domestic producer, the more trade
distortions must be put in place to keep people buying from the
domestic producer instead of from more efficient foreign competitors;
the worse the deal for people, the more artificial obstacles must be
put in place to keep them from leaving. This is as true for collective
and individual levels both. And in both cases what we see is sure
evidence of the unjust and wrongful quality of the arrangement.

Societies that are terrible for women - such as ones run by Islamists
- will need to do everything in their power to deceive, beat down,
disenfranchise, and sabotage women in order to keep control of them.
And the person who's not willing to treat his wife right will likewise
need to do the exact same thing. The more we see of this, the greater
and more apparent the evidence of injustice and wrongfulness of the
arrangement. And the greater the reason for people who care about such
things as justice and rightfulness to help those at the receiving ends
of the arrangement's injustice and wrongfulness to either escape or to
better their lot.

Political Correctness and Fathers' Rights

Social movements have the habit of empowering the people who least
deserve it and coming down hardest on the people who likewise deserve
it the least. When Soviet Union fell, it was not the real wrongdoers -
the corrupt bureaucrats, the KGB, the military hazers - that suffered
the most, but the honest, dedicated, hard-working people such as
teachers, doctors and scientists. So it comes as no surprise that the
gender movements of the last two decades - both feminism and reaction
against feminism - have likewise had similar results.

When political correctness swept America, I, as someone who'd lived in
both Soviet Union and America, knew how thoroughly it was
misconstrued. It maliciously attacked the very kind of men that are
inclined to be sympathetic toward women - the men in liberal cities,
liberal academia, feminism-influenced cultures - while doing nothing
to change the conservative cultures that are not sympathetic toward
women's empowerment and believe in violence and oppression toward
women as a natural way of life. It went after love, after beauty,
after romance, after sexuality, claiming these things ridiculously to
be the reason for the oppression of women, while doing nothing to
address the real reasons for oppression of women - belief that women
are evil, belief that the man must be head of the family, belief that
controlling the woman is masculinity, and belief that women are to
blame for the world's suffering or are "whores" or are "sluts" or are
"bitches" or are exploiters of men. They hyper-focused on minor issues
while completely ignoring real issues. Meanwhile they did nothing
whatsoever to address real wrongs facing women - the biggest of these
wrongs having always been, and remaining, real brutality and real
oppression in which a vast chunk of married women around the world and
in the West live daily; a real wrong that they either ignored or for
which they blamed its victims.

The feminism of 1990s resulted in many men losing their jobs, being
robbed of their income, or put away in prison, for things as minor as
telling a female co-worker that she was pretty, or for accusations
that were proven untrue. These men were very rarely real, severe
abusers. The real abusers, and especially the cultures that encourage
real abuses - the Muslims, the ghetto, the Nascar Republicans, the
Christian Right - were not touched by political correctness. They
sneered at it, despised it, proclaimed it ungodly or sissie or
foolish, and then, in the following decade, took over and went, not
after excesses of political correctness, but after women's rights as
such.

In the decade of Bush, Bin Laden, and Eminem, women came under a huge
assault from all directions. And just as in case of 1990s feminism, it
did not touch the real wrongdoers such as the world's Catherine
McKinnons, many of whom remained in quite comfortable state in liberal
cities or in the academia, but rather came down hardest on the
shoulders of good women - women who liked men enough to be with men
and were by the men they'd elected horribly punished for having made
the error of liking them. Here are just some of the more publicized
cases.

"Candice," a nurse in Kansas, lost her child to a man who'd broken her
head so badly that she needed forty stitches. The brute who did this
got full custody. "Leslie," an engineer in Indiana, not only lost her
children to her severely violent ex-husband, but is now living out of
a truck because her whole income has been garnished to pay child
support to that man. "Jeanne", a resident of Richmond, Virginia, who
has been exposing abuses in family courts after having left a severely
brutal relationship, has had many attempts on her life and has a price
on her head. In Australia, a man named Arthur Freeman threw his four-
year-old daughter off Melbourne's West Gate Bridge to her death, even
though the child's mother had repeatedly warned the court of his
violence. On average, four women and nine children in America die
daily as a result of domestic violence. In allied countries such as
Australia, it is worse.

The name of decency - and secrecy of family courts - has been used as
an accomplice to these and many other related wrongdoings. Both have
been used to silence the truth and to allow real, severe crimes
against women and children to go on unchecked. Meanwhile the name of
family has likewise been used to maintain these real, severe abuses,
and to severely persecute any woman or child who tries to get away
from them or to expose the truth of what actually happens behind
closed doors. So now, a fake disorder known as Parental Alienation
Syndrome is used against women in case either woman or the child
reports sexual abuse or real brutality, and the children are given
fully into the custody of the rapist or the batterer.

Because of the abuses of the political correctness, there has been a
strong constituency not only against political correctness, but
against women's rights and against women period. Men's movement - also
known as father's rights movement - has been spreading misogyny and
deception, making such claims as that 90% of mothers are abusive; that
all women are liars; and that patriarchial nuclear family is the only
viable way to raise children, nevermind that the most successful man
in the world - the President of United States - was raised by a single
mother. In Australia, a group known as the Black Shirts has been
picketing and assaulting women who've left severely violent husbands.
There have been women collaborating with these men as well - mostly
older women who are not subject to family violence but want the
freedom for their sons to inflict it on their daughters-in-law. All of
this, in the name of family.

The correct response to these people is that a man who cares about his
family would not be beating his wife or raping his children, and that
their use of the name of family to justify such behavior is abuse of
the name of family. A man who genuinely is a good father will not need
such movements on his side, and a man who does is not a good father.
So calling such groups men's rights or fathers' rights is a misnomer.
The correct name for the above is wife beaters' movement, in much the
same way as correct name for 1990s political correctness is not
women's empowerment but harpies' empowerment - both, at the expense of
women and men who are neither of the preceding.

As the excesses and wrongs of 1990s feminism became obvious to more
people, feminism lost much of its say in society. But that is not the
right course to take either. Clearly there is a need to confront
violence against and oppression of women, and there is very much a
need now for a better construed feminism. A feminism that recognizes
the woman's right to be feminine and to be with a man, while
supporting women against men who would abuse them and their children,
is the feminism that is sorely needed right now and for as long as
there are men in the world who think that violence against women is
their God-given right or their masculine entitlement. And it is time
that both women and men of goodwill work together to create and to
apply this real, positive feminism that actually has a possibility of
improving life for the women of the world.

Legitimate Feminism vs. Toxic Feminism

Feminism has taken different characters at different times in history,
and some have been better than others. At this time I would like to
draw a distinction between legitimate feminism and toxic feminism -
popularly known as feminazism - and show the full extent as to how
they differ from one another.

Legitimate feminism is a rightful, even a noble, cause, and one that I
have supported since childhood. Women should have rights and powers at
the same level with men; women should have a meaningful choice of
lifestyles; women should be able to protect themselves and their
children from family violence. Feminism directed toward these
directions is legitimate. Toxic feminism however is an entirely
different beast.

Toxic feminism is distinguished from legitimate feminism in its
vicious character, its shrill rhetoric, its totalitarian tactics and
its homicidal intent. All of the above make the popular term
"feminazism" appropriate to this misdirection of feminism.

The participants in toxic feminism claim that they speak for all women
without other women having given them the right to do so. In this they
seek to appropriate for themselves unelected, totalitarian, powers,
over all women in the world. They then use the false claim that they
speak for all women to ruthlessly bludgeon other women into conformity
with their party line, while doing everything that they can to ruin
the women who do not take part in any aspect of it. Like any
totalitarian, the feminazi aims to control the thought and behavior of
all women. She then takes it in the direction of teaching women to be
the worst thing that they possibly can be, while maliciously attacking
anything in women that's beautiful, loving, warm or life-nurturing -
every good quality, that is, with which women are more naturally
endowed than are men.

The toxic feminists then appropriate the attention of men who are
sympathetic toward women and use them as their lapdogs while treating
them like trash. This attention is through this denied to women who
actually merit it or stand to benefit from it; who, with men who have
goodwill toward women being appropriated by toxic feminists, have
nowhere to go except men who have no goodwill toward women - men who
are openly patriarchial, violent, misogynistic or all of the
preceding. The toxic feminists then blame these women for their
suffering and teach men who are sympathetic toward women to avoid
them, leaving them further at the mercy of their abusers. Meanwhile
they do nothing for women at the receiving end of real violence and
blame them for their suffering while treating them as an inferior form
of life. The best women - ones possessive of kindness, warmth and
beauty - become victims of the worst men to be found, as men who have
goodwill toward women are taught to steer clear of them. Meanwhile
other women come under intense pressure to destroy in themselves all
the beautiful feminine qualities and to conduct themselves like the
worst of men. The result is women being pressured to be the worst
thing that they can be, and every woman who wouldn't be the worst
thing that she can be becoming victims of abuse - either by toxic
feminists or by violent, overtly patriarchial, males. The result,
logically, is a vast degradation in the quality of womanhood; and the
American women as a result of this have a reputation as being
absolutely the worst women in the world.

As if this was not bad enough, toxic feminists also seek to perpetrate
holocausts; and it isn this that the term "feminazi" becomes
especially appropriate. Particularly, they seek to exterminate whole
sections of the population; and it is here that they are most
glaringly in violation of constitutional intent. People in America are
meant to be protected from those who would commit holocausts and witch
hunts. If one group is allowed to exterminate another group, then
other groups would do the same to still more people. If toxic
feminists are allowed to go on with a holocaust against "perverts" or
"sociopaths," then that gives green light for other groups to do the
same to others. The likely victims of that, given today's political
climate, are the people who have been allied with feminism:
homosexuals, single mothers, minority religions, the politically
liberal, and - you guessed it - feminists and feminism-influenced
women. They commit a holocaust and by doing so leave the door open to
others who would do the same, inc luding to them.

Toxic feminism is likewise distinguished by its war against love and
beauty. And at this point I will say something that has not been said
before, but should be. The toxic feminism, in militating against
beauty and love, it attacks what made feminism possible in the first
place. Feminism was strongly supported by Romanticism. It was Romantic
poets such as Blake, Byron and Keats that did the most to fight the
aggressive misogyny of Christian-influenced Western societies and to
influence men to see in women their beauty and goodness and to love
them and treat them in a noble way. And as toxic feminism directs all
its energies toward destroying the same beauty in women and that in
the man which loves that beauty, it is destroying its roots and making
to rot the entire plant.

It is for this reason that intelligent, successful women from all
around the world have been saying for over a decade that feminism has
gone too far. It has gone to the point of militating against
everything beautiful in women - to the point that it itself has
become, in a very real sense, profoundly misogynistic. It is valid to
give women meaningful choice over their lives; it is not valid to
force women to follow the party line of toxic feminism to extinction
of everything good in themselves. And it is in this matter that the
distinction between legitimate feminism and toxic feminism becomes the
most clear.

Legitimate feminism does not tell women to suppress their beauty,
their kindness, their warmth or their tenderness. Legitimate feminism
allows women to be their best while fighting for better treatment and
more rights for the woman. Legitimate feminism embraces the feminine
and gives the woman the opportunity to pursue her goals and her
freedom while protecting her from ill treatment. Legitimate feminism
recognizes and celebrates the woman and empowers her to have a better
life.

As a result of the venal conduct of toxic feminists, there is now a
large and vocal constituency against all forms of feminism - including
the better ones - and against women, proper. For this of course the
toxic feminists bear the full blame. They claim to be the voice of
feminism - indeed they claim to be the voice of women; so what would
be more likely for any number of people to conclude than that they are
in fact the voice of women, and that all women will conduct themselves
like the toxic feminists if they are allowed freedom over their lives.
This stance of course resonates with a number of statements made in
the Bible and the Koran, and the misconduct of toxic feminists is used
to claim that these misogynistic statements were right all along, as
were the people who used them to impose upon women brutality and
oppression. The back flux from this does not hit the toxic feminists.
It hits innocent women all around the world.

Toxic feminists have destroyed a good cause, poisoned the social
climate, abused everything good in women, and made women look like
utter monsters to the rest of the world, resulting in escalating
abuses against women. Their behavior was worse than self-defeating; it
was a horrible violence done to women around the world. The world will
continue to exist, there will continue to be women, and there will
remain people who seek to make things better for women. As someone in
the last category, I think that I speak for most people in it when I
say that women deserve better feminism than this poisonous
misdirection and a wiser, more principled, forms of feminism to fight
for their well-being and their rights.

Misogyny of Toxic Feminism

The practicioners of toxic feminism claim that everything that is not
toxic feminism is misogynistic. In fact it is toxic feminism that is
the most misogynistic of all recent trends. They attack every good
quality in which women are more naturally endowed than men: Qualities
such as warmth, tenderness, kindness, physical beauty, and ability to
produce and to nurture life. And in this they do severe violence to
women - violence that is unmatched except in severely misogynistic
cultures such as Africa and the Middle East.

This violence is exacerbated by the toxic feminists' ridiculous claim
that they speak for all women. The reality is, they do not. Other
women have not voted for the toxic feminists to speak for them; and
what we are seeing here is a vast usurpation of power by the worst of
women and its unauthorized use against their betters.

So, some would say, how can you be in favor of women if you hold such
convictions? My response is that different places have different
problems that require different solutions. In Afghanistan the problem
is the Taliban. In American liberal culture the problem is toxic
feminism. In both cases, the abuse is done against the best in
womanhood. And in both cases a vast wrong is done. Which means that
someone who actually loves women would stand strong against both of
these misdirections.

False Dichotomies of Political Correctness

Political correctness has also introduced two false dichotomies that
have been ruinous to womanhood in America and elsewhere that political
correctness has been applied. One is the dichotomy between physical
beauty and intelligence. The other is the dichotomy between physical
beauty and being a good human being (or, as some say, inner beauty).

I will say this right off the bat. Every female in my family, from my
grandmother to my daughter, is both smart and beautiful. Many Russian,
Jewish, and European women are. For that matter many women in
Australia and America are as well. And in claiming the two to be
incompatible with one another, the politically correct have created a
dichotomy that is blatantly false. To maintain which false worldview
the politically correct have needed to exterminate or destroy the
women who are both smart and beautiful, as these women being what they
are is a refutation of the fallacious worldview that the politically
correct have been shoving down people's throats. And this resulted in
great damage, vast needless suffering, and a huge waste of potential.
One can be smart and beautiful at the same time. And it is rank
foolishness to claim this not to be the case, just as it is utter
monstrosity to apply this foolishness at the societal level.

The other false dichotomy - between physical beauty and inner beauty -
has been just as ruinous. There are many women who are both physically
beautiful and possessive of a good heart, and anyone who has known
women from Brazil, Ukraine, Iran, Lebanon or Australia will know what
I am talking about. The false claim of the two being incompatible has
been nothing but an excuse for women possessing of neither physical
beauty nor good personal qualities to abuse and, wherever they can,
destroy the women possessing of either or both. This foolishness has
likewise had monstrous effects on the societies in which it has been
applied.

And to the Americans who still are not sure that one can be beautiful,
intelligent and a good person at the same time, I have two words to
say: Gabby Giffords.

If the point is to get people to see that women who are unattractive
can be intelligent or good people, then it is a valid point. What is
in no way valid is claiming that only women who are unattractive can
be intelligent or good people. The false dichotomies of political
correctness have had a ruinous effect on the countries in which they
have been applied. And it is time that people see this and act to
correct these damnable errors and their toxic effect on society.

Absolute Beauty and Relative Beauty

One of the errant directions of toxic feminism has been its war
against beauty. The claim continues to be made that beauty is only
culturally relative or only "in the eye of the beholder." This stance
has been shown by solid science to be wrong.

In fact, science has come up with findings both for absolute beauty
and relative beauty.

A face with certain proportions has been shown to transcend cultural
relativism and be seen as beautiful by people all around the world.

At the same time, in a study that showed 500 faces to 20,000 people,
each face got picked as the most beautiful at least once.

This means that there is such a thing as absolute beauty: Beauty that
cuts across tastes and cultures and appeals to all human beings. For
this absolute beauty there is a mathematical formula. This shows that
Romantic, Renaissance and Classical case for truth being found in
beauty is a valid one. We see absolute beauty which is a function of
mathematics, and which all "beholders" recognize as such. The
existence of absolute beauty therefore validates the case that in
beauty there is truth, as much as it demonstrates that not all forms
of beauty are culturally determined.
The matter however does not end there. Besides absolute beauty, there
is also relative beauty that is dependent on culture and taste. This
means the following: That there is someone for everyone; and that
people who are not seen as beautiful in their home place and time do
not have to be relegated to a lonely or a degrading existence.

Indeed, the findings for absolute beauty and relative beauty validate
the rightful claims of the sides in the debate while invalidating the
wrong ones. The existence of absolute beauty means that the Romantic
search for truth in beauty is valid, and that there is such a thing as
beauty that transcends cultural relativism. The existence of relative
beauty means that there is someone for everyone.

On the obverse: The existence of absolute beauty invalidates the
abuse, by women of politically correct persuasion, against beautiful
women and men who love beautiful women; and the existence of relative
beauty invalidates the abuse by nasty high school cultures and
families of young people who are not seen as beautiful in their
hometown.

To combine: There is absolute beauty that transcends culture and
society, which absolute beauty is expressed in the language of the
universe that is mathematics; and there is relative, taste-dependent,
beauty.

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty" is correct for absolute beauty, and
beauty-related pursuits such as art and poetry can arrive at universal
truth - truth which is now found to be expressible through
mathematics.

And, from the other side: There is someone for everyone.

Rationalism and Romanticism

There have been many people who have made claims that Romanticism was
some kind of pathology or some kind of aberration. In fact Romanticism
is a natural successor of rationalism, and for a very simple reason:

The rational mind has contempt for nature and feeling until it studies
these things enough to find in them a logic more intricate than any
that it has itself been able to devise. At which point the contempt
turns into appreciation and even awe. And the lack of such
appreciation is a mark of inadequate cognition and inadequate
reasoning.

This bears descriptive value; it also bears predictive value. Any kind
of rationalism will be followed by some kind of romanticism. And the
Western history, in both 19th and 20th centuries, has certainly bore
this out.

The human being can be said to have a natural aspect - its physical
and emotional aspect - that is congruent with other forms of life. It
also has an intellectual, volitional aspect, that sets action
according to knowledge and choice. Both are inextricable parts of
humanity. And while the first is congruent with nature, the second is
congruent with civilization. Which means that a full human nature is
attained through allowing people the benefit of both their natural and
their volitional intellectual aspects - and by extension of both
nature and civilization.

In addition, much of what is known as human world is a work of art and
business, the first being the fulfilment of people's creative
potential and the second of their productive potential. Both of the
above have been responsible for much of what is known as civilization,
and when the two work together - as they did say in 1920s - the result
has been a legacy of embodied splendor.

Both rationalism and romanticism are therefore valid descriptions of
different aspects of human beingness, and it is with them working
together that true human benefit can actually be attained.

Search for a Better Middle

There are many people who look for the middle; but the middle can be
found in any number of places. The middle between private sector and
public sector can be found in both preventing the other from doing its
job; or it can be found in both being able to do their work and then
to work with one another. In both cases we are seeing the middle road;
only one road is much better than the other.

Likewise we see, for example, in the matter of science and
spirituality. Middle can be found by using spirituality to outlaw
science and science to proclaim spirituality insane; or it can be
found by putting in place constructive scientific solutions to the
world's problems while also allowing people the right to spiritual
experience. Once again, both roads are middle roads, only one is much
better than the other.

The exercise therefore is not to find the middle path, but rather to
find the positive middle path. It is to see what each party is right
about and put these things together, while doing away with the matters
on which each party is wrong. The result is not compromise but rather
positive synthesis, resulting in maximal benefit from both sides and
minimal wrongdoing by each.

This logic can be applied to an array of matters. In matter of
environment and technology, the positive middle path consists of
allowing maximal technological progress while protecting what man has
not created and cannot recreate. It consists of preserving nature and
pursuing technological and economic development, allowing people to
benefit from both technology and nature. In matter of private sector
and public sector, the positive middle path consists of allowing
business to do its work of creating prosperity while allowing the
public sector to do its work of providing education, security,
scientific research, law enforcement, and projects such as the
Interstate and the Internet that facilitate prosperity. In matter of
people's physical and volitional natures, the positive middle path
consists of allowing people the maximal fruition of both and their
collaboration. In matters of thinking and feeling, the positive middle
path consists of allowing people development and enjoyment of both -
and the two working together to achieve insight and wisdom faster than
either would on its own. And in matters of gender relations, it
consists of making the most of both physical relations and equality in
social, economic and political fields. In all cases the approach is
not just the middle road, but the better middle road that allows the
best of each side and the best of their collaboration.

This is the case for all natural, non-valued, dualities - dualities
such as environment and technology, private sector and public sector,
male and female, thinking and feeling, and further on down the line.
The approach is to enhance the benefits of each side and of their
positive collaboration - to allow the supply of both and to meet the
demand for both thereby. In case of valued dualities, such as good and
evil, this approach does not hold, and optimization is the matter of
maximizing the good side of the duality. And never are non-valued
dualities (such as male and female) and valued dualities (such as good
and evil) to be mistaken for one another.

Seeking the positive middle path - one that takes what each side is
right about and combines it - is a superior path than simple
compromise, which can go in any direction, from the best to the worst.
And in matters of collaboration as well as negotiation, it is this
positive middle path that ought to be sought and not anything below.
Pursuing, not just middle ground, but the optimization of both sides
and their interaction, is a path that allows maximal benefit and
should be looked for as much as is possible.

Intercultural Relationships and Gender Fairness

Everybody thinks that they know what is justice, but what they
conceive of as justice is different from place to place. The just-
world hypothesis of different people in different places and times
conceive of completely different kinds of justice. And it is by flux
between people and places that any meaningful concept of what is
justice can be attained.

In Muslim and rural Indian cultures, it is seen as justice that man
bludgeon the woman into being his dog and kill her if she disobeys in
the slightest. In American feminist culture, it is seen as justice
that a woman treat men like garbage, get a coworker fired for sexual
harrassment if he tells her she's good-looking, deal with all women
who are nicer and prettier by abusing and sabotaging them and
destroying their careers and relationships, abuse and emasculate any
relationship partner, screw exes in court out of every cent they can
get, claim that anyone who objects to such conduct is a misogynist or
a bimbo, and aim to destroy as many men and beautifulwomen in one's
life as one can and then claim oneself strong or smart or spiritual or
a true servant of woman's cause. Both sets think that they are right
and that what they are doing is justice. With such extremes in the
world claiming themselves to be justice and righteousness, the way to
arrive at any realistic notion of the preceding is for the real-world
mechanism of people choosing each other based on how they are willing
to treat each other to balance out whatever is believed in their
respective homelands - and create a more informed conceptions of
justice and a more balanced just-world hypothesis in every component
part of the world.

It is ridiculous for Islamists in Middle East to claim to be speaking
for justice; in Middle East, Islamists are the injustice. The same is
true for the Dworkin-McKinnon types in United States. The in-good-
faith feminists have a real point about behavior of men in Middle East
and many other parts of the world (and some in the West), and
Islamists about behavior of the not-in-good-faith ones among American
women. But they both have much less of a point at home. On their home
turfs, they apply a grossly imbalanced conception of justice pursuant
a grossly slanted just-world hypothesis to shape the country's concept
of justice into gravely distorted forms that lead to grave
mistreatment of people - women or men - who have done the least to
deserve it.

A Tale of Two Worlds

There are two worlds that exist side by side. In one of these worlds
(mainly Third World but also some parts of Western countries), men are
brutal, oppressive and severely abusive; women are warm and loving;
and the men are brutally dominating the women. In another of these
worlds (mainly the Western feminist-influenced cultures), men are
gentelmantly, loving and generous; women are shrill, abusive and
nasty; and the women are abusively dominating the men.

On the feminist side of town, anything is seen as abuse, and men lose
their jobs for something as little as telling a co-worker that she is
pretty. On the patriarchial side of town, men not only get away with
severe abuses against women but think that their country, their
religion, their tradition or their gender demands the same. In both
cases what we see is a vast injustice. And there is a way to fix both
injustices at once without even involving the military or the
government.

What am I talking about? Well let's look at recent history. In not-so-
distant past, America had the world's best businesspeople and hateful,
overly demanding workers; China had the world's best workers and a
grossly incompetent management. When American business got together
with Chinese workers, the results were spectacular. Over a billion
people rose out of abject poverty in three decades. Consumers got
better and cheaper products. And business experienced a vast growth,
to the point that the stock market capitalization rose ten times.

What I advocate therefore is a similar reality-based solution, and
that is: Create a large-scale international flux for intermarriage.
Allow the better men in the mix (ones in liberal Western cultures) and
the better women in the mix (ones in Third World-type patriarchial
situations) to come together for relationships. This will carry a
number of benefits, including:
- Better relationships for both parties than they could expect to have
with the other gender at home;
- A real-world reward for better treatment of one's partner;
- And a real-world incentive placed upon the offending parties in each
culture to conduct themselves in a better way.

America's toxic feminists won't knock it off with their nasty behavior
unless they have to. The same is the case with the genuinely abusive
men in cultures that are overtly patriarchial. There is only one way
in which they would knock it off with that kind of behavior, and that
is if they know that the people who are likely to be their victims are
not limited in their choices to them and can go elsewhere to be with
partners who would treat them better.

The more Western liberal-minded men go with women from cultures such
as Middle East, Latin America and Eastern Europe, the better will be
the lot both of the men and of the women who stand to be involved in
the mix. The more the willingness to be good to other gender will be
rewarded rather than taken advantage of, as is the goodwill of Western
liberal men by the practicioners of toxic feminism and as is the
goodwill of women in overtly patriarchal cultures by the men in those
cultures. The more there will be a sense of perspective given to the
people in the cultures involved; and the more there will be a reason
for men in patriarchal cultures to be better to women and for women in
feminist cultures to be better to men.

The best aspect of real-world mechanisms for solving injustices is
that they can be made to take place with minimum of resource
expenditure. People will naturally gravitate to those who would treat
them better, in the same way as in global economy business naturally
gravitates to those who are willing to work. A global intercultural
flux for intermarriage will reward men who are willing to be good to
women and women who are willing to be good to men. And that will
create better relationships and, over the long run, better qualities
in both genders.

And that will go a long way toward solving the world's problems as it
relates to this issue.