Skip to main content

25 Propositions: A Comprehensive Theory of Male Domination and Female Resistance

FIVE  TENETS OF RADICAL FEMINISM

1. THE ROOT
The root of male domination in human society is biological and has developed historically into an assertion of male control over females' different biological reproductive and sexual capacities. The ancient system of the sexual division of labor has degenerated into a socially-constructed hierarchical gender system.


2. TWO SEX CLASSES
All men and only men, irrespective of other social locations, belong to the oppressive benefiting class under male domination; all women and only women, irrespective of other social locations, belong to the oppressed class, though not all individuals are directly affected.


3. UNIVERSALITY
Male domination is global with universal characteristics and institutions that control local variances.


4. MALE VIOLENCE
Male violence against females is a global emergency and ending it is the first priority of feminism.


5. TRANSFORMATION
Global male domination is integral to oppressive economic systems; when it falls, local and global socioeconomic systems and cultures will necessarily be transformed, not just reformed.


FIVE FEATURES OF GLOBAL MALE DOMINATION

6. EXCLUSION OF WOMEN
From Culture, Governance, and the Public Sphere; Male Bias in Science, Literature, Religion, History


7. ECONOMIC DEPENDENCE
Achieved through Exclusion from Inheritance, Exclusion from Accumulation, Employment Discrimination, Exclusion from Land Ownership, Unpaid Production, and Coercion


8. EXCHANGE OF WOMEN 

For Sexual Access and Reproduction, achieved through Marriage, Prostitution, Slavery, Pornography, Rape, and Denial of Birth Control including Abortion

9. COERCION

Including Female Genital Mutilation, Purdah, Rape, Forced Veiling, Honor Killing, Stratified Gender Roles, Sexist Socialization, Domestic Violence, Marital Rape, Street Harassment, Social Custom, Impoverishment, Imprisonment, Coerced Consent, and Physical Force

10. IDEOLOGY
Including Promotion of Misogynistic Prejudice, Patriarchal Religions, and Cultural Myths Naturalizing Male Domination; and Ideologies of Biological Inferiority, Biological Determinism, Anti-Scientism, Social Constructionism, Femininity, Postmodernism, and Transgenderism

FIVE INALIENABLE RIGHTS OF WOMEN

11. RIGHT TO  BODILY INTEGRITY AND SOVEREIGNTY
Freedom from male violence; reproductive freedom, including birth control and abortion; freedom from coerced sexual access, including economic and parental duress; freedom from physical mutilation; criminalization of commercial use of the female body as an object, as in prostitution, pornography, and surrogacy; freedom to speak, travel and work in the public sphere

12. RIGHT TO CHOOSE MATES FREELY
Freedom from heterosexual compulsion, freedom from forced and child marriage; abolishment of dowry and bride-price; freedom from State, religious, and parental duress in mate-choice; freedom of divorce; abolishment of legal distinctions between married and single people;universal criminalization of marital rape; abolishment of prostitution and pornography using women's bodies as objects

13. RIGHT TO REFUSE UNPAID LABOR
Freedom to refuse uncompensated domestic, emotional, social, reproductive, and other labor; freedom not to marry; freedom of divorce; equal opportunity and compensation for waged labor

14. RIGHT TO CULTURAL EXPRESSION, INDIVIDUALLY AND AS A CLASS
Right to proportionate representation in the arts, history texts, science, law, medicine, fishing, agriculture, technology, business, commerce, and all other activities of culture; abolishment of gender roles tending to lead to women's exclusion from the public sphere

15. RIGHT TO PROPORTIONATE REPRESENTATION AT ALL LEVELS OF GOVERNANCE
Abolishment of laws and customs tending  to lead to women's exclusion from governance; 50% sex parity requirement at all levels of government, constitutionally guaranteed.

FIVE THEORIES FROM EVOLUTIONARY FEMINISM
16. DARWIN'S THEORY OF SEXUAL SELECTION
Innate Drives for Food and Sex, Sexual Dimorphism, Male Competition and Display, Female Mate Selectivity, Appropriation of Female Mate Choice

17. FISHERIAN RUNAWAY THEORY
Hypertrophy, Maladaption, Environmental Factors leading to Male Domination

18. THEORY OF THE OBSTETRICAL DILEMMA
Evolution of the Female Pelvis, Brain Encephalization, Cryptic Female Resistance, Maternal Mortality, Male Pressure for Sexual Access

19. THEORIES OF THE SEXUAL DIVISION OF LABOR
Hunting and Foraging, Female Care of Infants, Male Primate Infanticide, Meat and Provisioning, Weapons; Impacts of Pastoralization, Agriculture, Horticulture

20. THEORY OF CULTURE AS A MALE EVOLUTIONARY STRATEGY
Culture as a Vehicle for Appropriation of Female Mate-Choice and general Subjugation; the Arts, Economics, Patrilinearity, War, Social Stratification, Religious Ideology, Myth, History as Artifacts of Male Reproduction Strategies; Female Exclusion and Deprivation of Female Cultural Expression

FIVE THEORIES FROM MARXIST FEMINISM
21. THE STRUCTURE OF SOCIETY
Base and Superstructure, Materialism vs. Idealism; Class Hierarchies; Intertwining of Capitalism and Male Domination

22.  HISTORY
Methods of Historical and Dialectical Materialism; Organicism, Teleology, and Essentialism; Changing Modes of Production; Engels' Essay on Origins

23. CAPITALISM
Production and Reproduction; Alienation; Primitive Accumulation; Exchange and Use Labor; Exploitation of Natural Resources; Dual Systems Theory; Unpaid Labor of Women

24. OPPRESSION
Secondary vs. Primary Contradictions; Women and Class; Exploitation; Marriage; Religion; Prostitution

25. REVOLUTION
Necessity for favorable Material Conditions to Arise; Revisionism; Collective Class Movements


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Wow! What a Finish! The Gilead Court Guts US Women's Rights in a Neat Three-Play Touchdown in the Last Ten Seconds of the 2020 Term

Nobody ever said Team Gilead had bad coaching, and the team had brought in a new quarterback and tight end during the previous term. But Team Gilead surpassed all bets, rolling over Team Women in a surprise end-run in the last ten seconds before the season adjourned. A real play-by-play of the season-ender isn't available, because Team Gilead played it close to the chest and the commentary they put out about the plays (called "Opinions") is just a pile of bullshit. But we watched the game and noticed a few things: PLAY ONE: Bostock v Clayton County   Justice Roberts passed the ball to Justice Gorsuch and timeout was called for some judicial deliberation. Gorsuch huddled with Thomas, Alito, and Kavanaugh. He said Roberts was willing to let him use his pet Scalian method, and that Team Women would give up five yards for a "win" of any kind. The other three hated the idea, but Gorsuch promised Alito his dissent could be as long and droning as he wanted, a...

The Limits of Textualism In the US Supreme Court's Bostock Decision

I'm becoming a fan of Pulitzer Prize winner Linda Greenhouse, a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times. The June 15 Bostock Opinion  written by Justice Neil Gorsuch shocked me for many reasons she touches on in the article below, which I'm pulling from its paywall and posting below. I agree especially with her assessment that Justice Gorsuch was more interested in self-aggrandizement than ideology of left or right; that "textualism" or "originalism" as a method of statutory construction is a sad diminishment of real judging and that the method allows for almost any decision to be made in any case. Neil Gorsuch decided the three associated cases, involving matters of huge moment for a large percentage of the American population, based on parsing the meaning of "because of sex" in the language of Title VII. He decided that phrase means "because of sex or anything necessarily related to sex", including the will o' the wisp...

Making Judith Butler Disappear in 3 EZ Steps, by Jane Clare Jones

JANE CLARE JONES Search for: JUDITH BUTLER: HOW TO DISAPPEAR PATRIARCHY IN THREE EASY STEPS TRIGGER WARNING: Fucking Pissed Off So, as many of you are aware, the high-priestess of genderology decided to momentarily descend from her exalted academic plinth and  relay her ‘thoughts’  on the ongoing internecine shitshow that she, probably more than anyone else, has helped to create. Except of course that, with her usual intellectual integrity, the thoughts she decided to relay about said shitshow totally ignored what is really going on, in favour of pretending that this is a conflict between the wibbly-wobbly-gender-and-sex-is-fluid-rah-rah-liberation crowd, and, basically, um, the Pope. Despite being entirely predictable, this level of disingenuous erasure, is, nonetheless, pretty staggering. As Judy is actually more than well aware, this is a conflict which turns, fundamentally, on the fault-line in feminism that she, in fact, inaugurated – a fault-line between those of us...