As I’ve grown older, I’ve changed my mind about many subjects. Generally, as a callow youth I accepted the prevailing theories only to discard them when over time I was confronted with experience that contradicted them. When I started college, I considered myself a Feminist. Women, who were the exact same as men, were unfairly not being accorded all the rights and respect that they should. Organized Feminism was the answer. My Sophomore year, that changed.
I attended a lecture by Catherine McKinnon and Andrea Dworkin with a couple of female Feminist friends. It was made abundantly clear that I, by being a man, was the problem. Male sexuality was pretty much the root of all evil. Let me say that when sometime later I heard that the two women were lesbian lovers, I was not surprised. Afterwards, when the two Feminists were enthusiastic about the lecture, that ended my days as a Feminist. I clearly had the wrong equipment for the team. Feminism as a fetish has gone on to ever increasing heights of loopiness.
Even though I got off the big F bus, I still consider myself a small f feminist. By that I mean that women are equals, but not identical, and should be treated legally and socially as such. Women should be able to chose what they want to do with their lives. But all that nonsense about the patriarchy and abortion being the most important civil right and women are still second class citizens and pretty much all of Organized Feminism and Academic Feminism — bleah. Let’s face it, feminism won some time ago and it’s time to disband the armies of Feminism. The cures that Feminism now demands are worse than the mild and/or imaginary ills they combat.
