Insults From Insulting Feminists

     There are many persons who hold strong opinions and who disdain the divergent opinions of others. Among these are many who, when confronted by those divergent opinions, are offended by them – indeed, by the very existence of those who dare to differ with them. However, for the most part they can’t or won’t argue for their positions.

     I’d imagine that most Gentle Readers of Liberty’s Torch have met such persons. Politics in our era is like that. But the syndrome isn’t confined to politics. It extends to many other fields, including economics, religious affiliations, social conventions, and matters of courtesy and propriety.

     I can think of four categorical ways of averting a conversation about a difference of opinion. In descending order of amicability, they are:

1. Agreeing to disagree;
2. Silence;
3. Dismissal;
4. Insult.

     Agreeing to disagree is sometimes merely a way to defer an argument, and sometimes a sincere expression of distaste for such things. In either case, it’s perfectly polite. While silence isn’t quite as amicable as agreeing to disagree, and indeed may conceal dark emotions, it isn’t overtly impolite – and certainly not socially as bad as the Cut Direct. Dismissal and insult are on the other side of the line that divides what’s universally acceptable from what earlier, better reared generations would have said “that’s just not done.”

     It speaks volumes about our milieu that dismissal and insult should have become so commonplace.

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     By now my Gentle Readers have probably read about the ridiculous behavior of Charlotte Proudman upon receiving a somewhat clumsy compliment to her appearance. Stacy McCain has penneda good piece on the emblematic nature of Proudman’s subsequent behavior:

     By now, the entire Internet knows Charlotte Proudman (@CRProudman)hates heterosexual men:

     I find your message offensive. I am on [LinkedIn] for business purposes not to be approached about my physical appearance or to be objectified by sexist men. The eroticisation of women’s physical appearance is a way of exercising power over women. It silences women’s professional attributes as their physical appearance becomes the subject. Unacceptable and misogynistic behaviour. Think twice before sending another woman (half your age) such a sexist message.

     .... Is it really true, as she insists, that complimenting a woman on her appearance “is a way of exercising power over women,” so that all such compliments are inherently “offensive,” “sexist” and “misogynistic”? Daily Mail columnist Sarah Vine mocked that idea as absurd:

     If that is what counts as ‘objectification’ and ‘misogyny’ these days, then the human race is in deep trouble. Not only does it beggar belief that Ms Proudman could have inferred any slight from such an innocuous missive, it also makes me fear for the next generation of women. After all, heaven help the poor man who actually tries to ask her out on a date, let alone try to get her into his bed. He’d have better luck propositioning a porcupine.

     This hits the nail on the head, and Sarah Vine further assert that “most normal women . . . would be delighted” to have a man praise their online profile photos, as “compliments are few and far between these days,” which is to say:

1. Radical feminists are not “normal women”; and:
2. Many women don’t know how to deal with compliments because men “these days” are afraid to compliment women, as men may be accused of sexual harassment for doing so.

     Those two observations are causally coupled. As McCain goes on to note:

     Feminists have deliberately created a climate of fear in schools, universities and workplaces, where any male who dares so much as speak to a woman is at risk of devastating accusations that he has “harassed” her. Even if he has done nothing that could plausibly be viewed as “hitting on” her, the male who says or does anything that a woman finds “unwelcome” or “offensive” could be charged with fostering discriminatory conditions. This involves what is known as the “hostile environment” theory of sexual harassment, which views any expression of male heterosexuality as a potential source of discrimination against women.

     It’s rather difficult to tell a feminist from a normal woman by her appearance or her behavior in the performance of her occupation. Thus, the sort of compliment once routinely proffered by a man to a woman who had taken the trouble to make herself attractive is a risky proposition. Indeed, it would be a risky proposition even were the intended recipient guaranteed to be a normal woman, as many such women believe that to accept a compliment of that sort graciously somehow “betrays women’s interests.”

     Yet the insulting accusation that a compliment rendered to a woman’s appearance somehow demeans her is clearly not the only response even a sincerely offended woman could make. (This, of course, assumes that it is possible to be sincerely offended by a compliment.) She could remain silent. Or she could offer a dismissive response; the best of these is “Thank you,” if delivered orally without warmth. The insult is a way to proclaim superiority – perhaps the most improper, ungracious, utterly despicable possible reply anyone could make to a compliment.

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     In these latter days of the Republic, when pistols at dawn are forbidden us, there isn’t much one may do to satisfy one’s sense of wounded honor upon offering a compliment and receiving an insult in response. However, the insulted party can console himself with one certainty: that his comportment is the superior of the two. They who answer graciousness with abuse might be fleetingly proud of themselves – a sort of ersatz courage attends such behavior – but their conduct always has consequences they will not enjoy. As I’ve said many times before, word gets around -- and the blot on one’s escutcheon from crude, boorish, ungentle behavior is particularly difficult to eradicate.

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     Let’s not overlook the central irony of behavior such as Proudman’s. Her insulting riposte to her colleague is founded on a radical-feminist ideology, just as she expressed it. That ideology is held by a small minority of women, though it has had influence beyond that cohort. Has she made her ideology more attractive by her behavior? I would say precisely the reverse. Has she made it likely that others who don’t share that ideology and become aware of her brutality will join in her opinions? Again, the reverse, for the normal woman is aware that getting along reasonably smoothly with men is a practical necessity, even if she is uninterested in garnering men’s praise for her appearance.

     It appears to these eyes that Proudman is unable to grasp those simple facts, which casts considerable doubt on her intellect. It certainly suggests that she is unable to argue for her radical-feminist opinions...assuming that there could ever be a coherent argument that women, who owe the breadth of opportunities they enjoy today entirely to the labors of men, are somehow “oppressed” by the men who have opened those opportunities to them.