Marita Vargas
Has Hillary Clinton scored a feminist victory?
By Marita Vargas
When Hillary Clinton clinched her party's nomination on June 7, she made a few predictable remarks about voters having cracked the glass ceiling that had prevented other women from rising to such political heights. "Tonight's victory is not about one person. It belongs to generations to (sic) women and men who struggled and sacrificed and made this moment possible," she said as quoted by the Wall Street Journal. Many American women will vote for Hillary Clinton because she is a woman, and if she is elected they will cheer and pat each other on the back because America has finally realized the dream of sexual equality, a feminist dream. Poor dears – they don't even know that there is no such thing as feminism.
Hillary Clinton perfectly illustrates this point. After all, a woman who has been the shill for every man in her academic and political life can't really be the poster child for feminism. Can she? First, she put her political ambitions on hold for hubby, William Jefferson Clinton. Then she stepped aside for Barak Obama for the benefit of the male-dominated Democrat party. She has variously been the mouthpiece for the ideas of Barry Goldwater, Saul Alinsky, and Michael Lerner. Men have been her mentors, her friends, and her guides. Before the masses of loyal female voters ever marked a ballot, a host of men had left their mark on Hillary Clinton.
In order to be where she is today she has had to do exactly what she has been told to do by men. When her national health care initiative went down in flames, she took it like a man. When the Benghazi compound went up in flames, she took it like a woman. Is there a man on the planet who could have wormed his way out of blame for that fiasco by screeching, "What difference does it make?" No, there is not. If feminism means anything at all, it means women will stand up and take the heat when the heat is on. If they cannot, there is no feminism; there is only an empty chivalry that makes excuses for the little lady. No woman can have it both ways. Nevertheless, feminism is about having things both ways and then some.
When an ideology tells a little girl that she can be anything she wants to be on a sliding scale from female to male, that she can even grow up to be a man, no ideology is involved, and not one iota of real thinking. The whole thing is a smoke and mirrors act.
Feminism has always been caught on the horns of a dilemma: Is there such a thing as a feminine essence? If there is then it just might make sense to let little girls play with dolls, collect flowers, and use a bathroom marked "Girls." Of course some girls will prefer baseballs, insects, and cars, but they will still prefer a bathroom marked "Girls."
On the other hand, if there is no such thing as a feminine essence, then it just might make sense to enlist girls in the cause of remaking society by smashing its foundations and rebuilding it in the image of a Jean-Jacque Rousseau or a Karl Marx or a Charles Darwin or a Jean-Paul Sartre – all men, all patriarchal, all terribly bad at inspiring utopias.
Enter feminist dilemma number two: Men have been in the philosophical-theoretical-theological business a lot longer than women. It's hard to hold any position that a man has not thought of first. The best any women can do is to choose her spiritual paternity and get on with living, but that is exactly what a man must do too – nothing particularly feminist in that.
Now masses of women might be wrong-headed in ideological terms, and hitch their philosophical wagons to the dead ideas of dead white males; but when feminists seek to enlist little girls in what they have called the re-gendering project, without telling said little girls that they will no longer be discernably female at the end of the process, their actions border on the diabolical. "Cheer up, women of the future," they might as well say, "You're contributing to the day when public restrooms won't be marked for either sex." That is where we are heading.
Nearly as bad as drawing children into their schemes is deceiving other women into believing that breaking down the divisions between male and female will result in a golden dawn for mankind. What a lie. There will be no mankind left, and no freedom of any kind. The true objective of the gender-benders is to break down the binaries between male and female, human and machine, human and animal. The goal is to concentrate the design and manufacture of the evolving human race into the hands of a power elite that controls the means of production and reproduction. After this the trans-humanist stage of history will have begun. History will be over of course, because history depends on human regeneration.
It is easy to see that under such a regime, freedom will be a thing of the past, so too will the individual be a thing of the past, most especially the individual woman. It is she who will surrender the singularly glorious ability of bringing new life into this world, and in the name of what? The ideas of Shulamith Firestone or Donna Haraway? But aren't these women simply recycling Marx and company?
Instead of this, women and men should be laboring to create a world where a little girl can grow up to be anything she wants to be because she can grow up to be herself. If helping her to reach her full potential in every area of life can be called feminism, then we have a definition, of sorts: Feminism is nurturing girls. Equality is nurturing boys as well.
Focusing on the girls for the moment we can say: A girl who has been rightly nurtured can grow to use her God-given talents to the utmost. She can express her feminine essence without fear of reprisals from her "sisters" who don't know their own gender. She can hold any office, perform any service, and undertake any endeavor for which she is qualified. If she must struggle and overcome obstacles that get in her way – what of it? That is also true for any man. And if a man she calls a friend should call upon her in his hour of need because enemies who would rape and kill him are at the door and she is the only one on hand to save him – then she will save him. Not because she is a woman, but because she is a human being. Oddly enough, feminists as different in orientation as Dorothy L. Sayers (Christian) and Simone de Beauvoir (Existentialist) have stated that freedom for women resides in being fully human and not merely female.
If Hillary Clinton had saved Ambassador Chris Stevens, she would have become the woman of the century; she would have stepped into a role that echoed biblical legend; she would have become another Deborah. It was Deborah, the Judge of Israel, who accompanied General Barak into the field because he was too frightened to face the enemy without her. She foretold the victory that day because she knew the God of the Bible and she knew her calling. It has been a long time since an American leader of either sex could claim to know the same.
Incidentally, if Hillary Clinton had rescued Ambassador Stevens on that terrible night, she would have justified one of cultural feminism's favorite caveats: Women should serve in high office because they bring compassion to the job. Did Hillary behave like a woman on that night? She made a political calculation, developed a cover story, and enlisted help to carry out her plan. On examination, we must say that she did not. Except for bringing the proceedings to a screeching halt, she behaved just like a man.
If compassion and empathy and right action in the face of danger and fear were the exclusive domain of women, it would be right to vote for a woman every time. However, these virtues belong to both sexes; they are the better part of what makes us human. Without them no man or woman is qualified to be president of the United States or of the local PTA. Without them no society can hope to survive.
Women who vote for Hillary Clinton for the sake of her gender, in spite of the fact that feminist ideology states that gender counts for precious little, should at least recognize the contradiction in terms. If they could, they might learn to think. America needs thinking women. America needs women who know when to act. We could use a woman like Deborah. Likewise, we could use a man like Daniel. It is women and men of integrity and grit that we need, not an ideologue whose beliefs are a subset of the worst ideologies that have ever threatened to destroy a nation.
© Marita Vargas
June 13, 2016
When Hillary Clinton clinched her party's nomination on June 7, she made a few predictable remarks about voters having cracked the glass ceiling that had prevented other women from rising to such political heights. "Tonight's victory is not about one person. It belongs to generations to (sic) women and men who struggled and sacrificed and made this moment possible," she said as quoted by the Wall Street Journal. Many American women will vote for Hillary Clinton because she is a woman, and if she is elected they will cheer and pat each other on the back because America has finally realized the dream of sexual equality, a feminist dream. Poor dears – they don't even know that there is no such thing as feminism.
Hillary Clinton perfectly illustrates this point. After all, a woman who has been the shill for every man in her academic and political life can't really be the poster child for feminism. Can she? First, she put her political ambitions on hold for hubby, William Jefferson Clinton. Then she stepped aside for Barak Obama for the benefit of the male-dominated Democrat party. She has variously been the mouthpiece for the ideas of Barry Goldwater, Saul Alinsky, and Michael Lerner. Men have been her mentors, her friends, and her guides. Before the masses of loyal female voters ever marked a ballot, a host of men had left their mark on Hillary Clinton.
In order to be where she is today she has had to do exactly what she has been told to do by men. When her national health care initiative went down in flames, she took it like a man. When the Benghazi compound went up in flames, she took it like a woman. Is there a man on the planet who could have wormed his way out of blame for that fiasco by screeching, "What difference does it make?" No, there is not. If feminism means anything at all, it means women will stand up and take the heat when the heat is on. If they cannot, there is no feminism; there is only an empty chivalry that makes excuses for the little lady. No woman can have it both ways. Nevertheless, feminism is about having things both ways and then some.
When an ideology tells a little girl that she can be anything she wants to be on a sliding scale from female to male, that she can even grow up to be a man, no ideology is involved, and not one iota of real thinking. The whole thing is a smoke and mirrors act.
Feminism has always been caught on the horns of a dilemma: Is there such a thing as a feminine essence? If there is then it just might make sense to let little girls play with dolls, collect flowers, and use a bathroom marked "Girls." Of course some girls will prefer baseballs, insects, and cars, but they will still prefer a bathroom marked "Girls."
On the other hand, if there is no such thing as a feminine essence, then it just might make sense to enlist girls in the cause of remaking society by smashing its foundations and rebuilding it in the image of a Jean-Jacque Rousseau or a Karl Marx or a Charles Darwin or a Jean-Paul Sartre – all men, all patriarchal, all terribly bad at inspiring utopias.
Enter feminist dilemma number two: Men have been in the philosophical-theoretical-theological business a lot longer than women. It's hard to hold any position that a man has not thought of first. The best any women can do is to choose her spiritual paternity and get on with living, but that is exactly what a man must do too – nothing particularly feminist in that.
Now masses of women might be wrong-headed in ideological terms, and hitch their philosophical wagons to the dead ideas of dead white males; but when feminists seek to enlist little girls in what they have called the re-gendering project, without telling said little girls that they will no longer be discernably female at the end of the process, their actions border on the diabolical. "Cheer up, women of the future," they might as well say, "You're contributing to the day when public restrooms won't be marked for either sex." That is where we are heading.
Nearly as bad as drawing children into their schemes is deceiving other women into believing that breaking down the divisions between male and female will result in a golden dawn for mankind. What a lie. There will be no mankind left, and no freedom of any kind. The true objective of the gender-benders is to break down the binaries between male and female, human and machine, human and animal. The goal is to concentrate the design and manufacture of the evolving human race into the hands of a power elite that controls the means of production and reproduction. After this the trans-humanist stage of history will have begun. History will be over of course, because history depends on human regeneration.
It is easy to see that under such a regime, freedom will be a thing of the past, so too will the individual be a thing of the past, most especially the individual woman. It is she who will surrender the singularly glorious ability of bringing new life into this world, and in the name of what? The ideas of Shulamith Firestone or Donna Haraway? But aren't these women simply recycling Marx and company?
Instead of this, women and men should be laboring to create a world where a little girl can grow up to be anything she wants to be because she can grow up to be herself. If helping her to reach her full potential in every area of life can be called feminism, then we have a definition, of sorts: Feminism is nurturing girls. Equality is nurturing boys as well.
Focusing on the girls for the moment we can say: A girl who has been rightly nurtured can grow to use her God-given talents to the utmost. She can express her feminine essence without fear of reprisals from her "sisters" who don't know their own gender. She can hold any office, perform any service, and undertake any endeavor for which she is qualified. If she must struggle and overcome obstacles that get in her way – what of it? That is also true for any man. And if a man she calls a friend should call upon her in his hour of need because enemies who would rape and kill him are at the door and she is the only one on hand to save him – then she will save him. Not because she is a woman, but because she is a human being. Oddly enough, feminists as different in orientation as Dorothy L. Sayers (Christian) and Simone de Beauvoir (Existentialist) have stated that freedom for women resides in being fully human and not merely female.
If Hillary Clinton had saved Ambassador Chris Stevens, she would have become the woman of the century; she would have stepped into a role that echoed biblical legend; she would have become another Deborah. It was Deborah, the Judge of Israel, who accompanied General Barak into the field because he was too frightened to face the enemy without her. She foretold the victory that day because she knew the God of the Bible and she knew her calling. It has been a long time since an American leader of either sex could claim to know the same.
Incidentally, if Hillary Clinton had rescued Ambassador Stevens on that terrible night, she would have justified one of cultural feminism's favorite caveats: Women should serve in high office because they bring compassion to the job. Did Hillary behave like a woman on that night? She made a political calculation, developed a cover story, and enlisted help to carry out her plan. On examination, we must say that she did not. Except for bringing the proceedings to a screeching halt, she behaved just like a man.
If compassion and empathy and right action in the face of danger and fear were the exclusive domain of women, it would be right to vote for a woman every time. However, these virtues belong to both sexes; they are the better part of what makes us human. Without them no man or woman is qualified to be president of the United States or of the local PTA. Without them no society can hope to survive.
Women who vote for Hillary Clinton for the sake of her gender, in spite of the fact that feminist ideology states that gender counts for precious little, should at least recognize the contradiction in terms. If they could, they might learn to think. America needs thinking women. America needs women who know when to act. We could use a woman like Deborah. Likewise, we could use a man like Daniel. It is women and men of integrity and grit that we need, not an ideologue whose beliefs are a subset of the worst ideologies that have ever threatened to destroy a nation.
© Marita Vargas
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