He For She: Lipstick on a Pig

There is all the difference in the world between treating pyeople equally and attempting to make them equal. - Friedrich Hayek

(Above is Emma Watson's He For She speech. I commented on it in real time as I watched it.

Starts well enough.

Quoting the dictionary definition of feminism is often used by the bona fide man-haters to deflect criticism. Almost always in conjunction with the feminist variant if the No True Scotsman fallacy.

She mentions being "sexualized" at 14, yet was willing to get naked on camera when everybody thought that she was going to be cast as the female lead in the film adaptation of 50 Shades of Grey. Of course, the reason she felt sexualized at 14 couldn't possibly be because she actually was being sexualized by all those sex-specific hormones that her body was flooding itself with. That would be biology when we know that teenage girls are sexualized because of patriarchy.

At 18 she laments that her male friends weren't "allowed" to show their feelings. This is a solipsistic interpretation of the growing natural behavioral differences between the sexes at that age. (It later occurred to me that, although she mentioned several times men not being "allowed" to show their feelings, she never said anything about men expressing their masculinity. This is another example of solipsism; she fails to understand that emphasis on emotions is a biologically feminine trait. Men do in fact express their feelings; it's just not with the same overt displays of emotion.)

"Why has the word [feminism] become such an uncomfortable one?" Ye shall know a tree by its fruit.

First round of applause for the women's bodily autonomy comment. Pretty sure how this is going to go now.

She says that no country in the world has achieved gender equality, but she's switching between two mutually exclusive concepts of equality; equality of outcome (wage parity, etc.) and equality of treatment (being respected). One has got to give way for the other. Equality of outcome requires inequality of treatment; equality of treatment means inequality of outcome. Can't have both.

(paraphrasing) "My parents loved me and treated me with respect and I'm a girl so they are inadvertent feminists." Nice try, though.

She keeps acting like she can't figure out why people are so put off by the mere word (feminism). It comes with a lot of baggage there, sweetheart.

And now she extends a formal invitation for men to support feminism. That would be the feminism with all the baggage that people don't want to associate with.

And now she's ticking off a short list of social ills that men face, seemingly oblivious to the role that feminism has played in exacerbating the problems.

"...a distorted sense of what constitutes male success." No explanation what this is supposed to mean. Implies that feminism contains the real sense of what constitutes male success.

Lamenting gender stereotypes now. Sounds like the old "social construct" bullshit they use to deny biological sex differences.

When men are "free from gender stereotypes," things will change for women as a natural consequence. Well, no shit. When men stop being men, things will change for women. Has she not been paying attention?

"If men don't have to be aggressive to be accepted..." More "social construct" nonsense. Men "have to be" aggressive because it's a defining biological trait. Ditto for female submissiveness. (Relax there, ladies. Individual results may vary.)

Men and women should "feel free" to be "sensitive and strong." Again, "sensitive" and "strong" are loaded concepts. Sensitive, when applied to men, means overtly displaying feminine traits. Strong, when applied to women, means...OK - I don't know what the fuck it means, but it looks like the promo photo for a Lifetime network original movie.

A "spectrum" instead of two "opposing ideals." She's saying that sexual dimorphism is an "ideal" and not a biological reality. (And this anti-scientific nonsense gets applause.)

"It's about freedom." Yeah, yeah...it's always about "freedom."

Men could be "a more true and complete version of themselves" if only they acted less like men.

And now back to income inequality, the old outcome/treatment dichotomy, as if that hasn't been debunked over and over again. Flogging a dead horse.

Now she's talking about child brides, which is the latest attempt of feminists to ride on the coat tails of third world problems. No mention of corresponding child husbands.

"We are struggling for a uniting word..." Oy vey. Change the package, put a big yellow NEW AND IMPROVED! Now with 33% less Man Hating splash on the front.

*****

The speech was long on men should be allowed to have feelings, which is just a regurgitation of the silly old get in touch with your feminine side bullshit from the 1970s. The predicament that Western men find themselves in today is precisely because of a surplus of feminine conditioning and indoctrination (it's not men that are running K-12 education, is it?) and a deficit of male role models (observe the ever-climbing rate of single motherhood). And then she wonders why the male suicide rate is so high. Normal expressions of youthful masculinity are drugged into submission or vilified as inherently harmful to both women and themselves, as echoed by the "Patriarchy hurts men, too" line that feminists trotted out as another deflection when men's rights activists started gaining a bit of traction in the public discourse.

It seems that her heart is in the right place but, right off the bat, I suspected that she was trying to put lipstick on a pig. The name of her Twitter campaign gives the whole thing away: He For She.

Entitlement much?

Indeed. Her delivery was pleasant enough, but there's nothing new here.