Earlier this evening I was informed by a self-declared ‘moderate’ feminist on a blog run by Ally Fogg, a Guardian journalist, that radical feminists have virtually no influence in the modern world. I get very tired of such assertions, so I was interested to be informed by a supporter in the North-East of a website which has been operating for over four years. He specifically pointed me to an early post:
http://rageagainstthemanchine.com/2009/07/05/why-i-hate-men-part-1-and-then-it-hit-me/
The post starts with this:
That’s right, I’m admitting it. Tell all your MRA buddies that they’ve been vindicated, call Rush Limbaugh, make sure to let all the other feminists know I’m blowing their cover for them. Men are obnoxious, arrogant, entitled, violent, stinky, crass, loudmouthed, stupid, craven, bragadocious, thoughtless, unreflective, abusive, selfish, lowbrow, willfully ignorant assholes. Well, most of them.
You see, I don’t hate all men, just almost all of them; some of my best friends are men (snarf snarf). There are three or four that I love and consider to be fundamentally decent human beings, there are about seven that are big enough “faggots” that I like hanging out with them, and there are maybe ten that, though I’m sure they have no idea what “male privilege” means, I would equivocate before sending to a re-education camp if given the chance (if the camp conditions were harsh; if it was like summer camp I’d snap up the opportunity to send them for a week or two of re-humanization training and craft lessons).
The post continues in much the same manner, but here’s the interesting thing. It attracted 1,152 comments. I invite you to dip into the comments at random – most support the piece, although many don’t – and tell me that this woman’s line of thinking is marginal. It isn’t. It’s mainstream.