The consequence of turning femanine equality into an ideology

[rva_jeremy]

Camille Paglia is a feminist that has been ostracised from the feminist movement. And I suspect it is because she is too in touch with her masculinity. 

I too am a Paglia fanboy! I love heterodox thinkers who can articulate the edge cases of ideologies.

My critique of the feminist movement, in general, is that it is failing to teach males about their intrinsic femininity. It is not so much that we need more female leaders (good luck with that agenda!). A more realistic goal is that we need more leaders that are conscious of their own feminine quality. The physical gender type is actually irrelevant imo. 

That's a good way of putting it. Unfortunately, I don't think "political movements" are generally very adept at reaching people at that kind of subtle, personal level.

I tend to look askance at the idea of gender essentialism -- the view that women are essentially X, or men are essentially Y, etc. -- mostly because it misses the point. Whatever most men or women are, and however that biases us, the point is to look at individuals instead of abstract instantiations of group stereotypes. Our brains our built to stereotype, to make quick decisions based on past data and generalizing. The point is not to change this way of thinking, but to understand that's how we think so we can ensure we bring our attention and empathy to the situation in spite of our bias. This line of thinking also informs my view on transgender issues, where the essentialist view rubs up against someone like de Beauvoir's ideas of gender as a performance.

Again, my main critique of feminism in general is that they are failing to teach males how to act. And they can only do that by talking to males, rather than grouping them all up as patriarchal oppressors.

Yeah, and this gets exploited because it's useful. By not teaching men and basically waiting for them to make the mistakes that our culture inculcates in them, we have set up a permanent aggressor and permanent victim class to endlessly legislate. Do we really believe these issues are going to be solved legally or politically?