On The Difference Between 'Egalitarian Feminism' and 'Narcissistic Feminism'

(This is a little longer than my usual aphorism -- or even 'mini-essay' but the dialectic process that I will write about here has been building here...so this is where I will let it 'rip'...)


There is a radical difference between 'egalitarian feminism' and 'narcissistic feminism' even though the lines can get blurred in around the 'dividing point'.

The distinction is not too much different than the one between an 'egalitarian masculinist' if you will and a 'male chauvanist' (a male chauvanist being basically the equivalent of a 'male or masculine narcissist' or a 'narcissistic male' or a 'narcissistic masculinist'.

For those ladies who have absolutely no difficulty recognizing and pointing out the distinction between a narcissistic male and an egalitarian male, it is obviously totally 'egalitarian' that this type of logic and 'distinction-ability' should be totally reversable and applied to women as well. How much more egalitarian can this be?

Now I don't want to make a stereotypical, over-generalization here, in terms of painting all women with the same brush, any more than any man likes it when a woman paints all men with the same brush -- especially when it is a 'negative and/or toxic paint brush'. So I will put it this way: for most people -- men and women included -- it is much easier to recognize the narcissistic (selfish, egotistical, self-absorbed...) behavior of others than it is to recognize and label this type of behavior in ourselves. As a general rule of thumb, we see selfishness much easier in others than we do in ourselves. Most narcissistic people are blind to the extent of their own narcissism. They talk and see with 'blinders' on -- but they can't see their own blinders. They see the blinders very easily in others while not seeing the blinders at all -- or very little -- on themselves. They don't see their own prejudices, biases, and stereotypical distinctions in pre-judging others while 'crying foul' when anyone else puts such a stereotypical distinction on themselves. This is very much a big part of the nature and 'symptom-formation' of human narcissism.

And so it is with women as it is with men. The 'evolution of equal rights' -- whether coming from a man or a woman, a white, black, or brown person, has always been a mission mixed with personal, sexual, ethnic, and cultural narcissism. An 'equal rights' crusade on one level of human existence has generally been at least partly supported by 'hypocritical narcissism' on an other level of human existence. I don't have the time or energy now to do a thorough analysis throughout Western history but Thomas Jefferson, to my knowledge, had slaves. (Someone correct me if I am wrong.)

'Although politically radical, the women's suffragist movement was socially very conservative. Suffragists wanted to uphold Christian and British values, and often the same reformers who wanted the vote for women wanted it denied to Asian men. For many women, winning the vote was seen as simply the first stepping stone toward reforming society as a whole, and that including dealing with the corrupting influence of foreigners. Many of these early feminist crusaders stood for women's rights and -- in their own words -- a 'White Canada'. In this, they managed to be both progressive and reactionary at the same time.' (Will Ferguson, Canadian History for Dummies, 2000.)' (In my words, I would say 'egalitarian' and 'narcissistically righteous' or 'righteously narcissistic' at the same time.)


Now obviously the 'equal rights movement' on all levels -- sexual, racial, cultural...-- has made some giant strides from the 1910s, 20s, 30s, and 40s (indeed, in every new decade) -- but one thing hasn't changed: specifically, equal rights crusading and reforming still tends to come in a 'mixed bag of tricks' -- a combination of 'healthy, real equal rights issues' and a set of 'toxic, special interest, preferential rights issues' all nicely packaged together in the same 'reformation crusade' with a nice bow on top of it and a card that proclaims that 'These are all 'healthy, equal rights issues that need to be addressed and passsed as law in the name of a more democratic and "just" society.' And yes -- our famous and infamous Prime Minister Trudeau was one of the main initial perpetrators of 'toxic, unjust, special interest, preferential rights, reverse-discrimination' reforms beginning with his 'modification' of The Canadian Constitution.

The 'Affirmative Action' Program of the 1990s was probably the worst example of this type of 'preferential treatment' and 'reverse-discrimination' -- masked as 'equal rights'.

I remember reading job postings on TTC bulletin boards back in the middle 1990s that basically said at the top of each job posting that 'women and/or ethnic minorities were encouraged to apply'. Most 'white men' knew what that meant. Don't bother applying. In a contorted way, maybe the Affirmative Action Program was good in this sense and this sense only: it allowed white men to feel the very real negative experience of both sexual and racial discrimination at the same time. The Pendulum of Politics and Discrimination had swung 180 degrees the other way. White men got to experience in a very real and dramatic way for a few years what it was like to be 'discriminated against in the workplace'.

Egalitarian men and egalitarian women need to get their collective acts together. I know that you are out there but you are not operating cohesively on the same wavelength. Far too often, it is the 'rhetorically radical -- and the righteously narcissistic' that have the loudest voices, become the leaders of reformist movements, may generate some good, egalitarian changes but also some toxic, narcissistically preferential ones as well.

It is no different than the Liberals, the Conservatives, the NDPs, and the Bloc Party squaring off against each other in parliament -- each with their own respective 'idealistic ideologies', left, right, centre -- and separate rights and laws for Quebec.

In this same manner, if we are going to have 'closer to real equal rights' in Canada (and I imagine the same to be true in the U.S.), then we are going to have to start all over and 'go back to the bargaining table again -- egalitarian feminist and masculine negotiators in the same room'. This is the only way that we are going to set about fixing the collosal mess of reverse-discrimination that is our Domestic and Sexual Court situation right now.

I have no figures to support me here -- and I am sure the government isn't keeping these figures, or if they are I am sure that they are not making them public. How many men in Lindsay Jail are there on domestic violence charges? What is the percentage of male inmates that are there on domestic violence charges? 50%? 60%? 70%? 80%? 90%? I don't know but somehow I would hazard a guess that it is somewhere around 90% The Canadian public needs to know what the exact number of inmates -- and the percentage of inmates -- that are locked up in Lindsay jail -- or any other jail for that matter -- and they need to know now.

Similarily, pick any female jail in the GTA area -- I think there is one around the airport. How many women in this jail are locked up on domestic violence charges? What percentage of the women locked up in this jail -- and any other -- are locked up on domestic violence charges? Again, we need to know this now.

How many men in the GTA area are being locked up at this time on domestic violence charges? How many women? What is the percentage of men being locked up on domestic charges in the GTA vs. women? In Ontario? In each province? In Canada?

If we are to find that there is a hugely radical difference in the number of men being locked up on domestic violence charges compared to the number of women in the GTA, in Ontario, in Canada...what are we to make of this hugely significant statistic? That domestic violence is by and large totally a masculine crime; not a feminine one? Or that domestic violence is generally a two-sex problem where both the man and the woman are usually at least partly guilty in escalating the crisis -- until one sex finally takes a 'swing at the other' or 'pushes him or her away' -- and yet, it is largely only one sex that is taking 'the fall' -- i.e. being scapegoated -- for a 'two-sex problem'.

The same is largely true in divorce cases relative to property and money divisions -- and support payments.

Indeed, there are so many different but related issues here that I barely know where to start.

I will make two final points here before I stop.

One, we have to do something about the problem of 'political lobbying' just like Obama is campaigning to do something about it in the U.S.

In the area of domestic problems and sexual crimes, it is grossly politically unfair -- and again I don't know the numbers here because the numbers are covert --that there are let us say 1000 feminist groups crusading in Ottawa for constant reforms and changes in Canadian law to both 'promote equally' and to 'promote narcissistically' the rights of women -- without probably more than a handful of 'masculine rights' groups operating in Ottawa, all of which are largely 'politically impotent' with all due respect to the courage of the men who are trying...and cannot make a 'dent' on the power of the women's groups who oppose them and hugely outnumber them while the vast majority of 'silent men' in Canada, who may otherwise be extremely intelligent and rhetorically gifted, lay at home on their particular couches watching the hockey game or the football game -- and continue to allow the feminist groups in Canada to politically and legally have their way with them. I've heard of being a 'gentleman' but this has gone extremely too far...

My second and final point. I would say that it is an act of 'brutal violence' on a part of a woman that she should go to court and 'trump up a case of domestic violence against the man she is facing' -- meaning distort, falsify, and/or embellish her evidence in order to 'make a good case against the man'. This -- without a doubt -- should be a criminal offense punishable by a significant jail term. (Indeed, it is essentially no different than the president of the United States or Prime Minister of Canada -- or any member of government for that matter -- standing up in front of the American or Canadian people and 'trumping up a case for war' by distorting, falsify, embellishing, or leaving out any detail that might be critically important in getting -- or not getting -- the support of the American/Canadian/British... people to go to war.

Lives are at stake. The life and death of people are at stake. Jail terms are at stake. Reputations are at stake. Character and integrity are at stake. Careers are at stake. The welfare -- or demolition -- of a family is at stake.

In short, we need to completely relook at, and re-negotiate, the whole 'equal rights' phenomenon -- and its narcissistic -- 'special rights' -- distortion.

There are thousands of lives that are grossly at stake. Men, women, children -- and families. The whole process cannot start too soon.

-- dgb, June 15th, 2008.


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A Post-Script:

I was wondering why on this particular day -- Father's Day, June 15th, 2008, I chose to write probably my most provocative essay to date in Hegel's Hotel -- on 'equal rights'. I wrote a short 'warm-up' mini-essay on the subject yesterday, but before that, I had been heading into the subject of 'personality theory' and 'transference'. And then this essay on equal rights and feminism seemed to just 'creatively appear out of nowhere'...The subject matter was central to my writing about 8 or 9 years ago -- but not lately.

And then I went upstairs to go to bed, I lay down -- and then it hit me. This is about the 10th anniversary of the one and only night in my life that I spent in jail -- and it was on a charge of 'domestic violence'. As I lay in my bed upstairs, I suddenly had what I guess you might call a 'flashback' to the night I spent in the Richmond Hill jail. I remember the single cell, the steel bed, the concrete below it, and the bright light above me...I remember disappearing under the steel bed to the concrete floor beneath it to try to escape the bright light above me shining in my face and to try to find a darker, more comfortable place to sleep. The concrete was more comfortable than the steel. And I remember the paddywagon with the steel interior taking me to Newmarket court the next morning...Father's Day about 10 years ago -- steel and concrete -- that was the historical context out of which the essay above suddenly seemingly appeared out of nowhere in my consciousness. Freud would probably have a field day with that...His paper on this 'phenomenon' might be called 'Creativity, The Unconscious, The Instincts -- and Their Vicissitudes...

I had 'pushed' my girlfriend -- or ex-girlfriend -- at the time out of my bedroom because I had a 'brutal cold' that day, and had left work early because of it. Big mistake. She had just gotten a 'hang up' which she interpreted to be from my 'new girlfriend'. So she came into my bedroom in a storm and proceeded to 'go postal' on me. I had neither the energy nor the tolerance to deal with her that day -- especially after she said that she was afraid that I would pull a 'midnight move' on her and 'steal her stuff' (I ended up giving her a good, wood dining room table that was mine). Anyway, I (admittedly wrongfully) pushed her out of my bedroom to try to lock the door on her so she couldn't get back in. But she did get back in. I pushed her out again -- this time further into the hall, she fell onto a wooden chair and injured her shoulder -- and I was off for a night in jail, moved to Newmarket the next day, and was then tied up with lawyers and courts for a year. We finally settled out of court, I apologized, was able to avoid having to take an 'anger management program' (it was her with the much more volatile temper)...and I started dating my present girlfriend who I have now been with for 10 years without the repetition of any similar type of incident...She was there the day after that fateful Father's Day to help bail my 'sorry ass' out of jail...And now it's ten years later give or take a year...prompting an essay...and a flashback...

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'Never retract, never explain, never apologize -- just get the job done and let them howl.'

-- personal motto of activist Nellie McClung (Will Ferguson, Canadian History for Dummies, 2000, pg. 300.)


I do not want to be the angel of any home. I want for myself and I want for other women -- absolute equality. After that is secured then men and women can take turns at being angels.

-- Agnes Macphail, a champion of equal rights feminism (Will Ferguson, Canadian History for Dummies, 2000, pg. 303.)