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An On-Air Swedish Meltdown Borne of Quiet Emasculation?
Last week, the Swedish radio show “All my friends” featured a popular Swedish comedian by the name of Kristoffer Svensson. Mr Svensson and the four other men headlining the show are a part of the intellectual establishment in Sweden and are employed by the infamous left-wing newspaper Aftonbladet, a publication on the frontlines of the last few year’s fervent identity-politics beat.
The radio show in question is, like many media outlets these days, a show about the people doing it, rather than the world around them, and this week’s installment was no exception. An audibly angered Kristoffer Svensson immediately went on a tirade about a bad book review he had received recently, and while the rant was par for the course, the message was all the more shocking.
For a good 20 minutes, the popular comedian lashed out against the “female establishment.” He described in gruesome detail how he wants to rape his female employer to death and chop up her genitalia. It is a loud, disgustingly descriptive fantasy of sexual violence and murder, and as it unfolds, the four men sitting next to him either laugh and cheer, or stay silent.
Out of consideration for the Ricochet audience, I have chosen not to use the exact explicit language Mr. Svensson used, but I think you can infer for yourself.
As the episode aired, the scandal erupted and Mr. Svensson lost his job along with his sponsors. But what was missing in the aftermath was an analysis of why, in the most progressive feminist country in the world, five young men belonging to the PC-generation went above and beyond the worst of what they’ve spent their short lives claiming to fight. Personally, I believe the answer lies within the question itself.
Over the last few months I have followed the debate surrounding rape culture and mattress girls and campus assaults, and I am becoming more and more worried about the toll this is taking on the young men and women coming into adulthood in the era of identity politics. I worry not only out of principle, but also for deeply personal reasons. I am raising two boys, and I am raising them to be men, something that is increasingly difficult in a world that keeps telling them that to be a man is to be guilty until proven innocent. I tell my boys that to be a man is to be a protector, a provider, and a leader, and that masculinity is a beautiful thing. But what I see happening in the political debate is not slut-shaming so much as man-shaming, where a predatory scarlet letter is placed on anyone daring not to denounce his sex. And we must ask ourselves: What happens to a boy who grows up to feel shame about his masculinity? How will he view himself and how will he view sex, an expression of manhood and an expression of self?
What I heard on that show, the rage and sexual aggression, is a function or rather a dysfunction of the faulty mould young boys and men are being pushed into. Modern society is constantly slapping them on the wrist, condemning their need to be men and their instinct to follow the tradition of manhood. They are being quite publicly emasculated, and the shame of being constantly inadequate will find an outlet; the anger will take its toll.
It is ironic, but not surprising, that it is a young man of the feminist era who expresses these views and has such a complete and utter meltdown. This is the generation who dances to an anthem called “Born this Way,” yet they are being told, day in and day out, that the way they were born just isn’t cutting it. Men are taught to be less of what they are, and the result is confusing at best and destructive at worst.
As for us, the women, it is equally limiting to be marked as victims from birth, and it is demeaning in every way to assume that I, as a woman, am to side with other women for no other reason than our shared basic anatomy. How is this the feminist view, how is this freedom, how is this progress in any way?
In my teens, I went all-out on feminism, thinking it meant being able to be anything I want. That I, a strong and independent woman, should be able to fulfill my dreams and live the life of my choosing. I was wrong. Because the life I wanted to lead was never right and never good enough for the cause.
The feminism I was trying so hard to belong to told me that I was a victim. Me? I never saw myself as a victim. Ever. Not once did it occur to me that there was something I could not do because of my gender. That is, until feminism told me that I was a slave to the patriarchy and that the men I saw as equals, fathers, brothers, and friends, were always one false move away from being predators. The feminism I saw came with a built-in political ideology, and while chanting that I had to liberate myself and be free, the so-called sisterhood took it upon itself to define what a “good woman” was. A politically conservative, religious prude like me did not make the cut.
To me, that seemed like less of a women’s movement, and more of a political movement, profiting off women. Real political issues were being called women’s issues, thus making them untouchable and unfit for review or critique. Making it so that if I was pro-life, I automatically became anti-women, and suddenly the entire political conversation became infantilized and intellectually dishonest.
In the current debate, I see women slaying other women in the name of feminism, for not fitting into the mold, and for not being “team-players,” thus displaying every patriarchal behavior they themselves are so eager to condemn. And when they are not doing that, they are chastising men for not being women, while simultaneously despising them for conforming to that very idea.
Kristoffer Svensson exploded, and while his public meltdown was horrible, it pointed to something very important. When we create a culture of shame surrounding sexuality and gender, we heighten and magnify the thing we attempt to disperse, and the one we mark as a beast becomes one, at the hands of an unforgiving mob. This is worse than one young man’s rant, this is Backlash, 2.0.
The people participating in modern gender discourse say they want to create equality, but instead I see them forming a hyper-sexualized society where every flirtatious glance is a rape waiting to happen and every compliment is a trigger. The fact that we have two genders (yes, I said it, two) is not what I see as the dominant cultural problem. Instead, I see a generation of men and women standing further from each other than ever before, divided by gender politics, assigning victimhood, and handing out blame. This hurts all of us, men and women alike, and it is perpetuating a dangerous idea that men can never be victims and women can never be perpetrators, and that the roles are cast before the script is even written. This looks nothing like feminism to me, but resembles a dogma like any other, as limiting as it is absolute.
The thing about identity politics is that it is standing in the way of young men and women developing their identities, being seen as individuals rather than symbols of someone else’s idea. I hear cries for freedom, but what these rallies and slogans are doing is streamlining ideas by group, until we reach one audible yet incoherent voice, drowning out what could be an actual conversation.
Published in Culture, General
Following this train of thought led me to this:
Ultimately, defeating Islamic extremism means their culture has to change so that jihad is no longer acceptable. In other words, their women have to deem it unacceptable. I remember the scenes of Palestinians celebrating in the street after 9/11, in particular this one middle-aged woman ululating in ecstasy.
What would it take to make jihad unacceptable to Islamic women, who apparently not only willingly send their young men into martyrdom, but celebrate it?
I keep coming back to us needing to get over our revulsion to civilian casualties. Their women must feel themselves to be vulnerable to retaliation for terrorist attacks on us.
I don’t like this idea. It offends my sense of chivalry, such as it is. But chivalry only really works when both sides abide by it. Otherwise, it’s a sucker’s game.
Does anyone have any better ideas for how to get Islam to forswear jihad?
If all Islamic women decided that jihad was unacceptable, most of them would be killed. Women have a great of influence in western culture because western men have granted us a great deal of influence: women only have as much power as men allow us to have. That is true both in America and in Afghanistan.
There is no question that women can be just as evil as men, if not more so, but the fact remains: men are the ones in charge. That doesn’t mean that all women are innocent. It just means that men are in charge. For a man to blame something he did on the fact that he was trying to please a woman is, um, kind of like what Adam did in the Bible. And God didn’t buy it.
Correction: in my earlier comment I referred to “all Islamic women”, what I meant to say and should have said was “all women born into extremist Islamic families and/ or cultures.” I realize that most Muslims are not terrorists, and was not trying to imply that they are. Even so, the treatment of women in the Muslim world is very troubling, and while I do not doubt that some women are guilty of oppressing other women, that does not absolve men of responsibility.
I think you underestimate how great a motivating factor it is for men to please and be respected by women. That puts a lot of power into the hands of women. Granted, that power is of a softer, more subtle kind than the assertive, aggressive sort that is normally associated with men, but it is a great power nonetheless, and it does not require men to grant it in order to exist.
On the surface, maybe. But I don’t doubt that even in Islamic societies, behind the scenes women are exerting significant influence with their men. Perhaps it is not as great as in the West, but I believe this dynamic to be a universal human trait.
I agree. But God also didn’t place all the blame on Adam, as you seem to be attempting.
Again, I’m not trying to absolve men of their measure of responsibility. I’m pointing out that they’re not uniquely responsible. The treatment of women is part of their culture. Women are part of the culture and have significant influence over it, as do men.
Also, the entire idea of the women being “oppressed” is too myopic to be of use. I doubt you’d find a very high percentage of observant Muslim women who consider themselves to be oppressed. Isn’t it true that the “peace” in “religion of peace” is really a reference to submission to Allah, rather than peace as an antonym of war? If a woman willingly submits to the tenets of Islam, isn’t she at least partly culpable in whatever “oppression” she’s under? Any that are not willing are not submitting in this sense, and I’m not talking about them.
I’m not making a cultural relativistic argument. I think their culture is flawed, and often evil. But it is the entire culture that is flawed, not just the men.
I think I see where my phrasing here was bad, attempting to fit everything in 250 words. To expand, I don’t think women are the only ones who could decide this, but I don’t expect the men to do so. If it’s to be done, it’ll be instigated by the women, behind the scenes, in subtle, often manipulative ways.
Only if they attempt it using the western, in-your-face approach.
Terry Mott: I am not blaming men for everything. I believe that women in Western cultures, where women have been given a great of power, have much to answer for. But extremist Islam is an ideology which teaches that a man should kill his own daughter if she isn’t pleasing to him. I think you vastly overestimate the degree of influence women have within that culture.
Different men are different from each other. Some men will do anything to please women, some men will only do some things to please women, and some men don’t give a damn about pleasing women; some men will kill any woman who isn’t pleasing to them. It is a huge mistake to assume that because men in our culture are a certain way, that therefore all men in all cultures are the same way. They aren’t.
I never said they were.
I’m pushing back against the cultural Marxist trope that women generally are oppressed by men, which katievs seems to have bought into, which was and is intended to divide society, foment discontent, undermine the nuclear family, and pave the way for leftist “reforms”. My argument is that women’s role in a society is a function of the overall culture, which is created and enforced by the women in the society as well as the men.
To place the blame exclusively, or even predominately, on men misdiagnoses the problem.
I am not a Marxist :) One of the many things I disagree with feminists about is their claim that they somehow fought for and won the rights women have. The only rights women have are the rights men give us. Men are in charge, in America, in Afghanistan, everywhere. They always have been and they always will be. The fact that the men in charge in places like America treat women well does not mean that they are not in charge. The fact that men are in charge does not mean that women are innocent victims. The fact that men are in charge does not mean that women are all sweetness and light, it just means that men are in charge. Yes, depending on the men they are dealing with, women might have a great deal of influence, but influence is not the same thing as being in charge.
If the fact that men are in charge means that men deserve more of the blame when things go wrong, it also means that they deserve far more credit when things go right. Western women should be down on our hands and knees thanking Western men every minute of every day for everything they have done for us. Women have definitely contributed to Western society in positive ways, but most of the credit for the success of Western society goes to men. I don’t thank feminists for the fact that I live in a country where women are free: I thank the men of my country for that.
I think you are overestimating the power and importance of government. Men may be doing the lawmaking but Barack Obama is not in charge of me.
Men do seem to dominate government positions (which would indicate that women are indeed the fairer sex) by being in charge of a government is thankfully not the same as being in charge period.