Non-Religious Cults – Radical Gender Movement And New Feminism

[sorenG]

This rant is not about religious cults, but something just as disturbing. I hope this is the right place.

It feels just like my daughter has joined Scientology or became a member of Rev. Moons happy little family.

 

I’m Scandinavian - English is not my first language…

 

We have a very smart daughter, with great empathy for the weak, the refugees, the persecuted, the poor, and always wanting to make the world better. She worked as a volunteer in a refugee camp in Greece last winter, and is studying Human Rights at a local university.

In this spring she has been an exchange student, studying at a university in the USA, and there she has spent 4 month studying New Feminism and Gender studies, and has returned with some very disturbing views:

- All women is structurally oppressed, except for the muslim women, who has complete freedom and respect in their own society. (I saw an article on that respect here on ex-c, and that is the most stupid thing I have ever seen)

- The most oppressed is – surprisingly enough – the educated, white women, as the oppression is hidden, and thus is much worse.

- All women and all from any branch of the LBGT+ movement is victims of the white, colonialist, misogynic, homophobic, rich, male, heterosexual men. Oppression everywhere.    

- All news, discussions, films, books, politics  - anything you say – is deconstructed and rebuilt to fit with gender/feminism oppression and victim view.

 

She considers herself a full-time victim. Racism, wars, poverty, right wing extremism (a lot of that shit here + the racism), injustice etc.  is no longer anything to notice.   

 

She is changing her name to a gender-neutral one and will not accpt that we call her "she" og "woman",

 

And nothing of the above can be object for any discussion between us, as I as a rich white heterosexual male is a structural oppressor, and therefore has no say in this matters.

We – my wife and I - have always treated sons and daughters alike. We supports equality of every kind. We have friends, coworkers and family who is LBGT, and it is nothing anyone takes notice of any more here in our country.

 

So what is happening? Is Radical Gender movement and New Feminism becoming sects? I feel core beliefs are not to be questioned, just as in a real religion. (as if any religion can be real). Any other views are considered an attack and to be retaliated against.

 

And why the holy fuck is it so important to see oneself as a victim from dawn to dusk???

 

And why is it so important to upgrade your own victimhood and downgrade what oppression that happens elsewhere. In our country the greatest issues is racism and a miserable treatment of the poorest.  

Islam is probably neither better or worse than the other religions. But to think that Muslim women in the Middle East generally is treated better the women in the secular west is nonsense beyond any measure.

Phew, thx for listening.

Soreng

[TheRedneckProfessor]

I don't really know what to say, except as one white male to another, I'm sorry we're going through this.

[buffettphan]

As a white female, I'm also sorry that you personally and society in general are going through this BS.  I agree with you that it is a cult and to some, a religion.

 

(I obviously feel this way because I am soooo oppressed. /sarcasm)

[Lilith666]

Yeah, I can't stand that either. I didn't leave the I'm-a-victim Christian mentality just to join another group with the same mindset.

[Thurisaz]

Contemporary feminism definitely has a very vocal lunatic fringe. But as it has grown from noble and just origins no one must criticize it in any way. Yay political correctness. </sarcasm>

 

It is a cult just as bad as any morontheist coven. Certain female members of this very site are perfect examples of it.

[miamia]

Lol does she know about the incidence of fgm in muslim communities????

I'm so sorry you are going though this with your daughter :/

Ugh

[rjn]

Välkommen! Sjovt att se en annan skandinav här!

 

I'm sorry to hear about your daughter, but sadly enough, it's not all too uncommon these days. Radical political movements are indeed very much like cults. The myth that Islam is somehow just misunderstood and that it really is a "feminist religion" seems to be very widespread among certain feminists and it never ceases to baffle me.

[TABA]

SorenG, I'm sorry you're having to watch your daughter fall under the spell of this cult, because it surely seems cultish to me, a kind of secular fundamentalist religion.

To travel from Scandinavia all the way to America to pursue Gender Studies is not something you do lightly, I think. Sounds like she was already inclined in that direction.

I wish I could give you advice but those of us who left religion know that you can't be reasoned out of something that you weren't reasoned into, in other words emotion very often wins out over reason.

As much as we might wish for the end of religions, human beings sadly have a habit of creating new cults to replace the old. The voice of reason will be a lonely one for a very long time, I'm afraid.

I wish the very best for you and for your family!

[Daffodil]

I don't know how old your daughter is, but my best hope for you and her is that she will grow out of this fervency. Young people's brains are not fully developed until around age 27(?) I think. They tend to get caught up in movements easily and think they know everything. This is why so many Christian groups target college students. Thankfully, most of us adjust our views to more moderate levels as we age and experience the ups and downs of life. I'm sorry you're dealing with this, and especially that she's looking down on you and your wife so strongly. You've undoubtedly loved her and given her everything she ever needed to grow and now this. I'm so sorry.

 

As for gender studies and other radical "studies" in universities, there are professors that have NEVER LEFT the university system and worked or even lived in the "real" world once they themselves graduated college. They have no real world experiences to base their views on and are completely out of touch. They live in the university bubble where all their radical ideas are free to ferment without anyone challenging them. That's what your daughter immersed herself into. The best you can probably do is keep challenging her beliefs with the truth and hope for the best.

[Jedah]

Gender studies is pretty much regressive leftism being taught as fact. It's a waste of a degree and I honestly can't see it lasting much longer as it has failed to produce anything of value.

 

 

The young women who take it as a major end up going to college and coming out even more uneducated than before they graduated. It's pathetic really.

[Thurisaz]

Eh, the economic ideology scientific theory of neofeudalism neoliberalism has never produced any result either (except making the rich richer at the poor people's expense) and it's still taught as gospel truth.

[sorenG]

Thank you so very much for the support and advice.

 

We have always been close, and still are, as I am still biting the bullet, instead of telling what I think. That would not end well.

 

We have always had long discussions about politics, society, culture, religion. But most of this has become a minefield now.

 

The latest of the feminist ideas is that fabrication and sale of tampons and menstrual tissues is a way to suppress and exploit women – pure consumerism. I might find something crazier in the tread “What Fundies say on Facebook”, but I will have to search hard. I am really, really worried.

 

I plan to hold my temper for the time being. She lives 3 hours away, and she will go to Cape Town from September to January as a part of her studies to work with a support group for LGBT+++. This might give her a perspective.

 

ThereAndBackAgain - her door into studying Gender/feminism was a sincere wish to do something for LBGT persons and for women in Africa, which I think is a very noble cause. But I suspect that the more she sees herself as a victim the less important the real victims seems.

 

RJN – hun læser på Malmø Universitet.

 

But I just have to wait, and hope for the best.

[Jedah]

Your pain is real and your assement of the problem is correct.

 

The thing is it's very difficult to question the beliefs of someone who has been brainwashed into a victim mentality, as the nature of persecutory delusions causes anyone who suffers them to view any and all questioning of their beliefs as proof of their beliefs.

 

Their reasoning flow is pretty much:

 

1. I am the victim of patriarchal oppression

2. Anyone who does not agree with me is part of this patriarchal oppression

3. If someone disagrees with me that person is attacking an oppressed person

4. Therefore anyone disagreeing with me is proof of my oppression

 

The flaw in their thinking is that they do not realize the act of questioning their beliefs isn't actually an attack on their character, but people with extremist views have a very hard time understanding this as views when extreme enough become a part of a persons character.

[rjn]

Cape Town? Well, that might give her some perspective. Those radical ideas do not really hold water when confronted with actual reality outside of the inbred intellectual tunnel vision of a college/university campus.

 

I have no idea what Malmö Universitet Högskola is like, but I do know it's not really a University, but rather, what we call "Högskola" (yes, High School, but it's not the same thing as the American type), which is also a higher seat of learning, but usually, they're less prestigious than Universities, and the latter tend to have a clearer focus on research. Now, this is not necessarily an implication the school as such is "bad" (apparently, they will be granted full University-status in a couple of years) but rumours as well as my gut feeling tells me the Humanities-faculty is full of what we Swedes refer to as "flum"*, as is usually the case. I must admit I'm quite skeptical of any higher seat of learning in this country, so it's not like I'm not biased.

 

How widespread are those ideas in Danish society in general? I've always assumed you guys were more connected with reality than us up here, where every crazy fringe idea from the left seems to become a trend.

 

Here's a video of a girl affiliated with the youth wing of Sverigedemokraterna (yes, our equivalent of Danske Folkeparti) confronting similar ideas at Södertörn Högskola in Sthlm:

(you may have to activate the english subs manually)

 

No matter what one thinks of SD/DF/Norske Fremskrittsparti and their ilk, I think that video says A LOT about the cognitive dissonance that is being bred at our universities.

 

(*=Weird, far out fringe-ideas, or just plain stupid crap. Hippies and stoners are usually refered to as "flummare" so that should give you an idea of what it implies.)

[TABA]

Looks like the people being interviewed in that video have not done much actual thinking in their lives, as opposed to repeating the 'conventional wisdom' of their particular subculture...

[sorenG]

Yes, but this is made by a radical right wing youth party with an agenda and a bad track record of manipulation. There is probably (i hope!!) 10 times as many students with cool answers who got themselves edited out.

[rjn]

Yes, but this is made by a radical right wing youth party with an agenda and a bad track record of manipulation. There is probably (i hope!!) 10 times as many students with cool answers who got themselves edited out.

 

I don't think they're very radical (or right wing for that matter. And no, I'm neither a member nor a sympathizer), but each to his own. Granted, they have their fair share of nutjobs, bigots and complete idiots, but that seems to be the norm in politics.

 

I'm afraid those "ideas"  (I'm not sure they're coherent enough to qualify as that) presented by the students in the video are rather widespread, and they're seen as "edgy and cool" among a lot of young people, especially college students.

[TheRedneckProfessor]

Politics is war by other means.

[Blindsighted]

I'm sorry you're going through this. I have an adult daughter and she has adopted what I consider radical, non-religious views. All ideologies can overstate their view, and some people are prone to believe everything they hear; me, for instance. So I am trying really hard to evaluate ideas before excepting them.

 

Encourage your daughter to evaluate what she seems to be excepting as fact. To read other view points.

[Daffodil]

Looks like the people being interviewed in that video have not done much actual thinking in their lives, as opposed to repeating the 'conventional wisdom' of their particular subculture...

I'm not sure that's the case. We're currently being bombarded with the message that men can become women and women can become men with nothing more than surgery and hormones and that everyone has to accept that. 20, 30 years ago, they would have been roundly laughed at as crazy. Male and female (with the exception of the tiny percentage of hermaphrodites) was always a cut and dried definition. They might act like each other and dress like each other, but the chromosomes couldn't lie. Now, because it's been defined as an internal "feeling" disassociated from the biological reality, we have been told we have to accept it. Once you allow for the internal "feeling" argument, where do you draw the line? We've already had a white woman and white man both claim to "identify" as black, and there is a grown man and father who is living as a six-year-old girl in the U.S. He's even found an older couple who agreed to "raise" him! Now, apart from that demented couple, no one else takes him seriously, but it begs the question - where do we draw the line? I think that is why the students struggled to answer those questions. If a white woman can identify as a black woman, why can't a Swedish woman identify as Japanese? The height thing is a difficult one, logistically, and no one would allow that middle-aged man to go back to kindergarten, but still, where do you draw the line?

[miamia]

Thank you so very much for the support and advice.

 

We have always been close, and still are, as I am still biting the bullet, instead of telling what I think. That would not end well.

 

We have always had long discussions about politics, society, culture, religion. But most of this has become a minefield now.

 

The latest of the feminist ideas is that fabrication and sale of tampons and menstrual tissues is a way to suppress and exploit women – pure consumerism. I might find something crazier in the tread “What Fundies say on Facebook”, but I will have to search hard. I am really, really worried.

 

I plan to hold my temper for the time being. She lives 3 hours away, and she will go to Cape Town from September to January as a part of her studies to work with a support group for LGBT+++. This might give her a perspective.

 

ThereAndBackAgain - her door into studying Gender/feminism was a sincere wish to do something for LBGT persons and for women in Africa, which I think is a very noble cause. But I suspect that the more she sees herself as a victim the less important the real victims seems.

 

RJN – hun læser på Malmø Universitet.

 

But I just have to wait, and hope for the best.

o.O 

Feminine hygiene products are incredibly empowering to women, not to mention their role in preventing disease... Of all things this makes the least sense. I am so sorry. I hope she gets out of this mindset. I have seen something like this before with women wearing white pants with blood all over them, to "confront the stigmas surrounding menstruation"

because spreading your body fluids around is a good idea, along with ruining your clothes, not being able to sit down without making a mess... Is she against just pads and tampons or all methods like, the diva cup for instance? I could understand people saying that tampons and pads are wasteful and bad and there are better alternatives but this doesn't sound like that.

i mean a stronger argument could be made for clothes. women in many areas being forced by law to cover up when in reality we should all be running around naked if we damn well want to. you are in that way literally forced to buy clothes.

or the case of those girls at that school being told they had to wear bras, even if they were wearing a non revealing shirt. Its sexist. boobs are not inherently sexual. It's cultural and it needs to go the fuck away.

 

but this? this is crazy. I'm sorry . I hope you find happiness and peace no matter the outcome in this story.

[Thurisaz]

...cannot help but notice how our resident 3rd wave "feminists" are 100 % silent regarding this thread, while normally it takes them maybe half a second to scream into such threads "That's not feminism you're so dumb nyah nyah!"...

 

Well I guess actions (and inactions!) speak louder than words indeed. Oh well. Back on topic.

[RealityCheck]

My condolences to you.  I am not a father by any means but I'm trying to put myself in your situation.  You're watching your daughter, someone you've raised since infancy get consumed by a perverse ideology.

Regarding to what she thinks about Islam, I've observed something in the west as a whole.  The cult of feminism (and the broader religion of social justice) places humanity into a hierarchy that goes as follows (from top to bottom):

1.  Muslims 
2.  White (Feminist) Women
3.  Blacks
4.  LGBT
5.  Other Minorities
6.  Straight White Males

I'll give you some examples.  Muslims can pretty much do whatever they want.  From what I'm seeing in Europe, they rape, pillage, and riot with impunity while maintaining supreme victim status.  White women (the group that makes up the bulk of feminists) never dare to bring this fact up.  It's as if they deffer to Islam (an ideology that is the antithesis of what they stand for).  White feminists still have the power to ruin the reputation of someone further down the list.  I can go on and on till I get to the group that everyone shits on, the straight white male (better known as the devil to the fem cult).

Unfortunately, you're at the bottom of her worldview.  I really hope that she grows out of this.  As was mentioned before, the human brain doesn't really finish developing until the mid 20s.

[Thurisaz]

...Muslims can pretty much do whatever they want.  From what I'm seeing in Europe, they rape, pillage, and riot with impunity while maintaining supreme victim status.  White women (the group that makes up the bulk of feminists) never dare to bring this fact up.  ...

 

Have to disagree here on two things.

 

First, "rape, pillage, and riot with impunity"?

Maybe you don't mean it like that (in that case, sorry ) but that makes it sound like no one here dares to even lift a finger. The reality, at least here in the Vaterland, is that there's a heated discussion across a wide spectrum, with hyper-tolerant multiculturalists on one side and racist assholes on the other and quite a few people somewhere inbetween.

 

Second, for the sake of fairness, I do think that there are actually many feminists (regardless of gender or skin color) who are sane and reasonable. However, the lunatic fringe keeps screaming from the rooftops and thus is the part that's visible 24/7. And if you're unlucky (like here, again), the corrupt media and the ruling caste listen to them far too much. I've found traces of genuine, reasonable feminism over here, but aside from being lucky a few times I had to dig deep to find them. The moronic "feminists" - you know, the "rip their dicks off" kind - are pretty much everywhere in contrast, and they indeed act with impunity.

 

Aside from that though, I agree with you.

[RealityCheck]

 

...Muslims can pretty much do whatever they want.  From what I'm seeing in Europe, they rape, pillage, and riot with impunity while maintaining supreme victim status.  White women (the group that makes up the bulk of feminists) never dare to bring this fact up.  ...

 

Have to disagree here on two things.

 

First, "rape, pillage, and riot with impunity"?

Maybe you don't mean it like that (in that case, sorry ) but that makes it sound like no one here dares to even lift a finger. The reality, at least here in the Vaterland, is that there's a heated discussion across a wide spectrum, with  on the other and quite a few people somewhere inbetween.

 

Second, for the sake of fairness, I do think that there are actually many feminists (regardless of gender or skin color) who are sane and reasonable. However, the lunatic fringe keeps screaming from the rooftops and thus is the part that's visible 24/7. And if you're unlucky (like here, again), the corrupt media and the ruling caste listen to them far too much. I've found traces of genuine, reasonable feminism over here, but aside from being lucky a few times I had to dig deep to find them. The moronic "feminists" - you know, the "rip their dicks off" kind - are pretty much everywhere in contrast, and they indeed act with impunity.

 

Aside from that though, I agree with you.

 

 

 

My Muslim comment was in the context of the fringe group's world view.  I did say "the cult of feminism (and the broader religion of social justice)".  Basically, I meant that according to them, Muslims can do no wrong.  If they do it's somehow the fault of the white race.  You did say the there was a heated discussion between the "hyper-tolerant multiculturalists on one side and racist assholes on the other and quite a few people somewhere inbetween".  If left on their own the "hyper-tolerant multiculturalists" (part of the "broader religion of social justice" I referred to), these issues will never be brought up. Yes, something is being done about it but that's due to sane and rational individuals.

 

It's hard to argue that a group is a fringe when they influence politics, the media, and education to the level that they do.  SorenG's daughter was indoctrinated at an American university by her gender studies professor.  This is a cancer that affects ALL of the west at many levels.  It's not some secluded group preaching this crap in some hidden location, it's everywhere hence it's mainstream.

 

Anyways, glad there are some voices of dissent over there