Fanatical Feminism

[PoliticalChic]

a. Feminism has been criticized as exhibiting a rigid intolerance which, unfortunately, has driven away women who choose motherhood over high-powered careers, women who are American patriots, many religious women, women who do not identify themselves primarily in terms of sexual preference, and women who oppose abortion, pornography and prostitution. Said outside-the-mainstream feminists hold abolitionist views about pornography, prostitution, trafficking, and sexual slavery; viewing males as partners rather than oppressors; in short, are conservative.

b. Support for these excluded but self-identified feminists has come from an unexpected precinct: author of ‘Third Wave Feminism,” Rebecca Walker.
Her mother is Alice Walker, Second Wave Feminist, and author of “The Color Purple.”

According to Alice, her mother’s absolutist presumptions about male oppression, and the burden of having children, alienated her, and produced the kind of atmosphere which can only be considered child abuse.

c. Read the article which includes…
“The truth is that I very nearly missed out on becoming a mother - thanks to being brought up by a rabid feminist who thought motherhood was about the worst thing that could happen to a woman.
You see, my mum taught me that children enslave women. I grew up believing that children are millstones around your neck, and the idea that motherhood can make you blissfully happy is a complete fairytale.

I was raised to believe that women need men like a fish needs a bicycle. But I strongly feel children need two parents…

But I honestly believe it's time to puncture the myth and to reveal what life was really like to grow up as a child of the feminist revolution….with my mother's knowledge, started having sex at 13. I guess it was a relief for my mother as it meant I was less demanding. And she felt that being sexually active was empowering for me because it meant I was in control of my body.

The ease with which people can get divorced these days doesn't take into account the toll on children. That's all part of the unfinished business of feminism….Feminism has betrayed an entire generation of women into childlessness. It is devastating.

I am my own woman and I have discovered what really matters - a happy family.”
How my mother's fanatical feminist views tore us apart, by the daughter of The Color Purple author | Mail Online

 

[Jos]

Did you have a point, other than that you can't find and keep a man?

 

[PoliticalChic]

Did you have a point, other than that you can't find a man?

Is this you bragging that you have found a man?

 

[iamwhatiseem]

Feminism has ruined countless lives.
As with all ideals...there are good things and bad things - American feminism expanded the bad things and only marginally effected success in the good things.

 

[The Infidel]

Feminism has ruined countless lives.
As with all ideals...there are good things and bad things - American feminism expanded the bad things and only marginally effected success in the good things.

I agree.....


They are also a bunch of hypoctites.
Why do you not hear them out in the streets protesting they way that SOME muslim women are treated by the men in their lives?
Why are'nt they happy to see women rising in politics (all be it not their ideology) no matter which side they are on....? They are still women empowering themselves to stand up against the establishment.

 

[Madeline]

This is a woman in a great deal of pain. I think it is unfair to judge either her or her mother...we never know the truth of what goes on behind closed doors, and even if we did, doubtless for these two, there are two different truths. Mebbe Alice Walker is the horrible person her daughter describes....mebbe there is more to it...but whatever the case, feminism ain't the problem. Sounds to me like selfishness is.

 

[Jos]

Did you have a point, other than that you can't find a man?

Is this you bragging that you have found a man?

yes i found the man, did you ?

 

[PoliticalChic]

Feminism has ruined countless lives.
As with all ideals...there are good things and bad things - American feminism expanded the bad things and only marginally effected success in the good things.

I'm not sure about "only marginally effected success in the good things" but I certainly agree with you about where it has gone wrong.

And Alice Walker, still a feminist with convictions, spotlights a major problem: dissolution of family structure.

Further, the joined-at-the-hip accommodations with political liberalism has blunted much of the good that could have been done.

Given the aspiration to remake humanity, based on the mistaken belief that there are not differences between the sexes, the movement must be totalitarian.
a. Gender equality requires an assault on hierarchies.
b. The enormous increase in government that would be needed to produce the changes in humanity has to obliterate the boundaries between public and private, and between the emotional and the intellectual.
c. The result must, of course, be anti-bourgeois, anti-capitalist, anti-family, anti- religion, and anti-intellectual.

 

[PoliticalChic]

This is a woman in a great deal of pain. I think it is unfair to judge either her or her mother...we never know the truth of what goes on behind closed doors, and even if we did, doubtless for these two, there are two different truths. Mebbe Alice Walker is the horrible person her daughter describes....mebbe there is more to it...but whatever the case, feminism ain't the problem. Sounds to me like selfishness is.

No doubt about the selfishness exhibited by mother Alice, but I doubt that you are ready to agree that
1. Children are a burden to be avoided at all costs...(see article in OP)

2. Women should never be allowed to choose family over career.

a. Logical as it seems that women should be prepared for events such as divorce and widowhood, marriage and family may reduce opportunities for outside work or education. But the solution, according to Simone de Beauvoir in an interview with Betty Friedan is “No woman should be authorized to stay at home and raise her children. Society should be totally different. Women should not have that choice precisely because if there is such a choice, too many women will make that one.” “Sex, Society, and the Female Dilemma,” Saturday Review, June 14, 1975, p. 18.

b. Like all totalitarian movements, the goal is not to give more freedom, but to take away choice.

3. Radical feminism proceeds from “a doctrine of original sin: The world’s evils originate in male supremacy.” Patai and Koertge, “Professing Feminism: Cautionary Tales from the Strange World of Women’s Studies,” p. 183

4. “Sex” is merely biological while “gender” refers to roles. Radical Feminists claim roles to be ‘socially constructed,’ which means that everything about men and women, sans organs of reproduction, can be altered by changes in the social and cultural environment.

a. This view attacks not only men, but institutions responsible for the oppression, such as the family, and traditional religion.

b. Those familiar with the Port Huron Statement of the Sixties radicals with understand the concept that human nature is infinitely malleable and therefore infinitely perfectible. Port Huron Statement of the Students for a Democratic Society, 1962

These are some of the major tenets of said fanatical feminism...

if you disagree with the above, then "...feminism [is] the problem."

 

[PoliticalChic]

Did you have a point, other than that you can't find a man?

Is this you bragging that you have found a man?

yes i found the man, did you ? chinky

How dumb can you be?

At least get your prejudice right: it's gook, not chink.

Got it, dummy?

 

[Madeline]

Political Chic, the Feminism of my generation is utterly out of touch with today's realities. We can no longer empathsize with women who were ridiculed or marginalized for their ambitions or intelligence; we cannot recall a time before no-fault divorce, marital rape laws and battered women's shelters. If we told young women now that they should not get "too educated" because no man will marry them, they'd look at us as if we were nuts.

Any movement that deals with sexual politics is subject to perversion, abuse and just plain stupidity. Much was accomplished, almost all of it good. I don't feel like apologizing.

 

[CurveLight]

Feminism has ruined countless lives.
As with all ideals...there are good things and bad things - American feminism expanded the bad things and only marginally effected success in the good things.

How can you be this fucking clueless?

 

[PoliticalChic]

Political Chic, the Feminism of my generation is utterly out of touch with today's realities. We can no longer empathsize with women who were ridiculed or marginalized for their ambitions or intelligence; we cannot recall a time before no-fault divorce, marital rape laws and battered women's shelters. If we told young women now that they should not get "too educated" because no man will marry them, they'd look at us as if we were nuts.

Any movement that deals with sexual politics is subject to perversion, abuse and just plain stupidity. Much was accomplished, almost all of it good. I don't feel like apologizing.

Last things first...what gave you the indication that you have been asked to apologize? There is nothing going on here outside of an intellectual discussion.

1. Since you refer to your generation, let's go over terms:

a. In my estimation, First Wave was the most beneficial, and had the greatest claim on "Much was accomplished, almost all of it good." This was suffrage, and rights to property.

b. Second Wave, to which I believe you refer, personified by Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinham, Shirley Chisolm, Barbara Jordan, Eleanor Holmes Norton and Alice Walker, stemmed from the Civil Rights Movement, and included much of what you write about...but went off the rails in the ways I outlined previously, attacking family, males, etc.
Further, it required of adherents a worldview that tended toward pro-abortion, pro-pornography (anti-censorship), pro-prostitution (pro-sex workers), pro-surrogacy, and anti-colonialist, anti-imperialist, and anti-American…proponents of simplistic gender-neutrality (women and men are exactly the same) or essentialist: men and women are completely different, and women are better.

"As far as "If we told young women now that they should not get "too educated," that is exactly what happened.
Sadly, it also punctured the educational values that you mention, in demanding bogus departments of 'Women's Studies,' over actual education.

c. "[A] young woman who majored at her university in eco-feminism and graduated with honors…went to Washington, D.C., a city richly endowed with lobbies for ecology and feminism. Because of her dual degree, she assumed that a well-paying job would be waiting. “But even ecological and feminist lobbies require people who can read, write, count, and in general ratiocinate; she thus became one of the large number of genteel unemployables.” Robert Nisbet, “Prejudices: A Philosophical Dictionary,” p. 245


I would be surprised if you would not be willing to differentiate between the good and the bad...

 

[CurveLight]

Feminism has ruined countless lives.
As with all ideals...there are good things and bad things - American feminism expanded the bad things and only marginally effected success in the good things.

Political Chic, the Feminism of my generation is utterly out of touch with today's realities. We can no longer empathsize with women who were tridiculed or marginalized for their ambitions or intelligence; we cannot recall a time before no-fault divorce, marital rape laws and battered women's shelters. If we told young women now that they should not get "too educated" because no man will marry them, they'd look at us as if we were nuts.

Any movement that deals with sexual politics is subject to perversion, abuse and just plain stupidity. Much was accomplished, almost all of it good. I don't feel like apologizing.

Last things first...what gave you the indication that you have been asked to apologize? There is nothing going on here outside of an intellectual discussion.

1. Since you refer to your generation, let's go over terms:

a. In my estimation, First Wave was the most beneficial, and had the greatest claim on "Much was accomplished, almost all of it good." This was suffrage, and rights to property.

b. Second Wave, to which I believe you refer, personified by Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinham, Shirley Chisolm, Barbara Jordan, Eleanor Holmes Norton and Alice Walker, stemmed from the Civil Rights Movement, and included much of what you write about...but went off the rails in the ways I outlined previously, attacking family, males, etc.
Further, it required of adherents a worldview that tended toward pro-abortion, pro-pornography (anti-censorship), pro-prostitution (pro-sex workers), pro-surrogacy, and anti-colonialist, anti-imperialist, and anti-American…proponents of simplistic gender-neutrality (women and men are exactly the same) or essentialist: men and women are completely different, and women are better.

"As far as "If we told young women now that they should not get "too educated," that is exactly what happened.
Sadly, it also punctured the educational values that you mention, in demanding bogus departments of 'Women's Studies,' over actual education.

c. "[A] young woman who majored at her university in eco-feminism and graduated with honors…went to Washington, D.C., a city richly endowed with lobbies for ecology and feminism. Because of her dual degree, she assumed that a well-paying job would be waiting. “But even ecological and feminist lobbies require people who can read, write, count, and in general ratiocinate; she thus became one of the large number of genteel unemployables.” Robert Nisbet, “Prejudices: A Philosophical Dictionary,” p. 245


I would be surprised if you would not be willing to differentiate between the good and the bad...

Must be something wrong because I see the claim there is nothing but an "intellectual discussion" but have yet to see it occurring. Maybe all posts are not showing up?

Your OP and Nisbet quote show what I call Flynting Feminism. You're using scant anecdotal evidence in an attempt to condemn all feminism based on what you consider radical feminism. Look at your Nisbet quote. He accused the person of not being able to read, write, count or think. Like any movement there are imperfections but your hit piece is nothing short of intellectual dishonesty.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

It seems people are confused between women's liberation - a clear cut positive movement that netted enormous positive change not only for women but for society as a whole, and feminism that dissolved family structures, marginalized the role of motherhood, demonized the role of being a man's wife, outright stomps on the women who choose to be a homemaker...I could go on.

Women's lib - a crucial positive societal movement that continues today.
Feminism - a movement plagued by radicals and men haters.

 

[Madeline]

I'm not sure what to call the Feminist Movement I knew. When I went to law school, they had to modify the building to accommodate the huge increase in the number of women students (install ladies' rooms). In the decade between when I graduated and ten years before, a sea change occurred and silly arguments about how unsuitable women were for the law were quietly dropped...and yet, by then (the late 1980's) there still were no female partners in any of the law firms in the large Midwestern city where I went to school. Presumably, this has changed.

Perhaps you are too young, but I can recall grave discussions about whether women doctors could be trusted. My female secretaries were perpetually confused about whether they should work for me since "I could type for myself, couldn't I?"

Yes, it is plainly true that children are better off in happy families where one parent can remain at home when they are young....nobody ever argued about that. But what of the children of unhappy families? Or families that need both incomes? Isn't it rather late in the day to be arguing they are doomed?

When you marginalize any group of people without regard to their abilities, and say, "you cannot achieve, we already know what to expect from you", you manufacture misery. I think my generation helped change this.....and I think it was wise to do so.

 

[PoliticalChic]

I'm not sure what to call the Feminist Movement I knew. When I went to law school, they had to modify the building to accommodate the huge increase in the number of women students (install ladies' rooms). In the decade between when I graduated and ten years before, a sea change occurred and silly arguments about how unsuitable women were for the law were quietly dropped...and yet, by then (the late 1980's) there still were no female partners in any of the law firms in the large Midwestern city where I went to school. Presumably, this has changed.

Perhaps you are too young, but I can recall grave discussions about whether women doctors could be trusted. My female secretaries were perpetually confused about whether they should work for me since "I could type for myself, couldn't I?"

Yes, it is plainly true that children are better off in happy families where one parent can remain at home when they are young....nobody ever argued about that. But what of the children of unhappy families? Or families that need both incomes? Isn't it rather late in the day to be arguing they are doomed?

When you marginalize any group of people without regard to their abilities, and say, "you cannot achieve, we already know what to expect from you", you manufacture misery. I think my generation helped change this.....and I think it was wise to do so.

1. I certainly can't argue with your experiences, they are reality. I appreciate your sharing.

2. I must have missed the turn here: "But what of the children of unhappy families? Or families that need both incomes? Isn't it rather late in the day to be arguing they are doomed?"

Not sure where the discussion of the radical form of feminism suggests that women should not have careers?
The point is that the protaganists of same wish enforced careers, as the quote that I presented earlier states.

How do 'unhappy families' fit into this discussion?

As far as 'needing two incomes,' the calculus is purely subjective; it is based on choices.

And who is doomed? And how so?


3." But what of the children of unhappy families? Or families that need both incomes? Isn't it rather late in the day to be arguing they are doomed?"
You seem to imply that I am doing this, or agreeing with this concept....I don't know where you are finding this implication. Bogus.

Nor am I attacking your generation...

4. I am only too happy to attack any 'feminists' who:

a. insist that women must have a career at the expense of the choice of having a family. The OP and related article bear witness to this path to "manufacture misery."

b. find that, commensurate with the positive changes brought about by feminism, the distruction of the family unit, and opposition to interdependance with male members thereof, and of morality is necessary.

This has been exhilarating!

 

[PoliticalChic]

Feminism has ruined countless lives.
As with all ideals...there are good things and bad things - American feminism expanded the bad things and only marginally effected success in the good things.

Political Chic, the Feminism of my generation is utterly out of touch with today's realities. We can no longer empathsize with women who were tridiculed or marginalized for their ambitions or intelligence; we cannot recall a time before no-fault divorce, marital rape laws and battered women's shelters. If we told young women now that they should not get "too educated" because no man will marry them, they'd look at us as if we were nuts.

Any movement that deals with sexual politics is subject to perversion, abuse and just plain stupidity. Much was accomplished, almost all of it good. I don't feel like apologizing.

Last things first...what gave you the indication that you have been asked to apologize? There is nothing going on here outside of an intellectual discussion.

1. Since you refer to your generation, let's go over terms:

a. In my estimation, First Wave was the most beneficial, and had the greatest claim on "Much was accomplished, almost all of it good." This was suffrage, and rights to property.

b. Second Wave, to which I believe you refer, personified by Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinham, Shirley Chisolm, Barbara Jordan, Eleanor Holmes Norton and Alice Walker, stemmed from the Civil Rights Movement, and included much of what you write about...but went off the rails in the ways I outlined previously, attacking family, males, etc.
Further, it required of adherents a worldview that tended toward pro-abortion, pro-pornography (anti-censorship), pro-prostitution (pro-sex workers), pro-surrogacy, and anti-colonialist, anti-imperialist, and anti-American…proponents of simplistic gender-neutrality (women and men are exactly the same) or essentialist: men and women are completely different, and women are better.

"As far as "If we told young women now that they should not get "too educated," that is exactly what happened.
Sadly, it also punctured the educational values that you mention, in demanding bogus departments of 'Women's Studies,' over actual education.

c. "[A] young woman who majored at her university in eco-feminism and graduated with honors…went to Washington, D.C., a city richly endowed with lobbies for ecology and feminism. Because of her dual degree, she assumed that a well-paying job would be waiting. “But even ecological and feminist lobbies require people who can read, write, count, and in general ratiocinate; she thus became one of the large number of genteel unemployables.” Robert Nisbet, “Prejudices: A Philosophical Dictionary,” p. 245


I would be surprised if you would not be willing to differentiate between the good and the bad...

Must be something wrong because I see the claim there is nothing but an "intellectual discussion" but have yet to see it occurring. Maybe all posts are not showing up?

Your OP and Nisbet quote show what I call Flynting Feminism. You're using scant anecdotal evidence in an attempt to condemn all feminism based on what you consider radical feminism. Look at your Nisbet quote. He accused the person of not being able to read, write, count or think. Like any movement there are imperfections but your hit piece is nothing short of intellectual dishonesty.

Now, this could be interesting.

1. "Your OP and Nisbet quote show what I call Flynting Feminism."
Please elucidate.

2. "...scant anecdotal evidence in an attempt to condemn all feminism based on what you consider radical feminism. "
Actually, I am condemning radical feminism. Please let me know if you are unaware of the concepts, and/or re-read the thread, as I have given several aspects of same.

3. "He accused the person of not being able to read, write, count or think."
While the statement is of the broad brush variety, I would be happy to give a fuller exegesis as to the fraud and fluff that has invaded university campuses as a result of demands of said feminists, and the political correctness that has replaced intellectual pursuits.

4. "...nothing short of intellectual dishonesty."
Nothing could be further from the truth, and exposes your real design.
So that I may address you correctly, are you a fool or a knave?

 

[Madeline]

I'm not sure what to call the Feminist Movement I knew. When I went to law school, they had to modify the building to accommodate the huge increase in the number of women students (install ladies' rooms). In the decade between when I graduated and ten years before, a sea change occurred and silly arguments about how unsuitable women were for the law were quietly dropped...and yet, by then (the late 1980's) there still were no female partners in any of the law firms in the large Midwestern city where I went to school. Presumably, this has changed.

Perhaps you are too young, but I can recall grave discussions about whether women doctors could be trusted. My female secretaries were perpetually confused about whether they should work for me since "I could type for myself, couldn't I?"

Yes, it is plainly true that children are better off in happy families where one parent can remain at home when they are young....nobody ever argued about that. But what of the children of unhappy families? Or families that need both incomes? Isn't it rather late in the day to be arguing they are doomed?

When you marginalize any group of people without regard to their abilities, and say, "you cannot achieve, we already know what to expect from you", you manufacture misery. I think my generation helped change this.....and I think it was wise to do so.

1. I certainly can't argue with your experiences, they are reality. I appreciate your sharing.

2. I must have missed the turn here: "But what of the children of unhappy families? Or families that need both incomes? Isn't it rather late in the day to be arguing they are doomed?"

Not sure where the discussion of the radical form of feminism suggests that women should not have careers?
The point is that the protaganists of same wish enforced careers, as the quote that I presented earlier states.

How do 'unhappy families' fit into this discussion?

As far as 'needing two incomes,' the calculus is purely subjective; it is based on choices.

And who is doomed? And how so?


3." But what of the children of unhappy families? Or families that need both incomes? Isn't it rather late in the day to be arguing they are doomed?"
You seem to imply that I am doing this, or agreeing with this concept....I don't know where you are finding this implication. Bogus.

Nor am I attacking your generation...

4. I am only too happy to attack any 'feminists' who:

a. insist that women must have a career at the expense of the choice of having a family. The OP and related article bear witness to this path to "manufacture misery."

b. find that, commensurate with the positive changes brought about by feminism, the distruction of the family unit, and opposition to interdependance with male members thereof, and of morality is necessary.

This has been exhilarating!

I'm truely unaware of any pressure ever applied to young women to keep them from having families. Much of the work that went on was about valuing a stay at home mom's work, as well as sharing the housework and childcare duties between two working parents.

In this vein, yes I know of some extremists who "opposed relationships with men" but IRL, I don't know a single woman who found this appealing, nevermind persuasive. This "branch" of feminism came and went in a few years, and did little other than marginalize "Ms magazine".

Unhappy families fit in because in the 1950's, a single woman and her kids had very little hope. No child support, possibly no divorce, no career options, no child care.....I think things are better now, overall.

It is interesting stuff to discuss, Political Chic....your Ops always are.

 

[PoliticalChic]

I'm not sure what to call the Feminist Movement I knew. When I went to law school, they had to modify the building to accommodate the huge increase in the number of women students (install ladies' rooms). In the decade between when I graduated and ten years before, a sea change occurred and silly arguments about how unsuitable women were for the law were quietly dropped...and yet, by then (the late 1980's) there still were no female partners in any of the law firms in the large Midwestern city where I went to school. Presumably, this has changed.

Perhaps you are too young, but I can recall grave discussions about whether women doctors could be trusted. My female secretaries were perpetually confused about whether they should work for me since "I could type for myself, couldn't I?"

Yes, it is plainly true that children are better off in happy families where one parent can remain at home when they are young....nobody ever argued about that. But what of the children of unhappy families? Or families that need both incomes? Isn't it rather late in the day to be arguing they are doomed?

When you marginalize any group of people without regard to their abilities, and say, "you cannot achieve, we already know what to expect from you", you manufacture misery. I think my generation helped change this.....and I think it was wise to do so.

1. I certainly can't argue with your experiences, they are reality. I appreciate your sharing.

2. I must have missed the turn here: "But what of the children of unhappy families? Or families that need both incomes? Isn't it rather late in the day to be arguing they are doomed?"

Not sure where the discussion of the radical form of feminism suggests that women should not have careers?
The point is that the protaganists of same wish enforced careers, as the quote that I presented earlier states.

How do 'unhappy families' fit into this discussion?

As far as 'needing two incomes,' the calculus is purely subjective; it is based on choices.

And who is doomed? And how so?


3." But what of the children of unhappy families? Or families that need both incomes? Isn't it rather late in the day to be arguing they are doomed?"
You seem to imply that I am doing this, or agreeing with this concept....I don't know where you are finding this implication. Bogus.

Nor am I attacking your generation...

4. I am only too happy to attack any 'feminists' who:

a. insist that women must have a career at the expense of the choice of having a family. The OP and related article bear witness to this path to "manufacture misery."

b. find that, commensurate with the positive changes brought about by feminism, the distruction of the family unit, and opposition to interdependance with male members thereof, and of morality is necessary.

This has been exhilarating!

I'm truely unaware of any pressure ever applied to young women to keep them from having families. Much of the work that went on was about valuing a stay at home mom's work, as well as sharing the housework and childcare duties between two working parents.

In this vein, yes I know of some extremists who "opposed relationships with men" but IRL, I don't know a single woman who found this appealing, nevermind persuasive. This "branch" of feminism came and went in a few years, and did little other than marginalize "Ms magazine".

Unhappy families fit in because in the 1950's, a single woman and her kids had very little hope. No child support, possibly no divorce, no career options, no child care.....I think things are better now, overall.

It is interesting stuff to discuss, Political Chic....your Ops always are.

1. Ubiquitous in the writing of Second Wave Feminists, let me repeat, with emphasis:
"Logical as it seems that women should be prepared for events such as divorce and widowhood, marriage and family may reduce opportunities for outside work or education. But the solution, according to Simone de Beauvoir in an interview with Betty Friedan is “No woman should be authorized to stay at home and raise her children. Society should be totally different. Women should not have that choice precisely because if there is such a choice, too many women will make that one.” “Sex, Society, and the Female Dilemma,” Saturday Review, June 14, 1975, p. 18.
a. Like all totalitarian movements, the goal is not to give more freedom, but to take away choice.

2. "...some extremists who "opposed relationships with men" but IRL, I don't know a single woman who found this appealing, nevermind persuasive."

a. From Robin Morgan (current editor of MS magazine) "I feel that 'man-hating' is an honorable and viable political act, that the oppressed have a right to class-hatred against the class that is oppressing them." -- Robin Morgan

b. "All men are rapists and that's all they are" -- Marilyn French Author, "The Women's Room"

c. "Heterosexual intercourse is the pure, formalized expression of contempt for women's bodies." -- Andrea Dworkin

d. "[Rape] is nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear" -- Susan Brownmiller (Against Our Will p. 6)

3. "...I think things are better now, overall."
That is not in dispute.