Här finns en bra länk till Karen Straughan’s tal på ICMI 2014:

Det är ett utmärkt tal, där hon utvecklar sitt argument att feminismen egentligen aldrig handlade om jämställdhet.

Jag tänkte här ge lite stödlänkar och utfyllande citat kring de saker hon tar upp. Inledningsvis noterar hon att hon har beskrivits som ”the quintessential feminist”, eftersom hon uppfyller alla ”krav”, som bisexuell, självständig, ensamstående mamma. Problemet för Karen är att hon anser att alla förklaringsmodeller som feminismen erbjuder är ”bakvända, fel, upp och ned”

I don’t consider feminism to be a movement for equality. I don’t consider it to be a goal, or a set of goals. I consider it to be a set of hypotheses – not even theories – hypotheses that are unfalsifiable […] and we are basing public policy on this set of hypotheses. We are basing entire branches of Academia on this set of unfalsifiable, unproven hypotheses – hypotheses that can never be proven.

Karen talar om The Seneca Falls Convention 1848.

You go all the way back to Seneca Falls and the Declaration of Sentiments, and as Warren said: We don’t need a Women’s Movement that blames men. It was 1848, and 40 men showed up at Seneca Falls. 40 men wanted to attend that historic conference. They were turned away at first, and when they persisted, they were told: Ok, you can come in, but you need to sit over there in the back, and you need to stay quiet. And then, the bullet-pointed list of grievances was worthy of the most radical and insane Tumblr feminist out there. And every single bullet point began, not with the word ”the system”, not with the word ”the law” – with the word ”he”.

Här slutar jag citera Karen och gräver istället fram själva dokumentet:

The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolut tyranny over her. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

• He has never permitted her to exercise her inalienable right to the elective franchise.
• He has compelled her to submit to laws, in the formation of which she had no voice.
• He has withheld from her rights which are given to the most ignorant and degraded men – both natives and foreigners.
• Having deprived her of this first right of a citizen, the elective franchise, there by leaving her without representation in the halls of legislation, he has oppressed her on all sides.
• He has made her, if married, in the eye of the law, civilly dead.
• He has taken from her all right in property, even to the wages she earns.
• He has made her, morally, an irresponsible being, as she can commit many crimes with impunity, provided they be done in the presence of her husband.

(Som ni kan se i originalet var det inte typografiskt en punktlista. Jag lade in punkter för läsbarhet.)

Det vi kan konstatera, och det Karen konstaterar, är alltså att redan 1848 använde sig feministerna av projicering på männen: allt var männens fel. Ironin över att de kunde beordra de närvarande männen att sitta i ett hörn och hålla käften medan de själva orerade över hur förtryckta de var av just män, verkade inte bita på feministerna, då som nu.

Jag tänkte göra en utvikning i linje med det exempel Karen tar upp, där hon återger en debattartikel av Mrs. Francis M. Scott i New York Times 1910. Hennes exempel är för all del senare än 1848, så man skulle kunna argumentera att deras punktlista var sann då.

Nå, de lagar som Karen talade om, The Tender Years Doctrine, som hävdar att kvinnan är viktigast för barnet under de tidiga åren, drevs enligt Wikipedia och – gissar jag – feministerna, fram av Mrs Caroline Norton:

In the early nineteenth century, Mrs. Caroline Norton, a prominent British feminist, social reformer author, journalist, and society beauty began to campaign for the right of women to have custody of their children. Norton, who had undergone a divorce and been deprived of her children, worked with the politicians of those times and eventually was able to convince the British Parliament to enact legislation to protect mothers’ rights.

Om Norton kan läsas:

The young Caroline was intellectually precocious, witty and beautiful. She had olive complexion, dark burning eyes, dark hair, and resembled a southern European beauty. At the age of eleven she displayed her literary skills when she wrote, together with her sister Helen, and later published The Dandies’ Rout, a pastiche on the popular series of ‘Dandy’ books. In 1823, Caroline, aged fifteen, was sent to a small boarding-school at Shalford, Surrey. One day the schoolgirls were invited to visit Wonersh Park, the seat of the local landowner, Lord Grantley, whose younger brother George Chapple Norton (1800-1875), a shiftless barrister, caught sight of beautiful Caroline and became infatuated with her. He expressed his intention to marry Caroline, but was told that he must wait three years until Caroline reached the age of maturity. Caroline stayed in the school for two years and returned home in 1825.

Caroline, född Sheridan, var en av tre döttrar som alla tydligen var betagande. De kallades ”The Graces”, och gifte sig in i societeten i London. Carolines äktenskap med George Chapple Norton var dock ingen höjdare. Han visade sig inte få den karriär han hoppades på, och beskrivs på flera ställen som en skitstövel.

She, gifted, impetuous, stormy-tempered, with a reckless, specious tongue, with an instinct for taking the lead and getting possession of everything around her: magnanimous and generous, incapable of hoarding injuries and paying back old scores when once the first ungovernable outburst of resentment against them had subsided; and he that dangerous mixture which is often found in dull natures, weak but excessively obstinate and suspicious when he thought he was being led, narrow-spirited, intolerant, slow-witted, yet not silent; rather with a certain power of nagging comment for everything about him that he was least able to understand; not without surface kindness and humanity, fond of children and animals, but coarse natured and self-indulgent, with a capacity for cruelty and brutality and slow revenge, when once convinced he had been aggrieved, so unlike any quality possessed by his wife that it seemed to confuse and stun her like a blow when she found herself opposed to it. [Perkins 14]

George Norton grew increasingly frustrated and resentful because he could not support his wife in the lifestyle she was accustomed to. He reproached her that she had not brought him a dowry, and he was a man of small fortune.

Many of the quarrels which embittered their marriage arose from his mean reminders that she had brought him nothing but her person, and was therefore bound to give more and expect less than a wife with a better dower. [Perkins 21]

When her indolent husband could not earn a decent living, Caroline began to publish her literary works in order to support herself and her first son.

’Indolent’ betyder alltså ’lat’. Hon beskrivs som ’reckless’, ’stormy-tempered’, och dessutom med två systrar som lyckades gifta upp sig bättre än hon. Gissningsvis var hon inte billig i drift, och hennes make lyckades inte försörja henne på den nivå hon förväntade sig. Detta förklaras som ett karaktärsfel hos honom – han var lat, långsint och elak, och det var alltså han – inte hon – som var ’self-indulgent’; hon ville ju bara ha det liv hon förtjänade. Kanske han verkligen var allt detta? Jag skulle nog hävda att det är svårt att avgöra enbart på dessa bevis huruvida han var sådan eller blev sådan. Hursomhelst, ”In 1835, when she was pregnant with the fourth child, she was beaten so badly by her husband that she miscarried.” Mannen var, eller blev, en första klassens skitstövel!

Sedan blir det trassligt. Hon lämnar honom, och Mr. Norton stämmer premiärminister Lord Melbourne, på ganska svaga bevis, för att ha en kriminell kärleksaffär med hans hustru. Han å sin sida behåller barnen och alla hennes tillgångar, smycken och kläder, och nekar henne tillgång till dessa. Han försöker även hävda att hennes inkomst som författare borde tillfalla honom (som sagt, första klassens skitstövel.) Det hela blir en jätteskandal.

Vad gör då Caroline?

In return, Caroline refused to pay her bills and told creditors that her husband was obliged by law to pay all her debts.

Hon spenderade alltså hans pengar ändå, eftersom lagen gjorde honom ekonomiskt ansvarig för hennes excesser! Det är ett ganska kraftfullt trumfkort …

Efter detta satte hon igång med att försöka driva igenom lagändringar.

Caroline Norton lobbied several members of Parliament, including Thomas Talfourd, MP, to introduce a Bill to give non-adulterous mothers the right to appeal to the court of Chancery for custody of children under seven years of age. Early in 1839, she wrote another polemical pamphlet A Plain Letter to the Lord Chancellor on the Infant Custody Bill, copies of which were sent to all members of Parliament. It was Caroline Norton’s great victory that the bill was successfully passed in both Houses and became law in August 1839, giving married mothers, who were not guilty of adultery, the right of custody of their children under seven, and access to children under sixteen. Paradoxically, Caroline, could not benefit from this law because George Norton, who knew well legal tricks, had abducted his sons and hid them with relatives in Scotland, where English laws were not applicable.

Detta var alltså 1836, 12 år före The Seneca Convention. Vi noterar att vackra kvinnor hade både möjlighet att nå samhällets topp och möjlighet att använda såväl lagen som den allmänna opinionen (t.o.m. charma Premiärministern!) mot sina makar. De hade också stora möjligheter att påverka lagstiftning. På dessa punkter verkar alltså The Seneca Convention åtminstone misslyckas med att berätta hela historien.

Åter till Karens föredrag.

I slutet förklarar Karen varifrån de fick idén att kalla sig ’Honeybadgers’ (honungsgrävlingar). Hon hänvisade till en sevärd video om honungsgrävlingen, som illustrerar, med en ’flamboyant’ kommentatorröst, hur tuff och stryktålig honungsgrävlingen är. Dr. Tara Palmatier föreslog att de kvinnor som är aktiva i mansrättsrörelsen ”don’t give a shit”.

The honeybadger is widely reknowned as one of the most fearless and intelligent animals on the planet. And somebody – I forget who, maybe it was Dr. Tara? – suggested that: ”we, we don’t care, we don’t give a shit, we women in this movement.” You can say whatever the hell you want about us. You can call us misogynist, rape-enabling, domestic-violence-apologizing, women-hating… you know, anything! You call me whatever you want. I am an anti feminist, and I don’t give a shit!

Vi har våra egna honungsgrävlingar här på Genusdebatten.