Belfort Bax

I have come across this long article written in 1910’s, when women suffragists were campaigning hard for women’s right to vote, in the era of the so-called first wave of feminism, which many people, including people who normally take an anti-feminist stand, view somehow favorably as a more benevolent kind of feminism, a classical, original, or “good” feminism before it devolve into a virulent anti-man movement in the 60’s and the 70’s with the advent of the second and the third wave of feminism.

Well, it seems it is not so simple – as in old days of original, true feminism was good, only modern incarnation of it is bad.

By glancing through this classic article written by Belfort Bax, a noted Socialist but also known for his ardent anti-feminism views at the time, you would immediately see that even early feminism is fundamentally the same as the modern gender feminism. Both are based on the principles of equality (or sometimes superiority) of women under law as well as preservation of women’s special privileges that ironically have roots in old times when women were regarded and treated as second class citizens.

Entire article could be accessed here;
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Fraud_of_Feminism

This is truly a classis anti-feminist article. I have rarely seen an article this long, written by a prominent figure, devoted exclusively on the subject of problems of feminism. Though in the article the author express his disdain for giving voting rights for women (even I cannot agree with him on this point), the article shows that double standards, special privileges for women, unequal law (criminal, matrimonial, etc.) and its enforcement, execution for men and women, male sympathizers (“femi-nabler” to use a word suggested in one of the comments to this blog) in government, judiciary, press, in other words, all the ingredients of modern-day anti-male gender feminists movement are all there as early as in the 1910’s.

Now does this give us a hope? Nope. To know that those problems associated with gender feminists are actually not unique to them, that they have history of nearly a century and deeply rooted in the original feminist movement, led me to think that anti-male characters of feminist movement will not simply go away, just because some courageous people (mostly women) voice their skepticism against them.

Some quotes from the article;

“Personal violence on the part of the husband is severely punished; on the part of wife she will be let off with impunity.”

Hmmm. Looks like the same charade has been going on for a century now.

“…should be legally compelled to pay a certain sum to his wife, ostensibly as wages for her housekeeping services, no matter whether she performs the services well, or ill, or not at all.."

Did Hillary and other feminists get their idea that government (who else?) should pay for the work for housewives here?

“..demand that in the case of the murder by a woman of her illegitimate child, the putative father should be placed in the dock as an accessory! In other words, a man should be punished for a crime of which he is wholly innocent,”Purely absurd, but this is feminism.“This sex hatred, so often vindictive in its character, of men for men, which has for its results that: "man-made" laws invariably favor the opposite sex, and that "man-administered justice" follows the same course, is a psychological problem which is well worth the earnest attention of students of sociology and thinkers generally.”

“I must confess to being unequal to the task of accurately fathoming the psychological condition of the average man who hates man in general and loves woman in general to the extent of going contrary to..”

I completely agree. I think that some (men) needs to take a comprehensive look into the minds of feminist male, to see what motivates them into this “sex-hatred’ phenomena. (my personal view is that those feminist male are motivated by the expectation that they, as ardent male feminists from early on, will be rewarded handsomely in the coming (or so they think) “feminist-run utopia”)

“A man murdered by a woman is always the horrid brute, while the woman murdered by the man is just as surely the angelic victim.”

Sounds familiar….

"The mere physical fact of sex was never for a moment regarded as of itself sufficient to entitle the woman to any special homage, consideration, or immunity, over and above the man.."

In the Medieval period, the word “chivalry” did not mean what it generally means today.

"Sir Walter Besant, entitled "The Revolt of Man," depicting the oppression of man under a Feminist regime, an oppression which ended in a revolt and the re-establishment of male supremacy."

This must be also a “must-read”

“…that woman is, as Herbert Spencer and others have pointed out, simply "undeveloped man"--in other words, that Woman represents a lower stage of evolution than Man.”

“Take the instance of Madame Curie. When radium was first discovered in the laboratory of the late Professor Curie we were told that the latter had made the discovery, it being at the same time mentioned that he possessed in his wife a valuable aid in his laboratory work. We were afterwards told that the discovery of radium was the joint work of both, the implication being that the honors were equally divided. Now, Feminist influence has succeeded in getting Madame Curie spoken of as herself the discoverer of radium!”