Friday 10 October 2014

Anglo-American Feminism: Just Another Post War Anomaly?




In the UK and US (but especially the UK, where class is the national obsession), social mobility (or the lack of it) has become a central topic of political debate. Britain, it is said, is suffering from social stagnation. Statistics suggest it is now much harder to rise in the social order than it was in the 1950s (or even the 1970s). Most of the top positions in society go to a narrow power elite defined by private schooling, residency in London and other trans-generational advantages. Moreover, various initiatives designed to tackle the issue have been conspicuous failures.

The United States, home of the American Dream, has experienced similar levels of social closure in recent years. In fact, its social mobility rates are only slightly better than Britain’s. Australia’s government is full of privately-educated politicians, a decidedly ‘un-Australian’ development; after all, Australia has traditionally been the most classless of all the Anglosphere nations.

One explanation of this ‘new elitism’ is intriguing. It argues that the socially fluid and prosperous post-War era was an anomaly, and that we are now reverting to ‘natural’ levels of social and economic inequality - the levels that have prevailed for most of history. We find this difficult to ‘see’ because most people have only ever experienced the post-war era and its social narratives. Also, we find this notion of ‘normative inequality’ difficult to accept because it confounds our deep-rooted attachment to the optimistic, narcissist values of the post-War era.

Many social problems of our age can be explained by this ‘normative inequality’ thesis. This is especially true of the mismatch between aspiration and opportunity that afflicts almost all young people in the West. Little wonder; they are still being inculcated with Post-War expectations of near-effortless upward mobility in a world where this is no longer possible. Virtually everyone under thirty wants to live in a mansion, drive a Maserati and work in a glamorous profession, if they have to work at all. Very few are adjusted to a life of socio-economic stasis; indeed, this is tacitly considered ‘failure’ by the vast majority of westernized youth. In sum, the broad masses have internalized narratives that arose in Madison Avenue during the early fifties, temporal nexus of post-War prosperity and optimism. In our own age of shrinking socio-economic mobility and general decline, these narratives are effectively useless and even potentially harmful to those who cleave to them. Misery is the only possible outcome for those snarled in such a schism between aspiration and reality.

But were the 50s really representative of  history?

This ‘aspiration as anomaly’ perspective illuminates several features of the Anglo-American gender war we like to discuss. Firstly, it is notable that feminism rose to prominence in the immediate post-War era. Of course, residual misandry defined the Anglosphere long before that. However, it has to be said that Anglo-American feminism became far more influential in the decades after World War Two, especially in the United States. This underscores its essential alignment with the prevailing values of Anglo-American culture.

Anglo-American feminism then, is an aspirational post-war lifestyle movement. Like the advertising and consumerism that emerged in the early fifties, it encourages all women to aim for a white, upper-middle class lifestyle. Despite its protestations, it is essentially hypergamous – virtually all post-feminist media aimed at Western women focus on ‘perfect’ relationships with wealthy, famous males. Again, this is an expression of ‘boom-town’ post-War values. Roissy has said (in my view, with some validity) that Anglo-Saxon feminism represents a collective rejection of marital monogamy, allowing women to indulge their innate preference for high status (or at least attractive) males. While there are problems with this interpretation (for example, many women seem attracted to criminals and deviants rather than high status men), it has to be conceded that marriage to ‘conventional’ males chafes with most women.

If feminism is another anomalous narrative from the post-War era, one would expect it to generate a mismatch between reality and aspiration, breeding alienation and misery among its adherents. And it does. Despite their relative freedoms and prosperity, Anglo-American women are less happy than they have ever been. This is because only a small minority can satisfy their new-found aspirations (hypergamous and otherwise) in a culture defined by restricted social mobility and economic polarization. And of course, unrestricted female mate choice only compounds their economic and social woes (for reasons we know only too well).

Similarly, many young males in the West resent their inability ‘to launch’. Inculcated with anomalous post-War narratives of effortless social mobility, they expect to buy houses, start businesses and make progress as their fathers did. Unfortunately, since the West has reverted to its ‘natural’ state of social ossification and immobility, these narratives are now hopelessly unrealistic and only a tiny few will ever realize them. Cue the widespread alienation, fantastical aspirations and grinding despair that define so many younger men.
 
The 50's Ideal: A historical anomaly?

What of the Men’s Rights movement? Conservative MRAs are obsessed with setting the clock back to an earlier era – typically, the 1950s, a decade defined by more ‘traditional’ gender relations that restricted female mate-choice. However, if the 1950s were the nexus of an anomalous era defined by idiomatic levels of social mobility, such a reactionary move would not improve the male lot as intended. Too few males would be able to support women in traditional marital relationships, leading to a surfeit both of single women and sexually-frustrated males – a kind of Handmaid’s Tale replete with extended families and re-runs of ‘I Love Lucy’.

One way or another, our culture remains attached to its post-War narratives of upward mobility, star-culture and trans-generational ‘progress’. They cajole and flatter us and besides, accepting a diminished reality is intrinsically difficult. The possibility that such narratives derive from an anomalous era of recent history and that economic inequality / social stasis are ‘norms’ represents a dramatic paradigm shift, one that many will find hard to accept. After all, even talentless dunces in housing projects now expect fame and riches as their inalienable ‘right’. However, unless alternative narratives are found to palliate the masses, some kind of conflagration is inevitable.


The 50s family: gone forever?


8 comments:

  1. Great article Rookh. How are Anglo bitches going to find their "perfect man" now that we have reverted back to a slow economy?

    I still see women looking for a 'wealthy man' to take care of them however there are less and less wealthy men in western countries.

    Good luck ladies finding your "perfect man" because he no longer exists. We have MGTOW and the Marriage Strike in western nations. I wonder how women are going to find a husband when men longer want to get married or have anything to do with them.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. James:
      Well, Anglo-American women are going to have start doing what women did in the pre-WW2 generations: actually start contributing something to a relationship if they want to have one at all.

      How many will wake up and do that though? Not holding my breath...

      Delete
    2. @Eric - excellent point - women might actually have to "contribute" to a relationshit - instead of expecting to be treated like princesses - I mean parasites.

      Delete
  2. *I wonder how women are going to find a husband when men longer want to get married or have anything to do with them*

    It's a hard circle to square, that's for sure. Perhaps we need to start investing in cat food and profiting from their failure.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Your right Rookh, it's time to start investing in cat food and companies that make dildos.

      Women DO NOT want to marry a man that makes less money than they do. Women rarely marry "down" and usually only marry "up."

      This is becoming more difficult to do since most college graduates are women and the recession in the USA hit men's jobs far more than it did women's jobs.

      Delete
  3. The root cause for the 1950s boom, was the mass expulsion of women & children from most white industries

    Women & children were kicked out of the workplace by most corporations, which gave rise to the stayathome mothers of the 1950s

    The incompetence from women & children literally forced most corporations to lower wages, to makeup for losses caused by women & children in the workplace

    Imagine the incompetence of women & children in a mine ...

    Most corporations along with rich white women, who would go onto fund toxic feminists, to get women & children out of hazardous jobs such as mining, mainly because they were so incompetent & useless ...

    Of course it was never barbaric or criminal for men to die in coal mines ...

    This was probably the first time women were kicked out on a massive scale for being so useless, they were becoming a threat to corporate profits

    This is basically why the 1950s were an anomally

    There were no women in most industries, theyd all been kicked out due to prewar reforms by most corporations

    Combine that with fair divorce laws & relatively low corruption & you have the 1950s

    Of course as women started to drive corporations into the ground, the economy & cultural society started to tank on a massive scale

    Unless women are excluded on a massive scale & promale laws come into play, & the socialism & liberalism female supremacy of christianity defeated, we're not going to see real results

    ReplyDelete
  4. The postwar boom came to a crashing halt once China came into the word economy with it's excess labor force driving wages down. Hard to compete with people who don't give a rats ass about having a shred of privacy and are willing to live in corporate dorms or with endless uncles, grandparents, and nephews crammed under one roof. The kind of wages that allow one to have a "bachelor pad" are becoming ever obsolete.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I am not so sure, attractive as the idea is. In 1800 - the start of the industrial revolution the population of Britain was about eight million, and most were agricultural labourers. Few now are and a large percentage of people in our larger population - highly paid workers in the city for instance - will have Great Great Grandfathers who were from very humble origins. We are now post-industrial with all that that implies including of course the evils of Feminism.

    Having said that I am sure I continue to sink downwards and I would say that throughout my life I have been generally shafted and held back. Unlike Mrs Clooney I neither had money nor a Vagina to go to the top.

    ReplyDelete