Chapter Five – Feminism V Femdom

The difference between feminism and Femdom is probably the difference between the feminine and masculine minds. The feminine likes to see everything in terms of loving relationships and caring for others, while the masculine is competitive and see everything in terms of dominance and submission. So equality makes sense to women because they are far less competitive than men. Whereas with men the competitive instinct takes over and he sees relationships as hierarchical and it is men that started femdom. 

Feminists are happy to talk about sexual equality but don’t want to go further than that. As the result they will criticized anyone making any suggestion that women should rule the world. Even academics like Marija Gimbutas have been criticized by feminists for daring to suggest that the female figurines found in stone-age sites are goddesses. Other women will talk about matriarchy but then insist that these ancient matriarchies were all egalitarian and claim that men and women were equal then.

This might sound all right to women but men would find this hard to believe. Many men don’t even believe that feminist only want equality with men. They assume that women want to rule the world and don’t believe feminist that claim they only want equality. As Timothy Leary once said, “women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition.” And he wouldn’t be alone in thinking this. Most men would have a similar attitude because to them, anyone who says, “we only wants equality,” probably has a hidden agenda. 

If you read feminist books you find they can be a diatribe on how badly men treat women in patriarchal societies. But then at the finish of the book the feminist author will weakly tells the reader, that all they want is equality. Which seems strange because if men have made laws and customs that greatly disadvantage women and enforced them through violence. Why would you want equality with men, if they behave like that? 

But we have to admit feminism is doing well in promoting female empowerment through sexual equality and we are now seeing more female politicians, businesswomen and professionals like doctors, lawyers and judges. So in theory if we allow this to continue women may take over by this route, but it’s not guaranteed. Women still have to compete against very aggressive, deceitful and competitive men. As the result many women have to learn to act and behave like these men to hold their own.

The only way women could take over completely in the political realm, is to prove to the people they are far better rulers than men. Which they can do if they are guided by their maternal instincts and care about the people they rule. But up until now female politicians have failed to do this. Men have told them that love is a weakness so they learn to suppress their loving feelings and become as corrupt, uncaring and ruthless as male politicians. So the lesson is, that women can be equal to men providing they act and behave like them. 

So it would be far better for women to be part of a organization where only women can be in-charge. Perhaps in time there might be matriarchal political parties but they will still have to compete with men in other political parties. But many women think that a matriarchal political party would upset men and make them angry and so start a sex-war. Forgetting that a sex-war has been going on for the last 5,000 years. 

But to be fair women do have very good reasons to fear of men. After all, we have to acknowledge that not only men are bigger, stronger and more aggressive than women. It has been estimated that over 90% of all acts of violence by people, are committed by men. Women only have to read history or look at the Islamic world today, to see how cruel and brutal men can be in their treatment of women. So the fear is, that if women where to go too far and tell men they want to rule the world. They imagine that men will react with violence against women and all the gains feminists have made during the 20th century will disappear. 

This fear is dramatised by Canadian author Margaret Atwood in her dystopian novel, “The Handmaid's Tale”. Which is about a authoritarian government of the USA that takes away all women’s rights. So this is what many feminists fear, and so to prevent this happening they try to appease men. Not realising that like British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in the 1930s when he attempted to appease Adolf Hitler. But all he did was to convince Hitler that Britain was weak and so made war even more likely. As it help persuade Hitler he would win a war with Britain. All appeasement does, is convince men that women are weak and treat them accordingly. 

Although it’s true that men can be very cruel and brutal towards women, but this is not what the majority of men want. As the Turkish Journalist Ayse Onal discovered, men have to be forced by social pressure carry out ‘honour’ killings. In the same way men have to be indoctrinated and trained to kill other people in wars. Men are like puppets and their behaviour is heavily influenced by who is pulling their strings. So if women want to protect themselves from male violence, then they have to ensure it is women pulling men’s strings and not other men. 

It needs women to see through all the patriarchal lies and propaganda and see men as they really are. Men are not, natural born killers, and neither are they, the natural dominant sex. The truth is that men are naturally submissive to those in authority and are therefore easy manipulated by them. If men weren’t so obedient the whole patriarchal society would collapse in chaos. So if a man can be forced by social pressure to do something as terrible like kill his own mother in a ‘honour’ killing. Then likewise, in a matriarchal society, men can be strongly influenced by social pressure to obey women at all times. If obeying women becomes normal acceptable behaviour, then men will comply with this. 

Many women  don’t realise that men tend to admire winners and sneer at losers, anyone who follows sport can see this. For this reason it is not a good idea for women to present themselves to men as losers. Because if men have been told by patriarchal propaganda that women are naturally submissive and women behave like that to appease men. Then it confirms to men that what they have been told is right and gives men the green light to go ahead to use and abuse women.

It was believed by psychologists in the first half of the 20th century that all women were masochistic  and this was only challenged in the by the feminist in the 1960s and 70s. The problem is that if we think love is a weakness, then loving others can be seen as submission or even masochism. Certainly caring for children is not easy and perhaps you have to be  masochistic to want to do that. But then men do crazy things like climb mountains or run ultra marathons and these men can also be called masochist. At least what women do is helpful to the human race, if women didn’t have strong maternal instinct to love and nurturing their children, the human species would have gone extinct long ago. 

Men are naturally competitive with other people so it is natural for them to see relationships in terms of  dominance and submission, or even sadism and masochism. Women on the other hand see relationships in terms of love, the giving and receiving of love and women can love others unconditionally. The problem is that women’s unconditional love can be misinterpreted by men as submission or masochism. 

There are books about female masochism written by female authors the most well known is “Fifty Shades of Grey” by E. L. James. But we find that the male love interest is a billionaire. The same is true for romantic novels the heroine wants to marry a prince or a rich and powerful man. As the romantic novelist Jane Austen famously wrote in the opening lines of her book, “Pride and Prejudice”.

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

Which makes it sound as if women are very mercenary in their love interests. But women not only have to think of herself, but also her unborn children. Her children are more likely to live better lives if she marries a wealthy man. This goes right back to our animal past when females want to mate with the strongest and fittest males because he will pass on those genes to her young. We see this in humans where women are attracted to muscular men, but what trumps this for many women is a man with a lot of money. So a fit, strong man with a lot of money is going to attract women. 

But women can also fall in love with damaged men with a trouble past, like Heathcliff in the book “Wuthering Heights” by Emily Brontë. A lot is made of the Stockholm syndrome where women have become hostages in a criminal act or a kidnapping but then forms an emotion bond with the criminals doing this. This can been seen as female masochism or women becoming empathetic with others. As they can feel the pain and suffering of the criminals and want to help them. 

It is easy to label criminals as evil and not look too deeply into why they want to harm others. But criminals are mostly created by things like poverty, child abuse, bullying and the macho culture. People who have a desire to hurt others do so because they have been hurt themselves. Although this is a complicated subject and would need a whole book to do justice to this subject. Women are natural carers they want to care for children but also the sick and disabled. If a women cares for a physically disabled man or a mentally disabled man who is harmless then she is seen as a saint. But if she cares for a mentally disabled man who is violent and abusive to her then she can be labelled a masochist. And it is an open secret that many criminals do have mental problems. 

So women love abusive men is they can can see the pain in the criminal that made him that way and not because she is masochist. Empathetic woman can sympathise with others and may even see the man as a child and give him maternal love. But it is no good telling women to suppress their loving feelings, it is better to teach women how to love themselves. So the hero of a book like “Fifty Shades of Grey” tick all the boxes for many women. He is extremely rich, handsome, fit and healthy and because he has sadistic desires, he probably has a troubled past. 

It should be obvious that our world would be a far better place if caring and nurturing people are put into positions of power and given the respect they deserve. So a woman can care a lot about others but if she is powerless, then here is little she can do. She even might end up being abused by the people she cares about. But if she is in a position of power then she can help others without sacrificing herself. 

Years ago, airliner passengers had to read the safety instructions before the aircraft took off. In it, it said it said if the cabin is depressurised and the oxygen masks automatically come down. Mothers must put on their own oxygen masks on before attempting to put them on their children. They had to say this because they knew a mother’s instinct would be to put the oxygen masks on her children first. But if she did this, she could pass out through lack of oxygen and therefore be unable to help her children. 

Patriarchy has exploited women’s maternal love and has successfully made many women feel guilty if she is not putting the needs of her husband and children before herself. The problem with this, is that a woman cannot care for her family properly if she is put into a powerless position. Before the rise of feminism in the 1960s, men were generally the only breadwinners of the family. So women relied on getting the money from him to feed and care for her children. But many men were irresponsible and would spend all their money on alcohol and gambling and his wife and family would hardly get anything. 

So the women who were best able to care for their children were the ones who were able to dominate their husbands. There are stories before the 1960s, of men working in factories and getting their weekly pay, but as they walk out of the factory gate, they are waylaid by their wives, who then take their wages from them, before they have time to spend it. Which means these women can then can care for and feed  her children properly. But she can only do this if she is the dominant partner in the marriage and chooses a submissive man for husband. And this can only work in a society that will accept her doing this. It wouldn’t work in societies where a women would ‘shame’ or ‘dishonour’ a man for taking away his wages publicly. 

This means that a dominant women is a far better mother to her children than a submissive woman. As she is more able to fight for them and give them what the want and need. And in evolutionary terms, it means that the children of dominant women are more likely to survive, even in our patriarchal world. Though what works against this, is when patriarchy makes laws that force women to give birth every year. 

Women not only want to love and care for their own children but also other people’s children, as well as the sick, elderly, men and animals. This is why all the caring professions like nurses and care workers are dominated by women. But as usual in our patriarchal world, these jobs are not valued and so these women are mostly overworked and underpaid. Suggesting that love is not valued in our patriarchal world and this is why women are even told they have to overcome their loving instincts to gain respect. As John Lennon wrote in one of his songs. -

“Gather round all you clowns, Let me hear you say, Hey you've got to hide your love away.”

Back in the 20th century some feminist mothers believed that our sexual differences were cultural. So they tried to get their daughters to play with toy cars and planes and make their sons play with dolls and toy animals. It didn’t work, as the girls still wanted to play with dolls and cute toy animals and the boys with toy cars, planes and guns. It just confirmed that men and women are fundamentally different. 

The reason why feminist claimed that sex differences were culture was because patriarchal propaganda told them that women were too emotional and soft-hearted to be politicians and rulers. Unlike tough minded male rulers who are totally ruthless and think nothing of starting wars by invading other countries, committing genocide, as well as forcing people into slavery and poverty. So women were subjected to unrelenting patriarchal patriarchal propaganda that told them they were a lot weaker than men both physical and mentally. 

This is why Mary Wollstonecraft in her book, “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman,” first published in 1792, argues that men and women are basically the same and that has become feminist dogma ever since. This argument was a help back in the 18th century as Mary Wollstonecraft was then arguing for female education. This was because it was being denied to women as it was claimed it was a waste of time to educate women as they were too silly and superficial. 

In the 19th century males scientists continued to say that women were less intelligent than men even claim that this was a ‘scientific fact’. So women had to argue that men and women were the same to counter these arguments. But in the 21st century things have changed and women’s education is no longer a big issue and men would no longer dare suggest that women were less intelligent than men. As we now have famous female scientists and other academic women, even in Islamic countries. 

It is true in terms of physical strength men are stronger than women, but women live longer than men and have less illnesses. This was written about in a book called, “The Natural Superiority of Women” by the scientist Ashley Montagu in 1952. As a physical anthropologist, Montagu pointed out the biological advantages that mothers have to have, for long-term survival of the human species. Unfortunately feminists haven’t used the arguments in this book very much, because they are so wedded to the idea that men and women are the same. 

It should be obvious to anyone who reads history that men do a really terrible job in ruling our world. But feminist women do not have the confidence to publicly claim that women could do a better job in ruling our world. The problem is that none of us know what’s it like to be ruled by loving and compassionate women. All we know from our history is that uncaring, violent and corrupt men ruling our world and so we assume this is normal. So ambitious women still assume they have to suppress their maternal feelings because they think this is a weakness they have to overcome. 

The masculine mind does assume that, if your not a winner, then you’re a loser. As the result it sees dominance and submission in everything. We see it in politics where political parties fight for power and dominance in democracies. Or if not, then the country is ruled and dominated by a king, emperor or dictator. In business it is the same where different businesses fight for market share. Businesses become very efficient when they compete against each other. But once a monopoly or cartel is created, then the incentive for efficiency goes and complacency and corruption become normal. War is of course is all about winners and losers but can be the driving force for technology. Sport is also similar to war and very competitive but without people getting killed. 

The same is even true for religions and their many sects, who compete and fight each other to gain larger followings and this can lead to religious wars. Sex is exactly the same, men become  bored with straight sex but find it more exciting if it has a dominance and submission element to it. This can cause misunderstanding because a women who is  very loving in the way she has sex with men. Can then be abused because the man mistakes her loving behaviour for masochism. 

This is why men are more interested in ideas like femdom or female supremacy because it is hierarchical rather than feminism which is not. Because of this, discussion about matriarchy is welcomed in the femdom community. But even here there is a problem. Women write about a past matriarchal world of total peace and harmony. Whereas the femdom version of a matriarchal society would be of women being extremely cruel to men and exercising total dominance over them. Which might appeal to men’s fantasies but only a minority of women would be interested in them. 

Although some dominatrixes report that men come to them with fantasies about being tied up and caned, but then complain if she hits him too hard. So although some men can be excited by fantasies of cruel women in femdom stories, they don’t necessary want to experience them in real life. Unfortunately feminist never take femdom seriously and think it is only about sexual perversion and not an insight about how men think. Though they will take men’s desires to watch violent films or play, “shoot them up” video games more seriously but don’t connect it with femdom. Men’s competitive and hierarchical instincts cannot be reasoned away but can only be channelled into areas that are less harmful, like sport. Or into areas that benefit women, like femdom. 

This then means it would benefit everyone if women and men got together to talk about a possibility of a matriarchal society and learn to see things from the other’s point of view. If feminists can see femdom as not some strange sexual perversion but an insight in how men think. While femdom men can stop insisting that a dominant women has to be cruel and nasty person and realize it is possible for a women to be a both a dominant and loving person at the same time. Then both sides can learn to see it from the other’s point of view and come to some sort of agreement and work together. 

In Femdom it is nearly always men who lead the way. Many women will use and exploit men who demonstrate their submissiveness to her, But as a general rule women are wary about femdom and think, “what’s the catch”. This is similar to lemur behaviour, the female lemurs don’t have any special method of dominating the males. They just observe male lemur’s submissive body language and that gives them the green light to dominate the males. So like in the femdom scene it is men who have to make it clear to women, they want to be submissive towards them.

The problem is that in our present society if a woman observes a man showing submissive body language to her, she may assume that there is something wrong with him. Many women brought up in a patriarchal society are not used to this and become suspicious of submissive man. This is because patriarchal indoctrination has been so effective that many women still believe that men are the natural dominant sex. So with this belief feminist assume that a egalitarian society is the best they can do. Not knowing that men will respect dominant and bossy women far more, than women that just wants equality. 

This is why patriarchal indoctrination needs to be questioned. Because it would help a lot if women were to know that men are the natural submissive sex. As we see with soldiers in wars who will put their lives in great danger and even commit suicide when ordered to do so. To rule the world all women have to do is to replace the alpha males, in telling men what to do. And there will be a lot of men who will help them do this. This is because if given the choices between being ruled by alpha males or women, most men will prefer women. 

Another issue is sexual freedom. Could women today be like bonobos and have sex with anyone and form a powerful sisterhood through lesbian love? It might work, but in today’s world there are a few problems with this. If a woman was to have sex with many different men and doesn’t know whom the father of her children are. Then she can find herself bring up her children on her own. Whereas if she does have a husband or boyfriend who is a submissive man then she would be a lot better off. But then it could be a lot worse, if her husband is an abusive man. 

It could be a big advantage if she can join with other women and live with them in a commune. This will give women the advantage as they can share child rearing with other women. This was tried during the hippy era when young people experimented with commune living. Unfortunately it never worked while there were men in the communes as they would argue among themselves. But when the men left the communes, then the women found it easy to live together. But in a matriarchal society, this can be a problem if men go off and are not controlled by women.

Men will need to have a role in any communes but to prevent men from arguing and competing with each other, as they need to be kept in order by women. In the same way they would be disciplined and controlled as if they were in the army. Perhaps like bonobos, women might be able to form powerful sisterhoods through lesbian love while still having sex with men so they can have children. The Islamic custom of clitoridectomy, does suggest that women did form strong lesbian relationships back in matriarchal times. But there are problems with this nowadays. 

It has been noted that the most militant and radical feminists are lesbians who see feminism more as a sex-war against men, rather then an attempt to gain equal rights. As the result they have had to break away from mainstream feminism because many heterosexual feminist think their opinions are far too extreme, uncompromising and politically incorrect. But lesbians criticise heterosexual feminists for, “sleeping with the enemy”. Or claim that heterosexual women see men through rose-tinted glasses but lesbian women see men as they really are. 

Lesbian feminists don’t shy away from controversy as we see in the transgender women dispute. Lesbians are more willing to say, transgender women are not real women and have no right to invade women’s spaces. They also won’t accept that anyone born a male can be a lesbian and claim that transgender women are just another example of patriarchal oppression of women. This has been confirmed by the experience of like women like Professor Kathleen Stock who was force to resign her post at Sussex University over the transgender row. 

But this controversy also effects heterosexual women as well. Women like Germaine Greer and J. K. Rowling have found themselves savagely attacked for daring to question whether a transgender person can be a woman. Although as the Spectator magazine pointed out, these two women are able to speak out because they are wealthy women and wouldn’t lose their jobs for doing this. The problem is with this controversy is that not all transwomen are not the same and it is the more aggressive transwomen who behave like competitive men, that gives all transwomen a bad name. This is certainly true of transwomen who demand to participate in woman’s sport and don’t care that this is unfair competition. 

So it is lesbian women who are more outspoken than heterosexual women and don’t shy away from controversy. Which might be the reason why clitoridectomy is practised by extreme patriarchal religions like Islam. In an effort to prevent women from coming lesbians because they see lesbians, more that heterosexual women, as the enemy. Lesbian feminist authors like Mary Daly even question the feminist dogma of sexual equality and says that women can only be free of oppression by destroying patriarchy. 

So at present, a sisterhood of lesbian and heterosexual women working together is unlikely. So it is doubtful we will see women uniting like bonobos through lesbian sex to form a powerful sisterhood. Some lesbians claim that all women are lesbians, but have failed to convince heterosexual women that this is true. But perhaps they might work together in the future. Many dominatrixes are lesbians and some lesbians admit they can form relationships with men, providing the man is completely submissive. So lesbian feminists are more likely to take femdom seriously than heterosexual feminists and so are more likely to work with femdom men.

In the 1970s feminists formed groups and in the spirit of sexual equality they allowed men inside them. But unfortunately they either had male chauvinists turned up and lectured them on the error of their ways, or sympathetic men who talked too much. So in the end they had to ban men from these feminist groups. This continued in the 1980s in the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp, in their protest against USA cruise missiles being used in Britain. The women made a early decision to exclude men from the peace camps and it was claimed that women worked a lot better together without men being present. But this didn’t continue, Mary Daly taught classes at Boston College the main subjects were, theology, feminist ethics, and patriarchy. She then banned males from attending her classes and was threaten with dismissal for doing this. For the next ten years she fought the college for the right to have women only classes but in the end she had to leave her position in 1999. 

It is ironic that for thousands of years men have formed clubs and institutions to exclude women. The most prominent is the Roman Catholic Church where even today woman cannot be priests. But the moment women attempt to do the same they are accused of discrimination. The problem is that feminists when trying to get into male institutions like the medical profession, politics, engineering and even their local golf clubs used the argument of sexual equality. So this is then used against women if they want to create women’s only spaces. 

Then there is the possibility of women creating their own matriarchal religions. They could go down the route of creating goddess religions. But this would be very unfamiliar to most people who have never experienced a goddess religion with priestesses and female deity. Whereas it would be easier to use religious theology that people know and understand. Jesus as a god is popular with women, mostly because he is kind and gentle man. Also, because images of him in Christian Churches is of a half-naked tortured man, and women are attracted to suffering men. As Christianity is declining we find that in more moderate Christian sects, is it women who make up the majority of the congregation. 

Already in the Church of England they are allowing female priests and saying that god is both male and female. So the next step is simply to have only female priests and say that god is female. In England we have spiritualist Churches where mediums are used. Though mostly all they do is try and contact people’s dead relations. That is a useful thing to do, but they could do more than that. Patriarchal religion discourage female mediums because they are frightened that the mediums will communicate teachings from the spirit world, that contradict the Church’s teachings. 

This is why the Church in the past talked about evil spirits and why you should fear ghosts, to discourage any communication with the spirit world. So a Church that is not concerned about this can use mediums to communicate with the spiritual world. Then gain access to the unlimited wisdom of the universal one mind. But they don’t do this in spiritualist churches as they don’t want to fall out with mainstream Christianity. 

Something like this happened in the Religious Society of Friends or as they are commonly known, the Quakers. They have silent services but people can speak if the spirit moves them. So by this means they are meditating during their services and trying to contact spirit directly and this makes a big difference. The Quakers were started by a man called George Fox in the 17th century who, “became convinced that it was possible to have a direct experience of Christ without the aid of ordained clergy”. As the result of this direct experience, Quakers have refuse to participate in war, refuse to swear oaths, oppose slavery, they practise teetotalism and have allowed women preachers.

The well known female Quaker preachers Mary Fisher and Ann Austin began preaching in Boston in 1656 but were thrown into jail for doing this and afterwards banished from the colony. Then later In 1660, English Quaker Mary Dyer was hanged in Boston for doing the same thing. So Quakerism is the closest to what a matriarchal religion would be like, where there is true spiritual freedom. In a religion like this women would do a lot better, as it is far easier for them to communicated with spirit. 

In the past women had their own religion which was the ancient religion of the Great Mother which we will explore in the next chapter. 

Bibliography

Fifty Shades of Grey - E. L. James

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë, 

 The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future – Riane Eisler

Ancient Goddesses – Editors Lucy Goodison and Christine Morris

Matriarchal Studies - Barbara Alice Mann and Heide Goettner-Abendroth

Women Who Love Too Much – Robin Norwood

The Feminine Mystique - Betty Friedan

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Mary Wollstonecraft

The Natural Superiority of Women - Ashley Montagu

Gly/Ecology – Mary Daly

Honour Killing: Stories of Men Who Killed -  Ayse Onal

Brain Sex: The Real Difference Between Men and women - Anne Moir and David Jessel