2020 Olympia, WA -- Recently a reader scolded me for saying that feminism is fueled by three emotions: envy, hate and glee.

He said I can't know how feminists feel because I'm not a woman.

You don't need to menstruate to recognize emotions. The dictionary definition of feminism is a smokescreen to provide cover against reasonable people who, in classical liberal tradition, see feminist demands for equal rights for women as reasonable.

Most assumed equal responsibilities would be included. Too late we learned that was not part of the Cultural Marxist agenda for feminism.

Once, I was among those who naively thought feminism promised equal responsibilities as well as equal rights for women. But the dictionary definition was largely created by libertarian women who, in the 80s, were trying to divert feminism from its Second Wave socialist roots in the sixties to what, today, Christina Hoff Sommers calls Equity Feminism. She, Cathy Young and other proponents of this classical liberal view are fighting a lost cause.

The Second Wave (there are no Third and Fourth Waves, as those are only generational efforts to distinguish themselves from the preceding generation to pretend they are unique and special) has remained rooted in the envy and hate that characterized much of what followed Seneca Falls, and the Marxist agenda that Betty Friedan hinted at but that Shulamith Firestone and others made explicit.

For decades it has not been equity feminists demanding equity for women who have dominated the movement, but progressives who demand all rights for women and all responsibilities for men. They are the ones who made it popular to characterize disagreement (with them) as hate.

At this point I've read hundreds of feminist books and thousands of feminist articles. I began reading feminist authors in 1988. I was discussing feminism with feminists on Usenet years before most boomers got their first internet connection. Back in the day I debated and discussed feminism with many feminist icons, and once I even crossed virtual swords with Gloria Allred on the radio. After more than 30 years, I understand feminism better than all but a few.

And just as I forecast in 1990, we are heading toward a cyclic backlash in the 2030s.

Interesting, the 2030s. We are near peak progressivism right now. Those who will come of age in the 2030s will despise and reject progressivism. They will very possibly reject libertarianism and classical liberalism, too. As a classical liberal (whose fantasy would be to live in the anarchocapitalist worlds of L. Neil Smith) I won't like that, but the big question will be whether the generations that come into power in the 2030s embrace the order of conservatism, or the extreme order of something akin to the Third Reich.

Regimes like the Third Reich are inherently unstable. What I aspired to, in 1988, was to stop the cycle of bigotry and hate. But such cycles are rooted in human nature. There's no stopping it.

Today, it amuses me to point out the flaws and foibles of progressivism, but we are rapidly approaching a time when even that will involve much personal risk. Those who fade into the background will stand a better chance of survival.

Given that we are also at the beginning of an innovation cycle that will, at a time when a decline in solar output will cause global famine and multiple epidemics, offer great prosperity, and the beginning of what Clif High calls "scifi world," I would like to be there to witness and enjoy that.

Videos

Quinton Hennigh: Irving Resources Developments

Gary Savage: Gold Not the time to swing for the fences

Clif High: Sets Groups Projections TMs

Regards

Rod Van Mechelen

Rod Van Mechelen is a Ron Paul Republican who lives and works in Olympia for the Washington State Health Care Authority as an Insurance Specialist. He served on the Cowlitz Indian Tribal Council from 2002 to 2012, was a Washington State delegate to the Republican National Convention in New York City in 2004, and founded The Backlash! @ backlash.com in 1995 to expose and oppose misandry and cultural Marxism. In between job, website and family activities, he continues to serve on tribal committees and publishes a bimonthly email newsletter for Cowlitz tribe members.