The Birth of Feminism - Steve Brulé

Why did powerful, wealthy, privileged white women of the mid-nineteenth century suddenly claim that they were oppressed by men and launch the feminist movement? Why did women not rise up 2,000 years ago, or 1500 or 500 years ago. It's not as if women had remained silent through history, they certainly had not, and they did not see themselves as oppressed by men until recently. So, why start in 1848? What had changed? 

Let's examine the claims made by feminists since the very beginning of the movement, especially the central feminist claim that women have always been oppressed by men. We'll briefly look at the relationship between men and women in antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the time of the first American settlers from Britain in the early 1600's, all of which set the stage for the creation of the Declaration of Sentiments at the Seneca Falls convention in 1848. 

I will argue that the feminist enterprise is a natural outcome of female intra- and inter- sexual competition in which women use the aggressive strategies of Social Exclusion, Self-Promotion and Derogation described by evolutionary psychologists, on a grand scale, and with great success, in the endless battle for power between the sexes and within the various hierarchies of human societies. We will also see that the motivation for the very first feminist convention at Seneca Falls in 1848 had nothing to do with winning the vote for women, which was added almost as an afterthought. The real reason may surprise you.

On May 5, 2019 I wrote a deliberately provocative impromptu answer to the question “What is feminism?” on Quora and shared it on Twitter. Here is what I wrote, quote:

“Feminism is an intricate set of lies used to justify special privileges and benefits for women. It flourishes primarily in highly gynocentric cultures in which women already enjoyed special privileges and where men are reluctant to offend women.

It’s central lie is that men have historically oppressed women and so need to elevate women even further as compensation. Every feminist study leads to the same conclusion: “more needs to be done for women,” by men of course, as has been the norm since the dawn of civilization.

Feminists are obsessed with finding new ways to identify themselves as “victims.” As George Will clearly articulated “victimhood is a coveted status that confers privileges” … and it is feminism's favored stance in search of ever increasing power.”

I expected to get a lot of angry responses from Quora members since the other answers that I scanned of the 100 on Quora were all boiler plate feminist responses including stuff like "Anybody who is not sexist or misogynist is a feminist,” and another who falsely credited feminism with a laundry list of benefits like the right to vote, the right to own land, the right to go to college, and making sexual assault illegal. 

But I received no blow back on Quora. Instead, Michael Edwards, who claims to be an anti-feminist, took me to task on Twitter, contesting my claim that feminism is based upon lies. He ultimately used a series of profanities to describe me [“gobshite, “dolt,” and “ultimate asshole”], informed Janice Fiamengo that I am doing her a disservice, and repeatedly warned his few followers that I believe that feminism has always been hateful -- which is true, and is the subject of this video. He has since blocked me, and I felt compelled to detail the emergence of feminism, and explain its ignoble origin. 

There is nothing more deceptive 

than an obvious fact

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote “There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact,” and feminists are guilty of monstrous deceptions in their misrepresentations of history and the relationship between men and women. The “obvious fact” referred to by Doyle is a partial truth emphasized by the liar in order to distract from the whole truth which would lead the target audience to an entirely different conclusion. Or it could be an irrelevant fact designed to lead the target away from the important facts. In both cases the obvious facts emphasized by the liar are true.

One Obvious Fact is that men historically held the majority of the visible positions of power in public institutions. But feminists completely ignore the fact that it was these men who created everything: Philosophy, Math, Science, Engineering, the education, political-legal systems, and systems of government. Feminists imply that it was unjust that men controlled that which they created, when in fact it is to be expected. 

These institutions did not materialize fully formed as a gift from God, nor did women play an equal role in the creation of these elements of our culture. So why would we be surprised that men kept control of their property, intellectual or otherwise, anymore than that a person today keeps ownership of the house they built.

Not only is it unjustifiable to expect women to have had equal control of men's inventions throughout history, it also reveals an unbounded sense of entitlement and envy on the part of feminists, who when complaining that men controlled the elements of culture that they created, are in fact implying that men should be expected to share or hand-over control of everything they create, without delay. 

The truth is that very few men or women held any sort of real power whatsoever historically – most of us were very poor or enslaved – and those that did, held it briefly and at great peril. The powerful men of history were often killed by ambitious rivals, both male and female. It was very very difficult to hold onto power, and we should be surprised that despite these facts, women did share the highest positions of power available, and they did it with the help of powerful men. 

Upon examination we find that almost every feminist claim uses some version of  Doyle's “Obvious Fact” in order to deceive.

Noble Origin vs Original Sin 

This idea that feminism began as a morally righteous movement is a fantasy yet it is widely believed even among self-declared anti-feminists who become quite defensive when challenged. Edwards's reaction serves to illustrate how these confrontations typically go down. His opening remark was mild, possibly well-intended, though misguided:

“This is not an answer to 'what is feminism?' , this is an answer to 'what has feminism come to mean in modern western culture.' I love your videos but do not become a force for division!”

“Do not become a force for division” means “don't rock the boat,” “keep your mouth shut,” “stay within bounds,” “don't upset the feminists,” “don't speak uncomfortable truths.” And what will that accomplish? 

I have studied feminism since stumbling upon the Warren Farrell protest in 2012 at the University of Toronto in which feminists revealed the depth of their hatred of men on camera for me to record and share with the world. I already knew at that time how aggressive and tenacious feminists could be when they decide to destroy a man, so I was nervous to publish that video even though it depicted the truth of what happened that night. I imagined that mobs of feminists would come to my house, protesting and destroying things, as we have seen them behave in the past. That didn't happen, but feminists did try to have the video removed from YouTube, and then they tried to demonetize it. Neither effort was successful, but this incident galvanized my decision to document the anti-feminist movement as best as I could.

 

When Janice Fiamengo first saw my Warren Farrell protest video on YouTube she was inspired to join The Canadian Association For Equality, who had sponsored the lecture by Dr. Farrell. Soon thereafter she gave her first lecture at the University of Toronto in March of 2013, and I was there to film the inevitable protest, capturing some of her lecture, and meeting Janice. As an aside, Dr. Jordan Peterson, who has since become an international sensation, also attended Janice's lecture and can be seen in the audience in my published video.

 

Soon after I began to film Janice's lectures and we started The Fiamengo File series in which Janice unravels the horrendously convoluted lies, hatred, and deceptions that lie at the heart of all feminist theory. It was this journey that convinced me that feminism had always been a hateful movement; that feminists had always hidden or distorted various truths, outright lied, created deceitful surveys, wrongfully shamed and blamed men, mischaracterized history, and bullied people into silence and obeisance in order to further their goals. Feminism's foundational claim, that “a Patriarchy rules the world, and that the Patriarchy is a system of laws and rules made by men to benefit men at the expense of women” – as summarized by Warren Farrell – is a lie that uses Doyle's “Obvious Fact” that men invented the system of laws and rules, and ignores the fact that most of these laws are to control other men and to bring stability to society and wealth to both men and women, especially those at the top of that society. 

Declaration of Sentiments

The idea of a patriarchy that oppresses women was laid out in the very first official feminist document, the Declaration of Sentiments, which I discuss in some detail further below. It was crafted at the first Women's Rights Convention which was held at Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848, and was signed by 68 women and 32 men. 

These early feminists claimed that women were barred from owning property, going to school, and working in the professions. They claimed that the legal system, including divorce law, was deliberately made by men to disadvantage women. They claimed that it was oppressive for women to be subject to laws made by governments for which they could not vote. 

Excerpt from the Declaration of Sentiments

Not only are many of their claims false, but these feminists did not bother to mention that most men also did not have the vote and yet were subjected to even harsher treatment before the law than women even though it was men who died taming and building the world, and it was men who invented the systems of government and law which brought stability to society to the benefit of women. But the real motivation behind the formation of the feminist movement will soon become apparent.

Women's Historical Power 

Even though men were not obligated to share power and control over that which they alone invented and built – which was virtually everything – history shows that they did, and they did so generously. The motivation for this is not hard to understand. Generosity towards women is a well-understood part of the male strategy to attract high quality mates and build a social support group in general and it is a necessary strategy for maintaining status within highly complex andcompetitive human societies. Even emperors courted the support of common folk by giving away grain and hosting games, and they divided the spoils of war, including land, among their troops. No one rose or retained power without alliances with useful partners, including useful female associates.

I fully confess that I am not a history scholar but that makes my observations even more compelling because everywhere you look you will find women who were every bit as powerful as the men in their lives, and often more so. A few clicks using Google will give you more information about the power held by women throughout history than you can absorb in a lifetime, and there is no more evidence of women's oppression than that of men's oppression. The struggle for survival and power affected everyone. 

I recently watched a Netflix series about the Roman Empire, and the power and modus operandi of women in antiquity immediately became apparent in Episode 1 of Season 1. Here we learn that Faustina the Younger, wife of emperor Marcus Aurelius, yielded sufficient power to motivate her family friend and lover Avidius

Faustina the Younger

Cassius to rise against her husband, whom she feared might be dead, only to later betray him to her husband, which led to Cassius's assassination by the Emperor. All of this despite being known as a harlot who sampled men of every rank including sailors and gladiators. Not very oppressed I'd say. And she doesn't even make the list of powerful women in the Roman Empire.

Men and women filled different roles in Roman society, which was a cut-throat, brutal world in which power came with great danger. Even the Emperor was not safe and his death meant that his entire family and blood line was at risk of being killed by any number of ambitious rivals. Upper class men were expected to run society, women were expected to run the household, and both were expected to remain loyal to their respective fathers even after marriage. Both sons and daughters had social obligations to fulfill and both owed deference to their parents. 

The Death of Julius Caesar

That women could not hold public office could be seen either as a restriction or as a liberty, for not all men wanted these responsibilities and many died because of their position. However women were often politically active behind the scenes with less risk, and the female-only role of Vestal Virgin, for example, came with god-like powers: 

• They gave evidence without the customary oath
• Their word was trusted without question
• Death was the penalty for injuring their person
• They could free condemned prisoners and slaves by touching them
• If a person who was sentenced to death saw a Vestal on his way to the execution, he was automatically pardoned

Vestal Virgin

Clearly women were not powerless, as feminists insist. Power was shared in a complex mix of relationships involving those clever and ambitious men and women who could devise a way to grasp some part of it, always at great risk and cost of life. 

Women like Cleopatra and Drusilla, sister of Caligula, were very ambitious and powerful, and no less ruthless than the men of that time. They participated fully in all manner of power struggles including the murder of Emperors, siblings and rivals. They arranged strategic marriages and dalliances, indulged in incest, manipulated powerful men, helped create and modify laws, hosted events and started wars all for power. Although it is certainly an Obvious Fact that top males held more overt power than top females, it is truly deceitful to suggest that top females were not very powerful and influential in Roman society. It is also certain that males at every level of society assumed greater risk to life and limb, and were punished more severely than their female counterparts. 

Also, ordinary Roman women were NOT barred from participating in the mundane running of society as feminists would imply. They owned property and businesses, and they even lent and borrowed money. As the Wikipedia entry, Women in Ancient Rome, points out. Quote:

"One of the most curious characteristics of that age," observed French classical scholar Gaston Boissier, "was that the women appear as much engaged in business and as interested in speculations as the men.”

and

“Because women had the right to own property, they might engage in the same business transactions and management practices as any landowner. As with their male counterparts, their management of slaves appears to have varied from relative care to negligence and outright abuse.”

“The status of ordinary women who owned a business seems to have been regarded as exceptional. Laws during the Imperial period aimed at punishing women for adultery exempted those "who have charge of any business or shop" from prosecution.”

Obviously none of this aligns with feminist claims, and there's much more to come. 

The Middle Ages

Let's move ahead to the middle ages, the roughly 1000 year period from 500 to 1500 AD, for surely women must have been fully oppressed, or indeed “chattel,” during this period, as feminists are fond of saying. 

Even a few minutes of research will reveal that women of the middle ages were queens and nobles, and they shared the power and stature of their husbands as a family.

Katrin E. Sjursen describes the power held by women in the Middle ages in The Atlantic:

“Politically active women thrived in the Middle Ages—as queens, duchesses, countesses, and so on—because the medieval period seated political power within noble families, and women were members of those families.” […] “noble wives in the Middle Ages were regarded as co-rulers of territory, alongside their husbands, and were expected to participate in both political and military affairs even when their husbands were present and available.” 

Furthermore Historian Dr. Helena P. Schrader points out in her essay “Chattels — or What Medieval Women were NOT” that in the Middle Ages,

“A woman’s status was dictated by her class more than her sex.”

and that

“Women of higher social class could command, control, and indeed oppress men of lower status.”

She goes on to point out that, 

“Women who ruled kingdoms — whether Eleanor of Aquitaine or Melusinde of Jerusalem — and wielded power over noblemen, knights and bishops were not 'chattels.' Women who wrote theology and corresponded with popes and emperors and controlled the wealth and inhabitants of religious communities like Hildegard von Bingen were not 'chattels.' Women who pursued trades and ran business, amassing fortunes while holding authority over journeymen and apprentices were not 'chattels.'”

Strike two for feminism.

But what about early US history? Surely men enjoyed all the power and privilege then, didn't they? 

Not at all. 

Early US History

Jamestown Virginia was the first British settlement in North America, established in 1607, and in every single dimension that I investigated, men fared far worse than women during those early years. American women only sought to share in the powerful positions of responsibility after the dying was done; after the roads and paths were cleared and the shops were built and stocked with fineries.

Jamestown, established 1607

In fact there were no women at all on the first three ships to arrive at what would become Jamestown. The location was chosen because it was defensible, but it certainly was not hospitable, as the Wikipedia entry on the history of Jamestown makes clear:

“It was uninhabited because the leaders of the nearby indigenous nations considered the site too poor and remote for agriculture. The island was swampy and isolated, and it offered limited space, was plagued by mosquitoes, and afforded only brackish tidal river water unsuitable for drinking.”

It's hard for us to imagine today just how horrible the living conditions would have been for the men on those first boats. But it gets worse.

Life in Jamestown was brutal in the beginning and 80% of the first settlers died within the first few months due to starvation and disease. Two subsequent convoys brought more supplies and settlers, with the second arriving in 1608, but it was not nearly enough. 

Things got even worse during what is now known as “The Starving Time” of 1609-1610. The ship carrying most of the supplies in the third convoy, the Sea Venture, failed to arrive due to a storm which stranded the vessel in Bermuda. As a result, 90% of the remaining 500 settlers died during the winter of 1610, leaving only 60 settlers alive when the supplies finally arrived on May 23, 1610. It bears repeating: 80% of the first group of men died within the first few months, and 90% of the later “survivors” died before sufficient supplies arrived.

the first slaves in what would become 

the United States of America were “privileged” white men

What's worse, and what is really revealing about the status of men of that period, is that many of these men were kidnapped off the streets of England and shipped to the new world as indentured servants – slaves, in other words. Even though the practice was illegal, kidnapping men was steadfastly overlooked, and so we cannot avoid the fact that the first slaves in what would become the United States of America were so-called “privileged” white men. 

no women were forcibly sent to die

building the new world

By comparison, when a man named Owen Evans tried to kidnap women, he was “quickly exposed and the women were freed. Owens was then charged with treason and hanged, drawn, and quartered.” A large part of the reason for the severity of his punishment was due to his fraudulent claim that he had government approval, but one wonders whether he would have been exposed at all had his cargo been male. And he likely claimed that he had government approval only because he knew that kidnapping women would not otherwise be tolerated by anyone involved, again underlining the high status of women during this period of their so-called oppression. Regardless, the fact remains that no women were forcibly sent to die building the new world. 

Marcia Zug also shows the higher status of women in her article in The Atlantic about “The Mail-Order Brides of Jamestown, Virginia,” 

“The men of Jamestown desperately wanted wives, but women were refusing to immigrate.”

That alone is telling. Women were “refusing to immigrate,” while men were kidnapped off the streets and sent to their deaths as slaves. 

Zug goes on to explain that it was the voluntary nature of the Mail-Order Bride program at Jamestown that made it a success. Female colonists were courted and tempted by offers of free land, and the creation of generous inheritance laws so that, 

“colonial widows didn’t feel economic pressure to remarry after their husband’s death [which was almost inevitable], and many chose to remain single.” 

Notice the degree of freedom and choice accorded these “oppressed” women.

That land ownership and divorce laws were favorable to women in the first days of American settlement immediately dispels these two of the many outright lies contained in the Declaration of Sentiments: that women could not own land and that the law disadvantaged women. 

And there's so much more.

The female settlers were not even bound to their contract to marry. They could change their minds upon meeting their prospective mates, and indeed many married a different man than had sponsored her. 

The following incident should squash any remaining idea that women were oppressed: they were in fact so privileged as to be above the law. At her wedding, Sarah Harrison demonstrated the extraordinary power these women held. Quoting the Atlantic article, 

“According to witnesses, when the clergyman asked for her promise to 'obey,' Harrison answered, 'No obey.' When the question was repeated, she gave the same response. After the third refusal, the reverend acquiesced to her demand and performed the ceremony with no mention of the promise to obey.” 

This demonstrates what we all know anyway: in practice, the vow to “obey” rarely amounted to anything more than a formality intended to encourage goodwill and cooperation, which was probably as rare then as it is now, even with the vow. In fact if you think about it, the very fact that women are asked to obey their husbands in marital vows implies that women do not in general obey men. If women were indeed oppressed, there would be no need for a vow of obedience, it would be taken for granted. Slaves are not asked to vow obedience, their obedience is expected and goes unmentioned until there's resistance, in which case he is beaten into submission. 

Finding a rare and extreme historical example of a sadistic husband would not change the fact that women in general did not feel any urgent need to obey anyone, and furthermore we can equally find examples of particularly sadistic women. The exceptions do not describe our culture, they define those who reject our culture. 

Zug continues, 

“Harrison’s marriage is also remarkable because only a short time earlier, she had been engaged to another man. Harrison had even signed a contract promising to marry her first fiancé, and breaching a marriage contract was serious matter under English law at the time. Nevertheless, Harrison received no punishment.”  

Nearly 400 years ago this commoner held and exercised powers typically only available to Kings … and only because she was a woman.  Even common customs such as standing when a lady walked into a room was an acknowledgment of a woman's higher status. It is the kind of honor given only to royalty and judges today. 

Far from oppressing women, this patriarchy couldn't stop even low status women from tearing our culture to pieces should they choose, as the following excerpt referring to America in the early 1700's proves:

“French Louisiana attempted to solve its gender imbalance through forced immigration and the results were disastrous. Hundreds of women from Paris’s penitentiaries were shipped in to populate Louisiana. These women had no interest in marriage or the fate of the colony and they rapidly transformed it into a hotbed of crime and debauchery.”

And even a cursory look at the news today suggests that women, and women alone, have the freedom and power to ignore and undermine cultural norms to such a degree as to threaten the stability of society. History is repeating itself.

Going back at least 1500 years one must conclude that women held comparable, and often more, power and status than their male contemporaries while assuming less risk, and that American women have in many ways enjoyed higher status than men since the very beginning. Women not only shared the public power held by their husbands, but they held great power of their own both in public spheres and in the home. The husband may have been the symbolic head of the family but it is deceitful to suggest that this power was not shared by his wife. Living with someone has always required that you negotiate your boundaries which is, in effect, to share power. That has always been the road to success in both public and private life. 

A feminist reading this is bound to reach into her chest of profitable grievances and come up with historical examples of how women were treated as less than the divine goddesses they believe themselves to be, and no doubt there are many. But no matter which way you slice up the tragedies of history you will find that men

Marcus Licinius Crassus

suffered and died in numbers too staggering to visualize and in ways too gruesome to contemplate. For example, Roman general Marcus Crassus crucified one of Spartacus' soldiers every 100 feet of the 200 km return trip to Rome for a total of 6,000 men, just to make a point.

The reality of history is that women were normally spared the harsh treatment that men routinely endured, and were often given power and privilege beyond their due for the simple reason that men desire women and woo them with gifts and unearned privileges. Desirable women know how to encourage this and use it to their advantage. Undesirable women come to resent their lack of power over men, and Feminism offers these women an opportunity for revenge.

Crucifixion of 6,000 soldiers who fought for Spartacus

Undesirable women resent their lack of power

Female Aggression

Women have always sought alliances with powerful men, usually by offering sex, but also by using their own political and social connections. An allied man becomes her avatar in the world, and she wields his power without risk to herself, as well as wielding power of her own. 

Evolutionary psychologists explain that females “must minimize their risk of incurring physical harm” because their bodies are the reproductive vessel and so competition for resources often took other indirect forms in both intra and inter-sexual competition. These other non-violent strategies include Social Exclusion, Self-Promotion, and Derogation, forms of aggression used extensively by feminists as we shall see. 

Social Exclusion

According to Science Daily, women use “a different strategy to come out ahead. Specifically, women may rely more on indirect forms of aggression, such as social exclusion.”

As the name implies, this involves excluding potential rivals from having the opportunity to compete in the first place: 

“when they feel threatened by the prospect of being left out, a woman's first response may be to socially exclude a third party.” 

“Preemptive social exclusion appears to be a valuable strategy for women because it allows them to protect their relationships by keeping an outsider at bay.” 

Stay tuned and you will see how the early wealthy white feminists used this strategy against black women, and black men.

Derogation and Self-Promotion

These two strategies are self-evident. Derogation involves casting your competitor in a negative light and characterizing them as unsavory or unworthy. Self-promotion includes claiming some form of superiority, like intelligence, or moral or racial purity. Basically anything that, if accepted as true, could be used to argue for higher status and greater power.

Women continue to use these strategies and to use men as avatars to carry out their plans without risk to themselves even today when they have absolutely no social restrictions upon them that aren't also placed on men. We see women motivating male friends or family members to assault another man often by using false accusations of a sexual nature, we see women acting incompetent or weak in order to convince a man to do the heavy lifting, we see women flirting in order to get their homework done or in order to gain favor with a boss, and marriage itself still relieves women of responsibility for her own future should she choose to stay in the home. Even though there are no barriers to prevent her from taking care of her own needs, a woman is rarely compelled to do so in the way a man is. There is no stigma placed upon a woman who chooses to remain single, to divorce, or leave the workforce, and she is eligible for countless special benefits and programs simply because of her gender.

Woman lies in order to motivate relative to assault a man 

Women act weak or incompetent in order to avoid work

Marriage relieves women of responsibility for their lives

The Declaration of Sentiments

They recast themselves as oppressed 

not protected, as chattel not partners, 

and their envy and shame

became “justified” anger and hatred.

Lets come back to the famous feminist Declaration of Sentiments and the events that led to its formation in 1848 at Seneca Falls, New York.

The declaration claims that women alone were denied The Vote, a university education, and property rights, all claims which have been debunked above and/or in various episodes of The Fiamengo File. But let's deal with a few examples of the “Obvious Facts” used to deceive:  

“He has compelled her to submit to laws, 

in the formation of which she had no voice.”

Despite the fact that there were 32 men present, including a black man, they neglect to mention that all men were also subject to these laws, which were made by those in power not by the men who were also compelled to submit. Furthermore, many, if not most, of the laws that applied to women actually favored women or treated men much more harshly.

The document writers even indulged in vague assertions using derogation intended to inflame hatred of men: 

“He has withheld her from rights 

which are given to the most 

ignorant and degraded men 

—both natives and foreigners.”

And next they set out the central claim that men oppress women using the Obvious Fact that women could not vote as proof, and ignoring the fact that most men could not vote either. Quote, 

“Having deprived her of this first right 

as a citizen, the elective franchise, 

thereby leaving her without representation  

in the halls of legislation, he has 

oppressed her on all sides.”

The Obvious Fact that there were no women in “the halls of legislation” is used to promote the lie that women were “without representation.” But this is a non-sequitur. Representation is not dependent on who does the representing. Not then, and not today. As we saw in Jamestown, men elevated women's interests above those of the men they married, and encoded these benefits in law. Pretty darn good representation I'd say.

“He has oppressed her on all sides.”

And this is also where they present their big overarching lie: “He has oppressed her on all sides.” This allegation is so all-encompassing and so damning that if accepted it would justify any and every measure necessary to strip all men of all power and downgrade them for life. The entire document is a monumental example of the competitor Derogation strategy aimed at all men, relying on Doyle's trick of the Obvious Fact. And they made it stick to this day.

As you can see, the primary assertion of feminist Patriarchy theory – that women have been oppressed by men throughout history – is rooted in this document, the Declaration of Sentiments. All feminists up to and including today's radical feminists merely expanded on the lies laid out by these original feminists. 

And here's what the principal author, and one of the architects of feminism, Elizabeth Stanton, thought about men. See if you can spot the hatred and the derogation:

“The male element is a destructive force, stern, selfish, aggrandizing, loving war, violence, conquest, acquisition, breeding in the material and moral world alike discord, disorder, disease, and death.”

Charming isn't she? 

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

While she dismisses all men in a manner that can only be described as hateful, Stanton is conveniently oblivious to the fact that every need, convenience, status and security that she enjoyed and took for granted in her life was provided-for by the sweat and blood of an army of men. Men who were bound by law and custom into this service, the prime beneficiaries of whom were women like Stanton who were so accustomed to being served that they were utterly blind to the plight of their servants. Exactly like indignant royalty.

So why did wealthy white women suddenly invent the fiction of male oppression of women in the mid 19th century as an overarching explanation of male-female relations, and subsequently insist upon the right vote? Why did female claims of victimization at the hands of evil men not take root before this period?

Two things are going to help us understand this moment in history:

1. The female drive for power and dominance using the female-typical competitive strategies of Social Exclusion, Self-Promotion and Derogation discussed earlier

2. Jordan Peterson's explanation of the shame that creates the hatred that motivates mass murderers. 

Humans evolved in a lethally harsh, cruel, and uncompromising world.  Females had to bear children, which were demanding and dependent for many years. Only strong, smart, and fast males could ensure their survival. As a result males evolved to be stronger, more aggressive, faster, and better able to understand and manipulate the physical world than females, whose survival criteria was significantly different and emphasized the ability to maintain the interest of dominant males, manipulate the social environment and successfully produce healthy babies.

Females became dependent upon male support for survival and sought out the most powerful males, but that doesn't mean they didn't resent the fact that they needed men. In fact it is all-too-human to resent the very people you depend upon for the power they alone hold. Their example of strength and competence shines a harsh spotlight on your own weakness, which naturally elicits a sense of shame. 

Jordan Peterson talks about this in his book Twelve Rules for Life, and explains that, when repressed, this sense of shame turns into resentment, anger and then hatred of that which caused the shame. This is the biblical story of Cain and Abel, where Cain is shamed by his brother Abel, who is favoured by God, and ultimately kills Abel. Peterson explains that, in a similar way, a man who is rejected by or who feels unworthy of the beautiful women he desires, is shamed by their very existence. His shame may transform into hatred of all women and of the successful men whose example further shames him in his failure to measure up. These men then blame those who evoked their sense of shame over their failure in life, and instead of taking the necessary personal responsibility to build a better life for themselves, these men sometimes give in to their hatred and try to kill those they have come to hate, and blame, for their lot in life. 

Abel was favored by God, and similarly, with their greater strength, speed, and natural ability to understand the physical world, men are also “favored by God” in that these are inherited traits -- a gift.

Men's strength, speed and intelligence built civilization

And that is one of the central motivating factors behind feminism. Male strength and competence can induce feelings of inadequacy, shame, envy, and resentment, especially in women who are unhappy with their position in society or who feel that their existing position of privilege is threatened. The unavoidable truth of male superiority at building civilization is evident everywhere you look: the world was built almost entirely by men. If a woman insists upon comparing herself to men, as

feminists do, the resulting shame and envy could easily be unbearable, and the feminist solution was to pretend that women were prevented from contributing by evil oppressive men. This obviated the need to acknowledge superior male competence in anything at all, and elevated all women to the status of long-suffering victims who deserve special compensation. 

The Declaration of Sentiments and the advent of Feminism gave these women an excuse to blame men. They recast themselves as “oppressed,” not protected, as “chattel,” not partners, and their shame and envy became “justified” anger and hatred. 

 

But why then? What had changed by 1850?

Prior to this, women could easily see that the world was far too dangerous to risk sticking your neck out too far: war was brutal hand-to-hand combat; men were routinely tortured; physical labor was literally back-breaking; and political leaders were always at risk of being murdered by rivals. It was far safer to leave all of that to men, and then seduce them and use them as avatars -- a strategy supported by evolutionary psychology and that satisfies the need to protect their reproductive bodies from injury.

War was horrific and political murders were common

Traditional female strategy is to control men through seduction

But by the 1800s, men had made the natural world and the political-legal environment safe enough to convince women that there was no significant physical risk to their reproductive bodies. They were now, for the first time in history, safe to lust for direct domination rather than accept less direct channels of power, and the innately non-violent aggressive tools of Social Exclusion, Self-Promotion, and Derogation were perfectly suited to this new world. Women's sense of shame and resentment in the face of men's superior strength and competence quickly turned into anger and hatred, and now they were safe to attack men rather than seduce them. 

Envy, shame and resentment easily turns to anger and hatred

Men were the principal hated enemy for feminists in 1850, but any group who presented a credible threat to the power and status that these wealthy white American women craved also came under attack. And you will see how quickly and viciously these first feminists attacked.

The Vote

An extremely important point in relation to the Declaration of Sentiments that is often glossed-over is that Elizabeth Stanton, principal architect of the American feminist movement, was not at all concerned about women's suffrage when she organized the Seneca Falls convention.

Stanton organized the conference in order to reassert her status at the top of the food chain after being insulted and embarrassed  at the World Anti-Slavery Convention eight years earlier in 1840. Erin Blakemore, for The Smithsonian, writes,  

“the struggle for women’s rights and, eventually, women’s suffrage in America began with a blowup over seating. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott met when they were whisked off to a roped-off, women’s-only seating section at the 1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention”

This angered Stanton and stoked the fear that her position at the top of society might not be so secure as she had believed. 

Blakemore continues:

“seating is still a hotly contested issue in politics. Each year, the State of the Union address leads to disputes and strange customs over who sits where—and all eyes are on who the current First Lady chooses to sit in her special viewing box.”

Seating position is a public display of status, something that is of central importance in the arena of female competition. Being sidelined at the 1840 conference was deeply humiliating for Stanton. Her sense of being powerless and victimized was intense, and she responded in the very same grandiose fashion that characterizes every individual who feels profoundly and irreconcilably shamed … by casting those who shamed her as irredeemably demonic. It was men who shamed her for being a woman, therefore men became the Oppressor who has “oppressed her on all sides,” an accusation of biblical proportion the intent of which was to shame ALL men in retaliation. 

The impetus for Stanton to host the Seneca Falls conference was to lash out and re-affirm her position at the top of the hierarchy after being humiliated 8 years before. Women's suffrage was barely an afterthought for Stanton. 

In fact, suffrage was of such little importance that it was almost not included in the Declaration of Sentiments. After all, why would wealthy white women be concerned about voting when, as wives and mothers, they already controlled the men who voted-for and ran the government? They weren't.

Frederick Douglass

And here's the best part: At Seneca Falls, concern over the vote for women only received the support needed for inclusion in the Declaration of Sentiments at the
last minute after an informal impassioned speech given by former slave Frederick Douglass, a black man, no less. From Smithsonian Magazine:

“Though a resolution for suffrage was eventually adopted, it was not unanimously supported. Only after an impassioned speech by Frederick Douglass did attendees decide to go for it, giving the document its most incendiary demand.”

Even though the Vote was only included in the Declaration of Sentiments due to the actions of a black man, Stanton and her friend, Susan B. Anthony, would later passionately and vehemently oppose suffrage for black men, but not necessarily for the reasons you might think. The fierceness of their opposition was made clear by Anthony, when she later said:

I will “cut off this right arm of mine before I will ever work for or demand the ballot for the Negro and not the woman”  - Susan B. Anthony

Nothing but the fear of a superior rival, and looming loss of status, could explain the ferocity of feminist opposition to the vote for black men, a privilege that did not even interest them before faced with this crisis. And that rival was not primarily black men.

Stanton's position alienated Frederick Douglass, who understood quite well that white women already held power through their husbands – their avatars. The following excerpt from Stanton's Wikipedia entry explains his argument,

Douglass “believed that white women, already empowered by their connection to fathers, husbands, and brothers, at least vicariously had the vote. According to Douglass, their treatment as slaves entitled the now liberated African American men, who lacked women's indirect empowerment, to voting rights before women were granted the franchise. African American women, he believed, would have the same degree of empowerment as white women once African American men had the vote; hence, general female suffrage was, according to Douglass, of less concern than black male suffrage.”

Clearly Stanton was fully aware of the power she already held vicariously through her male relatives, which is why she was initially completely unconcerned about winning the right to vote for herself. Her fear was exactly that which Douglass pointed out: that black women would be put on a level playing field with white women if black men won the right to vote. And so she opposed the Fifteenth Amendment with fury, a clear example of the Social Exclusion strategy.

A lot of power seemed up for grabs at this time in history, and wealthy white women had the most to lose. The industrial revolution was under way with the promise of greater riches. Politics was no longer the blood sport it once was and wealthy white women sensed an opportunity for social domination, but who they perceived as ally and enemy changed rapidly. The same women who fought against slavery and were ambivalent about the vote, even for themselves, later viciously opposed thevote for black men. It was only when they saw that their battle against universal male suffrage would be lost that Stanton and Anthony urgently fought for female suffrage and made their exclusion from the franchise the central Obvious Fact behind which to hide the central lie of feminism: that men oppress women. Even to this day feminists use The Vote as “proof” that men have oppressed women throughout history.

Feminist Domination 

In their quest for power, privilege and control, feminists have waged a one-sided, hate-filled propaganda war upon men for control of our society, and they have won that war. Feminists barely encountered any resistance for two reasons: our culture

was already gynocentric in that it was designed to protect and provide for women and strongly shamed or punished men who oppose this effort, and secondly, their clever use of Obvious Facts as a tool of deception went unnoticed and unchallenged. 

Feminists now hold the balance of power in every institution of our society. They run the education system from kindergarten to university. They dominate the legal system from law school to family court, criminal court, and even the Supreme court. Their influence in the legal system has given women preferential treatment in divorce, and in hiring and promotion at work. Our criminal law now insists that women are to be believed while men are to be sacrificed in sexual assault and domestic violence cases. Students at Harvard Law School walked out of class in a show of disdain for the legal presumption of innocence and to emphasize the “higher principle” of, quote, “Believe Her.” And feminist groups are lobbying to prohibit sending women to prison for any reason whatsoever, including murder. These feminists are the future lawyers, judges and law makers. 

Feminists also dominate the political system in Canada right up to, and including, the Prime Minister's office. They are funded by our tax dollars in groups like Status of Women Canada, and countless other governmental and private organizations are pushing the feminist agenda in one form or another. They dominate the Main Stream Media, and dictate policy at virtually every major social media company including YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Google, and Instagram, all of whom are censoring and/or demonetizing critics of feminism. Feminist power has grown so preposterous that many universities and companies now require applicants and existing employees to sign what amounts to a pledge of allegiance to intersectional feminism, the strongest religion in this Nouveau West.

It is impossible to overstate the degree to which ideological feminism controls our culture today, and it places the levers of power directly into the hands of its feminist priestesses. The fact that feminism now dominates western culture means that it is imperative that we understand where it came from, and where it's going. 

Unfortunately even many who understand that today's radical feminism is full of hatred still believe that it is a departure from an original noble pristine feminism, implying that feminism can be redeemed and returned to its mythical noble beginnings. Nothing could be further from the truth. 

Originally published in video format on YouTube 

channel StudioBrule on November 18, 2019, but

YouTube deleted the channel in August 2021

The original video was duplicated on 

Odysee channel @TheRedZone and 

re-published on YouTube channel Studio B