Well, another antidote to the ferocious level of managed-shortsightedness by the media on the Santa Barbara mass murders.
“I have been a radical feminist for as long as I can remember. As I witness the marginalisation of radical feminism in the cultural discourse, in publishing, and in women’s studies programs, I see the feminist movement I once loved become powerless to explain what is happening to women -especially the horrific levels of violence against women.This failure has reached a new level following the massacre by Elliot Rodger of students at UC Santa Barbara. The media is on fire with women, and some men, writing about misogyny as the cause, as if that explains why Rodger targeted young women and rambled on about “sluts” refusing to date him.
Misogyny is not something created out of thin air, to be caught much like a cold, that drives those infected to commit horrendous acts of violence. It is an ideology produced and disseminated by social and cultural institutions that work seamlessly together to create a social reality that normalises, legitimises and glorifies violence against women.
Karl Marx was one of the first theorists to explain that ideology is not a free-floating set of ideas, but rather a coherent system of beliefs that are purposely and carefully created by the elite class to promote their interests. Using their ownership of key cultural institutions, the elite then set about distributing these ideas until they become the dominant ways of thinking.”
bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
5 comments
June 12, 2014 at 9:39 am
roughseasinthemed
It depresses me hugely that radical feminism gets such bad press, is out of date, too extreme (ha!), is seen as out of touch, and well everything is ok now for worn isn’t it?
This is really bang head on wall depressing. I swear there is one very big conspiracy trying to destroy radfems and dilute any remaining feminism to pretty little tea parties.
Same sentiments as Dines, just not expressed in academic terms.
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June 12, 2014 at 9:57 am
The Arbourist
@RSITM
In any movement there needs to be balance between theory and praxis. Feminism, being under constant societal pressure has retreated on a couple of fronts supported by theory and advanced on other that, surprisingly, happen to be dude friendly – grrl power, sex positivism etc.
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June 13, 2014 at 1:32 am
marcdhall
I think this is a false dichotomy. Ideological systems, the real ones in peoples heads, whatever they are, are complex and hinge on environmental factors beyond anyone’s control. To think that they can be ‘designed’ in any meaningful sense is just not plausible.
It’s exactly like people saying they ‘design’ their children. No, they direct their children’s development. No-one knows how to ‘design’ a child.
A better analogy is selective breeding. These ideology systems evolve and propagate on their own but they can be directed at a high level. People that are carrying particular ideological traits are selected, those that don’t are removed. That’s exactly what we see everywhere.
Another big problem with thinking that these things aren’t ‘caught’ is that the alternative is that they are innate. If they are innate then how can we fix them? It would be like having a movement against breathing oxygen or having colour vision.
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June 14, 2014 at 8:53 am
The Arbourist
@Marcdhall
Socialism is an ideology. It was designed as to make society take on a more egalitarian structure. It was fomented out of the ideas of the French Revolution and has been adapted to fit various societies since then.
I think I may see your point about the dichotomies presented. Ideologies are formed not in a simple binary process, but take a good sample from column A and from column B. Like the Nature/Nurture debate its hard to demarcate exactly what is driving an ideology at any one set time.
The above is the point of the article, and I am inclined to agree with Dines analysis of misogyny in our society.
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June 14, 2014 at 9:04 am
marcdhall
I think we need to be more clear about ideologies as actual phenomena. You can, in some sense, design an ideology. But you can’t just inject that into peoples brains. You have to let it propagate through natural channels.
What you design is a prototype. What ends up in peoples heads, the real instances of that ideology, are different things entirely. The propositions of the ideology can change in transit, they can be selected and discarded by the person receiving copies of it, and that person can selectively choose how it is propagated to others. Also, there are lots of unconscious factors changing the nature of the ideology as it propagates.
So using the word ‘ideology’ to refer to the prototype and all the instances leads to errors. If you recognise the distinction you can see that it is possible to design an ideology and not design it at the same time.
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