You can imagine a fascism without misogyny. Many have, especially misogynist fiction writers in the 20th century – see the alien world where men have been enslaved by vixens in silver lamé. Leaving aside that frivolous example and just daydreaming, you can see it, right? Not from Shitler. Maybe his sidekick, Couchfuck McBeardnazi, could in some world in some way be totally respectful to women, keep them close in his counsel in the tower of Mordor, march arm in arm with them to burn and oppress. In practice, it never happens. Misogyny is a first principle of fascism, in spirit and deed if not always in word. As it happens, we also have it in word here.
As primary caregivers under patriarchy, women are primary authority figures over children. To keep peace, rule one for the unruly kinder is “be nice to each other.” Don’t hit people, think about their feelings. Basic liberalism born of practicality. To forge a brave new world without mercy, where violence can be wielded without restraint by the cool sexy stormtroopers, we must first remove the authority of anyone who would tell you to play nice. We must chain mom to the house and beat her if she dares to speak.
Maybe that’s it? Maybe not. I’m sure you can find dozens of essays from antifascists like Umberto explaining the principle, or even writing from fascists telling on themselves. I wonder if, in some unrealized golden future where all prejudices and bases of oppression are falling away one by one, misogyny may be the last one to fall. Far more than racism, antisemitism, transphobia, etc, it has traitors within the oppressed group lining up to enforce its agenda. Misogynist women are the fucking pits. Not that there aren’t racist members of oppressed races, antisemitic jewish people, and transphobic trans people, because there are. It just seems like a worse issue with women’s rights.
I haven’t been perfect on feminism by any means, especially the deeper you go into my foolish past (pre-blogging), and am not trying to pose like a saint of the practice. Just pointing some shit out. The real meaning of “woke” is “maintaining awareness of oppression, especially for self-defense.” I want the world to wake up to the insidious omnipresence of misogyny and do some real shit about it. We persist in our fascist coma. Big sigh.
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Agreed… I don’t think misogyny is structurally inherent in fascism, but it’s going to be part of any fascist movement within existing culture.
So, ten years or so ago, back when the Sad and Rabid Puppies were trying to take over the Hugo Awards for science fiction, El Sandifer over at Eruditorium Press wrote a post called ‘Guided by the Beauty of Their Weapons‘. In it she described fascism (and she was talking specifically about Vox Day and his ‘I’m smarter than all of you so everybody should listen to me‘ shtick) as less an actual coherent political belief and more an aesthetic, built around a few core concepts:
– Pining for a (mythical) lost golden age
– A ‘stab in the back’ myth about how the golden age was lost
– A vision of someone strong and above the law who would do what was needed to restore it.
Everything else, especially the details of what the lost golden age was like, is filled in with bits of the surrounding culture, so the core of fascism can be slotted into just about any other system. It’s all just “we should be in charge, they cheated so we’re not in charge, therefore we have to cheat better to take over again”. It is inherently not a well-thought out system, which is why it flourishes best when you have a lot of resentful people who don’t like to actually think. (It’s also why the ‘intellectual fascists’ like Vox Day were always doomed to fight amongst each other for the court vizier positions rather than being the ones in charge.) The last part is easy to fill in with a classic ‘strongman’ stereotype.
Basically, fascism is misogynistic because the surrounding culture makes misogyny a really easy lever to use to motivate petty people who don’t like being told what to do by anybody who isn’t like them, and whose ideal leader is just as petty as they are.
excellent comment and link. love it when my posts get value added.
@1 jenorafeuer: Fascist states also always include minorities to hate. It’s important in this context because there are practical limits to how much misogyny a fascist state can have and still function. Women are celebrated as long as they don’t challenge their position and lack of power. Women are to be kept in their proper place in the home raising the next generation of foot soldiers and factory workers. The minorities though can be hated freely, they are to be destroyed once the fascists have power because they don’t deserve to even be an underclass in the superior state.
that’s a lil off topic. in terms of umberto eco’s ur fascism you’re talking about numbers 5&9 while we’re on 12. surely would not dispute the validity of the other numbers, but they’re not where this post is.
@JM:
Having minorities to hate is not an ‘also’. That’s part of the ‘stab in the back myth’ I mentioned. Minorities are usually just the convenient scapegoats for how the golden age got lost. They’re not really a requirement any more than misogyny is.
The setup needs someone to blame; whoever is convenient will work. It doesn’t even need to be a minority: it could even be a majority who just isn’t willing to fight back at that level. (One could argue that blaming ‘the Democrats’ would even qualify for that.)