John Stuart Mill, a Case Study in Male Feminism

John Stuart Mill, a Case Study in Male Feminism
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[@robertlotter8726]

Just as the 'lack of femininity' - some deficiency in the specifically female sex characteristics - often simulates the development of a normal intelligence in a woman, so 'unmanliness' - some deficiency in the specifically male characteristics - may lead to excessive intelligence in a man. It cannot be overlooked that a great percentage of the so-called intellectual men do not appear too robust physically. That those who overcompensate on the grounds of their ability to think abstractly tend to work precisely where women need them most - in the press and publishing, radio and television, mental health institutes, opinion research and advertising - and that they tend to focus on 'the problems of women' is naturally of invaluable help to women. Unlike the worshippers of women, they do not put women on a pedestal. Here too they are driven to overcompensate - here above all, which they like so much to concern themselves with 'the female question'. Instead, they exalt themselves as men, believe in the power of men as such, and say to women: 'You poor creatures, don't you see how you are mistreated and exploited by men?' They can't help it. The best disguise for the overcompensator's anxiety and weakness is to be as vocal as possible about the weakness and helplessness of those to whom, in reality, he turns for protection. The average man feels 'strong' enough in his own right. The intellectual has to invent someone weaker than himself so that he can feel strong enough. Intellectual men are therefore the natural allies of women in the defense of their status as protégés. Here the interests of the male and the female coincide as nowhere else: women need their image as 'the weaker sex', as intellectuals need their image as 'the stronger sex'. The journalist who daily writes copy for his paper about the cruel oppression of women by men - without himself being one of the oppressors - comes as close as possible to the female ideal of good journalism. The television producer whose offerings express indignation about the mistreatment of women as 'sex objects' and recommends that his fellow men practice the virtues of altruistic love in their dealings with women - self-sacrifice, selflessness, tolerance - is making the best kind of television features, according to the female yardstick. How ironic that it is precisely the kind of men most in need of protection who make a point of telling women how helpless they are without male protection, and that the most sexually neutral of men insist on the sexual exploitation of women by men. But since this is being done in the interests of all concerned - including the other men - no one is likely to look into the matter. Women who do not wish to be protected - and they are the only kind who could possibly object - are too rare to count. _Esther Vilar (1976)_

[@janicefiamengo993]

Excellent. Thank you for this. I have read Vilar, but I would not have been able to pick out this quotation as particularly apt.

[@DonSanchoPanza]

These "intellectual" men to which you refer have serious problems with logic. Their thinking is sophistry. In short they are false intellectuals. Also, only in the modern times intellectual men turned feminist. This association of intellect with feminism is not a law of nature, it is a fashion. The vast majority of scholars, philosophers and scientists in the past were anti-feminists.

[@philliphickox4023]

I need to reread Vilar now that has been bought to my attention

[@neilreynolds3858]

Well, to put it crudely, less robust men don't get laid unless they gain status. Becoming a male feminist gained them status but they're being overtaken by people of ambiguous sexuality. They'll conform. Have you noticed how much of the political leadership of the US looks like the guys who were voted most likely to be bullied in high school? I don't think that's a coincidence. They gained status, they sought protection, they feel invulnerable, and now they're getting revenge on the world.

[@philliphickox4023]

This is a quote < "as attested by female writers like Lucrezia Marinella who in 1600 AD recounted that women of lower socioeconomic classes were treated as superiors by men who acted as servants or beasts born to serve them, or by Modesta Pozzo who in 1590 wrote; “don’t we see that men’s rightful task is to go out to work and wear themselves out trying to accumulate wealth, as though they were our factors or stewards, so that we can remain at home like the lady of the house directing their work and enjoying the profit of their labors? That, if you like, is the reason why men are naturally stronger and more robust than us - they need to be, so they can put up with the hard labor they must endure in our service.”2

[@vivianvennicia]

Simpin aint easy...

[@calebland6246]

Honestly he sounds like a more eloquent version of guys I know after they get in a relationship with a feminist lol. Some things never change.

[@p382742937423y4]

Its funny. And also sad.

[@Reallgeemachine]

@@p382742937423y4 considering how merit and competency has died it is extremely scary. I didn’t know Mill was so unable to see these obvious contradictions and flaws that made liberty so impossible to achieve. He seems more a lover of tyranny using liberty as a cover.

[@mouseutopiadystopia24601]

Janice, you continue to produce much needed, high-quality insights into the origins and institutionalization of feminism. Thank you for your work. On behalf of all men, I hereby grant you the honorary title of “austere patriarch.” Welcome to the club.

[@janicefiamengo993]

Thank you. I accept the honor with humility and gratitude!

[@paulrobbins6080]

I second that.

[@neithanhador8841]

It would be unbelievable to think that a husband would share his wife with another man for years and years . . . just unbelievable, until Will Smith brought his marriage to the public eye with that Oscar Slap.

[@p382742937423y4]

Mill was homeschooled and lacked social interaction with boys. In his memoires he says that he felt lonely and isolated, abd that he had never had the pleasure of being a child. Perhaps this made him mentally a little bit unstable.

[@paulrobbins6080]

The effect of doubling the available labor is that it halves the value of labor.. That's why today both spouses are required to work just to have what a single man could acquire by himself half a century ago.

[@janicefiamengo993]

Yes. And the open competition that Mill imagined has been replaced by atrocious quotas and identity politics that make merit nearly irrelevant.

[@paulrobbins6080]

@@janicefiamengo993 Exactly. Quotas make me feel that some animals are more equal than others. And thanks for replying. I'm a big fan or yours and have followed your for a while. Keep up the good work. I've learned some things I didn't know from your videos.

[@divisadero8859]

@@MadameChristie Who said you are incapable of anything?

[@divisadero8859]

​@@MadameChristie In my 30+ years of life, I've never heard anybody say any of these examples except feminists. I actually cannot understand how some women are not insulted by feminist narrative. In feminist version of the world are women beings with no agency, no influence, society has to approve their choices before they can act upon them, etc. Another very spread strawman is that men hate women emancipations. I spent some time listening to anti-feminists and never have I heard that women are something less. Double standards, data manipulation and lies, looking only at one side of the equations are mentioned very often though. And I see nothing wrong with it, feminism has nothing to do with equality. It is much more victim-hood religion than anything else. But I believe that pay is good.

[@mexicancanteen9596]

@@MadameChristie Those things are all true, though, so what's your point?

[@DonSanchoPanza]

"You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife..." Exodus 20:17. All feminism stems from trespassing against this commandment. I did not know about the adultery of Mill, but it figures. It is interesting that Mill accused the old society of things that the modern society does.

[@DonSanchoPanza]

@Prasanth Thomas Men call it the right to variety and women call it the right to happiness.

[@robjob9052]

he does appear to miss his mummy badly.

[@cognitivedissidents4642]

Mr. Mill would've made an excellent agent to represent the US Women's Soccer Team.

[@fernandoarana4601]

Male feminists...

[@kevinboothby5260]

Arrggh! JS Mill is one of my heroes. I keep a tattered copy of "On Liberty" on my bookshelf. He was a truly brilliant man, but also a thirsty simp apparently. Oh well, I can still be a fan of Mill like I'm still a fan of Star Wars, because the first two movies were awesome and I can just ignore the rest.

[@janicefiamengo993]

He did write *The Subjection of Women* near the end of his life. But he was a lifelong feminist, having been one of the first MPs to propose a woman suffrage bill long before all men had the right to vote.

[@sirellyn]

Ad Rem, the opposite of Ad hominem. Judge the art not the artist. No one is perfect, and it's more important to pay attention to the work itself.

[@kevinboothby5260]

@@sirellyn I agree, and I think Mill is more important than ever as we are seeing a lot of enthusiasm for transitioning to socialist collectivist forms of government. "On Liberty" I think puts forth one of the most cogent arguments for the primacy of the individual in any political system.

[@janicefiamengo993]

My point is not to attack Mill's body of work overall, but to demonstrate how even at this early stage of feminism, otherwise smart men were willing to swallow a hideously false version of reality.

[@kevinboothby5260]

@@janicefiamengo993 Yes I understand that, in fact I was just thinking this listening to an interview with David Buss. Prof. Buss said the he thought that the fundamental human rights stated in the Declaration ( life, and pursuit of happiness) should also include a woman's right to operate in the world without fear of sexual assault. It seems that high intelligence is no defense against the lure of gallantry for human males.

[@widsith1]

Upon having the ongoing pleasure( and leisure!) of listening to these new 2.0 productions, and to replay them as often as necessary, I note how I am haunted by a low energy, but persistent thought. So many of these characters and personages from the 1800's sound as if they may have been burdened with mental health issues,to put it mildly, and to have been given license to roam and proclaim at will for lack of a proper diagnosis. The various rumblings and grumblings of today's woke, alphabet people and radical feminist crowd really tests my resolve to not reach for the DSM IV!! Thank you again, Janice Fiamengo,for giving me hope instead of a reflexive urge to lunge for that manual!

[@janicefiamengo993]

I find it difficult to listen to any of the current crop of ideologues as they seem so obviously unhinged (yet are respected and lauded by the world generally). It is somewhat soothing to see that 150 years ago, the same maladies of thought existed. There is a certain comfort in knowing that what we are experiencing, though malignant and deeply destructive, is not foreign to human culture but in fact an endemic part of it.

[@widsith1]

@@janicefiamengo993 I envy your disposition to find comfort where I see only untreated disorders of the mind. As a child of the '50s, I grew up flooded with a sense of ever growing awe and wonder at the evolutions possible for society. However, since the advent of so called social media , I suspect the last remaining real adults have left the room without a monitor! In so doing, they have committed a grave disservice toward future generations by allowing our universities and other public institutions to become empested with the vile putrefaction of unreasoned,unresearched and unchallenged sloppy thinking.Shame.

[@janicefiamengo993]

@@widsith1 Yes, it's bad through and through. I think you and I, and others of our generation, came to consciousness at a time when it seemed that everything was improving. It was a time, at least in the west, of growing prosperity, technical advancement, social progress, and security. It seems impossible to argue that this is still the case. I guess I take comfort in understanding that in most periods of human history, irrationality and ideological corruption have been the norm.

[@philliphickox4023]

Peter that is something that I also noticed. The other thing that is obvious is many of these women were born to positions of privilege and wealth. They were not working class.

[@mexicancanteen9596]

I'm looking forward to the DSM that says people like us are actually the mentally sick ones

[@stevenlightfoot6479]

Not knowing much about this guy before, other than On Liberty, where is routinely lionized, I have to say now that I do know more about his romantic entanglements, the less impressed I am. And his lover, the wife, sounds like a complete operator.

[@neilreynolds3858]

People will try to get away with anything they think they can get away with.

[@agricolaurbanus6209]

As we found out lately, women have found a solution to the 'men problem': They are gonna go to the woods, live with bears, and create a supreme civilisation of their own there.😂

[@georgehill6726]

An English philosopher whose immediate ancestors were Scottish. Original family surname MILNE. His snobby mother wanted the change in name in hope of quicker public acceptability.

[@LeeGordonSeebach]

Brilliant. Thank you Dr. Fiamengo!

[@solventtrapdotcom6676]

Given, not earned...

[@Allan_aka_RocKITEman]

Janice, at about 01:22 in this video... *_"...bible of the women's movement."_* WRITTEN by a MAN.

[@philerator]

On thesis is that men are simple creatures. They live for affection. So, if Mill was blinded by his affection for Harriet Stuart, he would not have even been capable of a logical analysis. Another idea is that he was conditioned (as in a conditioned response) to think the way he did.

[@janicefiamengo993]

I have a friend who makes the same claim about men's simplicity. Not being a man, I would not want to pronounce on it, but I am continually surprised that men are willing to write long treatises utterly condemning the entire male sex. Has a woman ever done the same? If so, certainly not in a way that ever inaugurated a mass social movement.

[@philerator]

@@janicefiamengo993 Yes, some very good points. I'm trying to remember the name of that Brazilian author, a woman, who wrote a book about this back in the late 60s or early 70s.

[@destrygriffith3972]

@@janicefiamengo993 We male creatures sorta exist to please or entertain you female creatures, it's just part of the evolutionary game. If the evolutionary drift in their preferences were somehow strong enough women could probably get men to walk around in public solely on our hands. We'd do it, and smile about it, competing to see who can look the most comfortable hopping on one hand and shaking the hand of another man. "Hey what's up Jerome?" "'Nother day in paradise Tyler, what you up to?" "Oh, ya know: just another dude being an ass clown for the approval of the female of the race."

[@janicefiamengo993]

@@philerator Esther Vilar!

[@neilreynolds3858]

Most people seem to be conditioned and don't know it. Conditioning isn't even considered to be a possibility but that doesn't stop it from working and billions are spent each year conditioning people - it's called advertising. If it works to sell products, it works to sell ideas. By the time the normal person graduates from college, they've been turned into a robot.

[@jamesrobertsonrobertson5690]

Either John Stuart Mill hated men, or he hated himself, or both!!!

[@neilnelmar8007]

Both

[@Empathiclistener]

Thanks so much again for your work. You are providing a course in gender studies that is unlikely to be found in any university because it too insightful, truthful and rigorous.

[@Mumon010]

One point on which he may have been right was the multitasking ability of women. Men hate it, they like to focus on what they are trying to do over a long term. Women however are able to spread themselves around, carry on several conversations at once, think about the children, other peoples children, the shopping, their clothes and fashion, their emotions which ultimately lead them. Men can't do that. We know we have to compete for the ladies and it is a merciless competition. You can kid yourself if you want, but if a competitor gets rid of you her desire will not cease, she will breed with someone else (unless she is a nun!)

[@neilreynolds3858]

As a woman told me about what it's like to talk to a man: He will open a file cabinet and pull out a file. If you change the subject, he has to put the file back in the cabinet and open another file. It's why men are boring. It's a good way to earn a living but it's boring.

[@gabriellecollier8127]

This guy took all of Mary Wollstonecraft's criticisms against women and framed them as virtues.

[@jonadkisson6886]

He was obsessed with her & women!

[@tkoch7503]

Looking at this woman and two men, I am reminded of what Adams wrote to Abigail. "...in practice you know we are the subjects."

[@jonadkisson6886]

Thank you Janice!

[@janetmcabney6837]

Thanks!

[@bostonteapartycrasher]

About great philosophers failing to reason properly - Voltaire, the philosopher that said, "If you can be made to believe absurdities, you can be made to commit atrocities," believed that masturbation caused neuroses and a whole host of other diseases and health issues.

[@RichardKuama]

J.S Mill - what a simp...🤣

[@primolivingbc5138]

It sounds like Mill did not have much self-respect....... no wonder she lost attraction to him. It's easy for us to see..... not so much for him though unfortunately. Imagine how bad she treated him behind closed doors?!?

[@janicefiamengo993]

She treated her husband even worse. He waited for her to come back to him--and supported her financially, in tandem with Mill--for twenty years.

[@primolivingbc5138]

@@janicefiamengo993 This lesson shows us how much power there is in the word "No". Also, people can only treat you as bad as you allow them too. I love to learn about history and how we got to where we are. We can all learn from past mistakes as long as we don't choose to ignore them. Thank you again! Your lessons are of great value to myself and many others!

[@youtubehatesus2651]

thx, Janice +_+

[@johnrew5713]

Ah yes intuition. The purvey of socialites and carnival tricksters and the curse of engineers.

[@neilreynolds3858]

And it's how paradigm change starts...

[@TRINITY-ks6nw]

Wow JF you are awesome

[@monsieurdreamer13]

Thank you, ma'am, for all of your work.

[@D00kerT]

Steve & Janice: Can you guys please point the way to the archived seasons of the Fiamengo Files? I cherish the entire series and want to do my part to try and mirror and back them up. Bitchute seems to have some of them but their organizational structure and ability to find anything within any given channel is terrible. Is there some place they all exist that I'm missing? Please, they are invaluable and I can't find a comprehensive archive anywhere!

[@janicefiamengo993]

I don't think I can link to the archive. It's at Odysee. Search for Studio Brule Archive and the whole set should come up. Thanks for your affection for the series.

[@williamcollins7648]

I'm glad you've addressed this topic. I was unaware just how in thrall Mill was to his lady-love/wife until a friend enlightened me a few years ago. Such a shame. I have the highest regard for On Liberty, surely the richest source of quotable quotes. But Mill's embracing of Utilitarian morality is a sign of his philosophical weakness in some areas. One cannot help but suspect that class skewed Mill's view of things. It would have been hard to uphold the idea of male privilege for working class men, 95% of the male population at that time, when "work" consisted - as Russell reminds us - of moving heavy weights from one part of the Earth's surface to another. It is remarkable how much of modern feminism can be found in Mill's polemic, and that bears testament to its innate (evolutionary) origin. That Darwin's On the Origin of Species was but a few years off the press, and many years before its influence on human psychology would be appreciated, did not assist Mill to be more aligned with empirical reality. But this school of thought has ever flouted the empirical in favour of pandering to innate prejudice - a confirmation bias no less strong in noted philosophers than the rest of us. Philosophers merely have the language to be more persuasive. Amusingly, today the average MRA has more philosophical acumen on these matters than one of the nineteenth century's most noted philosophers.

[@galaxytrio]

Fantastic, Janice. This is astonishing.

[@janicefiamengo993]

Thank you. I found it so too. Fascinating story of Mill's life, including the love affair with Harriet Taylor, can be found in Richard Reeves' *John Stuart Mill: Victorian Firebrand.*

[@rjsims9117]

Thank you, Janice.

[@Jigsaw0097]

BETA!

[@smartiepancake]

@2:50 Where exactly does the quote "The woman's position is worse than that of most slaves" come from? - i can't find it in the essay. I did find a similar quote, but it made this statement clearly and specifically in relation to women's ability to acquire property.

[@janicefiamengo993]

It's on p. 17 of the online version I used for the quotations.

[@smartiepancake]

@@janicefiamengo993 Janice I love your stuff - all of it - but not this - you need to revise this video, your quote is not a quote. I'd dump it, the innuendo in it doesn't match what I've read about the relationship.

[@vivianvennicia]

I missed the notification for this.

[@DonSanchoPanza]

Me too.

[@smartiepancake]

This is very interesting, I'm a fan of Mill's critique of unearned privilege (especially relating to land ownership, still the main driver of systemic inequality today). I've not read the book in question but I feel it's being straw manned a little here. The quotations are speculations but Janice treats them as assertions. Remember the context here - this was the age of the abolition of slavery and serfdom, the age of growing industrial inequality. Mill's questioning of the centuries old status quo, I feel, was entirely justified. Maybe his emotions towards one women affected his generalisations about women in general - it does look like that from this video - but let's not dismiss Mill on the basis of that.

[@janicefiamengo993]

I'd prefer you read the book and come back to me quoting the parts of Mill's argument that undermine my analysis. As for the larger context, there was no "centuries old status quo" in which women were worse off than slaves, as Mill risibly claimed. There was a rapidly changing, industrializing & democratizing society in which many women were actively pursuing public lives of far more privilege than many of their male peers. I am not suggesting anybody dismiss Mill. My point is merely that on the subject of the "emancipation" of women, he foreshadowed many of the illogicalities and outright inaccuracies that remain characteristic of feminism today.

[@smartiepancake]

​@@janicefiamengo993 Fair point ref reading the book (see below). The status quo I was referring to included the centuries old institutions of slavery/serfdom and of land monopoly which Mill and others challenged at this time. That the relations between the sexes should be swept up in this review is unsurprising. Mill seemed to be concerned with freeing unrealised human potential wherever it might be being suppressed. I don't see anti-maleness-as-maleness in the essay. PS - ref your highlighted Mill quote - "from the dawn of human society every woman was in a state of bondage to some man" is clarified and justified a couple of pages later: "In early times, most males were slaves, as well as all females.. . . .at last the slavery of the male sex has been abolished in all the countries of Christian Europe; and. . . .the slavery of the female sex has been gradually changed into a milder form of dependence."

[@mexicancanteen9596]

@@smartiepancake Simp

[@EiziEizz]

@@smartiepancake If what you wrote is true, he is contradicting himself, which reminds me of another narcissistic lying obfuscator of the left. Clown Chumpsky