Olentzero, like many other people, seems to have bought into a warped form of feminism.
As I see it there are two kinds of feminism. We might call them normal feminism and radical feminism, but it would be more descriptive to call them liberation feminism and anger feminism.
Liberation feminism recognizes that women have been severely limited by unfair laws, stereotypes, and traditions that treat them differently from men. I wholeheartedly support liberation feminism because it fights for fairness and against ignorant cultural beliefs. The only battle is the enlightened people of both genders against the unenlightened of both genders.
Anger feminism promotes the idea of a class struggle with males as the dominant class that wants to subjugate the female class. Every issue brought up by the anger feminists is aimed at instilling anger and paranoia by women against men, or arguing that women are superior to men. While liberation feminism is a noble cause, anger feminism is a warped and twisted ideology.
Why does anger feminism exist? Because it works. Liberation feminism asks people to give up their preconceived prejudices. This is hard for people. Anger feminism incites people using fear and anger, which has traditionally been quite easy. Religious leaders have manipulated people through fear of the devil and witchcraft, Hitler manipulated people through fear and anger toward Jews and Gypsies and others, Joe McCarthy manipulated people through fear of Communism, George W. manipulates people through fear of terrorists. People who are afraid will often fail to question even the lamest of arguments, and this has worked wonderfully for the anger feminists such as Andrea Dworkin, Catharine McKinnon and many others.
One of the sad things is how sexuality plays into this. Some of the worst traditions of our culture involve the demonization of sexuality. This was promoted by the most sexist elements of society - the Catholic Church, the Mormons, fundamentalist Protestants, and conservative Islam. Sex outside of marriage was disgusting, pornography was disgusting, public nudity was disgusting, lust was disgusting. In particular, sex degraded women (but not men particularly) because, when fathers wanted to sell their daughters (like property) to potential husbands, it was difficult to find a buyer if the woman was not pure and innocent. Why would anger feminists jump on this obviously sexist anti-sexuality bandwagon? Because it works for demonizing men. Since men tend to have higher sex drives than women, they tend to be the ones pushing for more sex - they are the ones willing to pay prostitutes or pay for strippers or pornography. By accepting the taboos as valid, all these activities can then be used as evidence that men are eager to humiliate, degrade, objectify, and otherwise harm women. This is complete bullshit. Men just like sex.
I enjoy strip shows and pornography (haven’t been to a prostitute), as does virtually every man I know. I don’t have any desire to humiliate or hurt women in any way. Nor, from what I can tell talking to other men, do any of them want to harm or humiliate or degrade women. Women involved in the sex business should not feel humiliated by it, but if they do, it is because of the many taboos that our culture still promotes. We should solve this problem by trying to get rid of those taboos, not by trying to stifle sexuality.
