Brainwashing Men, Brainwashing Women, Part 2

By Tom Golden: Part one went over the basics of brainwashing and began to look at some of the similarities that male feminists seem to share with those who were brainwashed by the Chinese.  We discussed how the parallels we were drawing were not precise and were general though striking and eye opening.  I think a similar situation can be seen when we turn to the similarities of the feminists with those who were doing the brainwashing, the communist Chinese.

We saw how the Chinese first depended on attacking the identity of the captives and added the prolonged use of guilt and shame.  This was all done within an environment where they (The Chinese) were held as infallible.  I think a good case can be made for some strong similarities existing in the way feminism has attacked men and boys.  It is a curious question why they would do so.  Let’s start there.

So why did feminism attack the identity of men?  Well, it’s pretty simple really.  Telling the truth that women suffered and faced discrimination due to rigid sex roles just wasn’t that sexy and the media and politicians would fail to be interested.  But, if you can find a bad guy, you know, someone to blame, then the ordeal becomes sexy and interests the press and those politicians knowing they need something to get re-elected. We will just blame men and claim they are the problem.  Hey, we could juice it up even more and call them oppressors!    

And that is just what they did.

They did this with the benefit of a gynocentric culture that has always jumped to attention when females claim they are tied to the tracks. If you don’t believe that just look at our laws.  Time and time again the laws protect women but less so men.  The Violence against WOMEN Act, Sexual Harassment Laws, Rape Shield laws, affirmative action, and on and on. The protecting is all for women and little for men.  Men are disposable.

It didn’t take long to find that the tactic of blaming men as oppressors was actually very effective and very lucrative.  The more they did it, the more media attention and funding they would get.  And no one complained!

Of course, the obvious truth was that women were restricted not by oppressive men but by rigid sex roles.  These roles had been the norm for many, many years and would likely still be in effect except that women became aware that their options were limited by their sex roles and they wanted more options in their lives.  

But didn’t women have options?  Yes, they had many options but simply not the same as they saw men getting. (of course men have never had the options that women had but they have yet to complain, you know, like not dying in wars, or getting to stay at home with the kids while someone else works and supports you, or actually getting compassion and emotional support) What many people don’t realize is that in 1960, prior to feminism, women were 32.3% of the workforce.  That’s right, one third of our workers were women. With all that our gynocentric government has done since then it is now at 47%.  That’s up only 15%.  Women had jobs and worked outside the home.  And how about college?  Again, what most don’t realize is that in 1960, prior to feminism, women received 35% of the college degrees. Does this sound like a group that is oppressed?  No.  Let’s compare them with a group that was oppressed.  Slaves.  Slaves were 0% of the workforce and 0% of the recipients of college degrees.  See the difference?  One group is limited by a rigid sex role and faces discrimination that keeps them out of some professions and some top positions etc and the other group is actually oppressed and forbidden to take part in society.  Huge difference. There is no comparison. Women have made gains in many areas including getting more jobs as professionals such as lawyers and doctors.  They have also surpassed men in obtaining college degrees.  In fact at this point women are getting more degrees than men at the same rate that men had gotten more degrees than women in 1970.  But guess what?  The 1970 figure for women is seen as a sign of discrimination/oppression against women while the 2010 figure for men is seen as a success for women! A part of that misandry is due to feminists and their cronies having gotten away with painting men as the problem and of course we simply don’t care so much about those who are the cause of the problem.  We ignore their pain and suffering.  Sound fair to you? Again, this is just more evidence of our living in a gynocentric world.

The attacks on men’s identity were basically a global false accusation. The feminists took the low road and falsely accused their own partners, the opposite sex, in order to get what they wanted.   These false accusations likely worked on the feminists in the same ways that we saw brainwashing work on the men who betrayed their own origins.  When we betray, we will tend to detach from that which we betray. The feminist betrayals of men likely moved them farther and farther into a detached position. We will also likely be more motivated to collect evidence that the betrayal was justified.  This may give us a clue about the extent the feminists have gone in betraying men. Could it be that the more the feminists betrayed men the more detached they became to men?

And what happens when someone is falsely accused?  The first thing the accused does is often deny that the attack is very important.  From their perspective they know that it is false, it is bogus.  They know it is untrue.  They figure that in a short period people will figure this out and all will be well. They trust that that common sense and compassion will prevail.  A part of this early denial is the minimization of the impact that such a false accusation can have.  It seems to me that this is just how men responded to the early false accusations.  They laughed it off and figured such nonsense would never have much impact.  They were wrong.  What is the worst thing about a false accusation?  It is almost impossible to disprove.  Individual men could say that they were not oppressors but there was no way for men to speak as a group and disprove the false accusations of these constant attacks.  And they started to spread.

So the feminists/women had made a choice:  Insure more stuff for women by attacking men’s identity and integrity.  They frankly seemed like naturals at this tactic.  Labeling men as every sort of bad meme one can imagine.  Men were pigs, men were rapists, men were greedy and unwilling to share with women, men were violent and bullied innocent women in relationship, men were insensitive, men were oversexed, men were testosterone poisoned, men never grew up and the list goes on and on.  Men were bad.  Bad. Bad. Bad.  Not some men, but men in general.  Just try and imagine someone saying similarly negative things about women as a group.  I bet you can’t even imagine it.

In order to maintain this lie of men oppressing women they needed to paint men as more and more terrible oppressors.  They proceeded to create oppressors at every street corner.  Men were oppressing women and keeping them from getting jobs, they were sexually harassing them on the job, men were oppressing women and keeping them tied to the home, men were oppressing women via domestic violence and beating them at home, men were oppressing women by raping them, by keeping them out of schools, by limiting their pay, by keeping them out of boardrooms and top jobs.  Men men men.  Bad guys.  This was drilled into the consciousness of a receptive and gullible public who cheered on the poor dears who had been so oppressed by these evil men. And the funding flowed. The agencies created. The bureaucracy begun. The American public loves an underdog and hates a bully and that is just how this fight was painted, the men were bullies and the women were underdogs. The American public still thinks this way to this day due to these lies.  

Bullies don’t deserve any special treatment.  In fact people tend to hold the attitude that bullies should pay for their bullying. Things like affirmative action might disadvantage men but they have been bullies/oppressors and have “had it all” for years.  The prevailing attitude is that now it is their turn to suffer. Add that to the fact that men are already seen as disposable and these things create a situation where men are much less likely to get any compassion and more likely to have people nod and accept that they experience disadvantage.  No compassion for them. 

This drill went on for years and as it progressed the media and academia picked up the bull horns and started to attack men just as it had been started by mostly feminists. This eventually expanded to nearly every sphere of American life.  The media, academia, the courts, the legislatures everyone had gotten in on the act of blaming men.  Now it was common for all of these factions to beat up on men.  No one cared.  Men were fair game. They were oppressors, they were egocentric bullies.  All things masculine were seen as a problem, all things feminine were seen as a solution.  The men were the oppressors and deserved it.  The fact that so many others were now carrying out the attacks on men’s identity relieved the feminists from having to do so. You rarely hear the men are pigs line or other degrading comments much any more but it is there. After years of attacks the entire culture has taken on the anti-male attitude. It is automatically assumed by most people and because of this it simply does not need to be voiced. The negative stereotype of men  has become a part of the cultural fabric. 

Along with the attacks on male identity came the guilt and shame. This could be seen in all of the name calling and identity attacks but was additionally related to attempts to demean both men and masculinity with blame for the problems of the world. This was not an attempt to make men feel guilty for a specific behavior or something they had done in their lives.  No.  It was more an attempt to have men BE guilty. To be and feel guilty simply for being male.    You were guilty not for something you had done, but for something you were.  You were male.  This is quite similar to the communist Chinese tactic of having their captives live in a world of shame and guilt over who they were not only what they had done. 

There were some places with a much higher density of male hate and contempt than others. Probably the area with the most hatred espoused was academia.  The women’s studies departments were run by radical feminists who voiced this message repeatedly.  Anyone who disagreed would face a great deal of hardship from the university administration. Accusations of misogyny were used as weapons.  Entire faculties started living in fear of appearing in any way to be anti-woman or being pro-male.  They were petrified and even to this day the people I know on college campuses are afraid of the gender politics of the feminists. Very few will speak up even a little in opposition to women and feminists. Everyone knows to stay silent and not draw attention to oneself.  These people have been known to be ruthless and consider themselves infallible. People live in fear of them. This of course is very similar to the Communist Chinese brainwashers. They routinely attack the identity of men, shame and guilt them as being misogynists and do so from a place of infallibility.  Two peas in a pod. 

I think that this high density of man hatred has been at least partly responsible for the lack of gender diversity in resources on today’s college campus.  Almost every place you look are more things for women but there is almost nothing for the men outside of huge mega-buck athletics that doesn’t really help the average guy.  Women’s Centers, women’s safety, women’s groups, women’s health. etc. 

The density of the male/masculinity hatred on campus must also mean that our college campuses are one of the more effective brainwashing centers. All those that pass through, both males and females, get indoctrinated into the anti-male stereotypes from their freshman introductory welcome workshops to their last day on campus.  It is little surprise that  on college campuses we tend to see more male feminists.

It also dawned on me why feminists are so quick to call males misogynists when they are simply talking about the needs of men.  I have noticed this for years that simply mentioning men’s needs will bring on an accusation of hating women.  They are very quick to point out that what is being said is misogynistic.  But why would simply voicing men’s needs be misogynistic?  Well, it can’t be, but what I have assumed over the years is that feminism has a very old habit of voicing the needs of women while at the same time attacking men as the problem.  Could it be that they are simply expecting the same hatefulness they have practiced for years to come back at them from those who start to voice the needs of men?  Seems like a possibility to me. 

Tremendous damage has been done to both men and boys and women and girls over the years. It is going to take a long time to start to shift these hateful attitudes.  Men and boys deserve both choice and compassion. At this point they are getting very little of either. 

About Tom Golden

Tom Golden is a psychotherapist specializing in men and boys' issues. He is the author of Swallowed by a Snake: The Gift of the Masculine Side of Healing, and its followup, The Way Men Heal, both available on Amazon. He is also a member of Warren Farrell's proposed White House Council on Boys and Men.

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