The Weird World of John C. Wright

John C. Wright isn't well known in the mainstream media, but he has a cult following online. I found out about him the same way I found out about Dave Blount--via Fundies Say The Darndest Things, where the posts from the craziest people on the internet are all compiled and archived for the amusement of the sane community. John C. Wright publishes a journal online--he's published this for several years if the archives of FSTDT is anything to go by--that reads like Wingnut Mad Libs (hat tip to Ed Brayton.) Gays, socialism, "immoral sexual practices" among women, the Illuminati. All the classic ingredients of your typical Tin Foil Hat conspiracy nut on the Internet. Mr. Wright seems to be bothered by feminism is particular. While most anti-feminists--at the ones that frequently whine on online public forums--are just men who feel threatened by "unfeminine" women who don't stay in the kitchen, Mr. Wright is different. For, you see, he knows the true force behind feminism. And he knows that it is very serious and that civilization is in dire turmoil if the evil feminist hordes are allowed to continue their witchcraft. No, seriously. He actually believes that feminists gain power by putting weak-willed men under their spell.

Even by Mr. Wright's standards, though, this screed is batshit crazy. I'll just post some choice quotes from it and try to figure out what the logical structure of his argument is.

I had recently come to realize that the feminist movement is not feminist at all. It is masculinist.

That's how he starts out. Yes. The feminist movement is not feminist. It's actually pro-male! But then wouldn't that be a good thing for the ASMOTT (Antisocial Males on the Internet) community? Not so! For this masculinist feminism is VERY SINISTER INDEED.

By this I mean, the purpose of Fourth Wave feminism (if you wish to judge not by what they say, but by what they do, and to know the fruits, so to speak, by their fruits)

 I hate it when women speak with their fruits. Don't you hate it when women do that?

is not to make women legally and culturally equal to men, but to make them be men: that is, to abolish the female from life and thought altogether.

 So…like the twist ending to Sleepaway Camp?

No clearer homage could be paid to the concept that males are superior to females than the tacit acknowledgement that the only path to equality was imitation. What the feminists are doing is about as insulting and degrading to women as if the Civil Rights movement of Martin Luther King, rather than abolishing Jim Crow laws, kept those laws in place, and instead urged all Negros to have their skin dyed white.

 …

I cannot think of a deadlier insult, or a more outrageous.

 You couldn't have thought of a stupider one, either.

For many a year my admittedly limited brain refused to accept that this was what the feminists were actually seeking, because, of course, as we all know, women are the superior sex. (They are not the superior gender. Gender is a part of speech. Only people who hate sex and hate women would demean them by referring to them as a “gender”. A “gender” is something artificial you put on. To call a woman’s sex her gender would be like referring to the Black Man’s race not as a race but as a “costume”.

I decided to bold a particular part of that paragraph because I think he's subconsciously realizing how stupid he sounds right now.

What are the distinctive marks of womanhood, the thing that makes women women instead of dickless men with breasts? Even the man from Mars can tell that: women bear children rather than father children. This has immediate and inescapable social and political implications: by nature, women must be more careful in the choice of mate than the man, for she will carry the child nine months. Hence, sexual purity is and must be more important to and for woman than men.

I think you deserve an award for making that many non-sequiturs in one paragraph.

If these are the distinctive marks of womenhood, how do we find the feminists disposed to them?

Instead of embracing and glorifying them, the feminists regard all signs of femininity with the horror a Jewess escaping from a concentration camp would regard the Yellow Star — her dogma is that all signs of femininity are signs of degradation.

…do I even have to make fun of this?

The Fourth Wave feminists  draw this warped logic to a warped conclusion: motherhood is a sign of inequality, but so is virginity, and so is being a bride, and so is natural sex, therefore the only truly liberated woman is someone neither a wife nor virgin, matron nor maiden. Logically this means the only truly liberated woman is a harlot, or someone raising her child by herself, or crying over her children she has slain, unborn, and never held in her arms. This is the least free imaginable position for a woman to be in: picture a White House intern on her knees in front of a man who has such contempt for her that he will not wed her, in a society whose contempt for her is such that it does not demand he do so. She services him, and he kicks her away when he no longer is amused by her. Her sister feminists then turn on her and side with the man. That is freedom? That is equality?

And what do they get in return? Women now have the high privilege that, when the conversation turns to rape, it is asserted with all earnestness that women can “rape” men. The meaning of this word and others is broadened to Orwellian jabberwocky, so that women can feel that peculiar type of so called self-esteem that is bestowed by the insincere courtesy of strangers, and rejoice in their nominal equality with men: we are all rapists now.

So, in an effort to break the evil hypnotic spell the feminists have cast over the human race, let us here and now announce a Fifth Wave of feminism, a true feminism, which glorifies womankind and reduces we mere males back into our deservedly lowly position as breadwinners and heads of households, whose mission in life is to cough up money enough to support a wife and kids, and have the wife at home so that hired daycare strangers are not raising them.

 I have a term for this movement as well. It's called, "suburbia."

Fifth Wave feminism demands that reactionary feminists and enemies of mankind stop insulting and demeaning women, womanhood, and womankind. Women are heroines, not heroes, mothers, not caregivers, and in the professions and the arts, woman are businesswomen, authoresses, poetesses, and aviatrixes, and anything else her bold heart and feminine spirit can conceive, and will no longer allow the feminine nature to be robbed from their accomplishments, or the feminine endings to be robbed from their names:

The era of the Amazons, who try to be like men by cutting off their breasts and dressing (spiritually and actually) in male trousers is over and dead! From now on, it is women who shall wear the skirts in life!

Wait, I'm confused now. What point is trying to make here?

Fifth Wave feminism demands that men return to their ancient and servile status as suitors, chaste lovers, bridegrooms. With one voice, the sisterhood of all true feminists everywhere cries out: “WE WILL BE COURTED, DAMN IT! No more of this casual sex that exploits the woman and leaves the man looking smug. No more hook ups. No more cheap dates.

A reminder. This guy is not a satirist. He is being  completely serious here.

“You will hold the damn door for me, take off your damn hat, buy me flowers, and pay for the meal and the show. No kissing until the second date. If I let you hold my hand (and I will be wearing gloves) count your lucky stars. If you do not have a hat, go out and buy one.

“And cut your hair! You are not GOOD ENOUGH to have long hair: that privilege is reserved to the gentler and therefore the nobler sex.”

Fifth Wave feminism holds that gay marriage is impermissible, on the grounds that marrying males is a privilege too rarefied for males. You are not good enough to be women, so stop acting like it. (Of course, since no-fault divorce laws gutted the meaning of marriage long ago, this issue is moot.)

Then why are you bringing it up!?

Fifth Wave feminism likewise holds that unnatural sexual acts, hereafter to be known by the euphemism, “The Sin of Clinton,” are degrading and insulting to women, on the grounds that the female womb is desecrated and insulted if a male thrusts his male member into any other orifice aside from the life-giving womb: to equate the sacred mystery of femininity with the mere physical sensation of penis gratification is the same as to demean women to the status of sexual toys: it is a mortal insult.

Okay, there is  no way he isn't at least slightly self-aware about how ridiculous this sounds? The "Sin of Clinton?" Really?

But more importantly than any real world implication of Fifth Wave Feminism, we ask, nay, we demand that the English language be changed to pay special homage and adoration of womanhood, so that certain words be set aside to refer to women. Any use of sneaky so-called gender-neutral terms we denounce as an insult to womanhood and as a covert or overt attempt to rob womankind of her most glorious triumph and highest honor: namely, that all woman shall proudly say, “We are not males!”

Isn't this similar to what a lot of second-wave feminists tried to do?

 Especially note that when using Latinate words, such as “aviator” to refer to an aviatrix, or “alums” to refer to an alumni, you will sound stupid if you try to neuter women of their sex and rob feminine words of their gender. 

John C. Wright ends his observations with a very well thought-out and intellectually stimulating sentiment:

And you are not robbing the English language of words like “heroine” and “enchantress” except you take the pen from my cold, dead hands, you harpy freaks. Fie on you, and a curse on your breed! 

Tragically, his genius goes unnoticed.