Patriarchy Reasserted: Part I

I recieved an email today from Fidelbogen, The Counter-Feminist. He was informing me of a recent publication of an article by some femi-nazi, Women's Studies Lesbo-chick (degrading, misogynistic insults certainly intended...) from the University of Ontario Institute of Technology. It is based on the theory that the online existence of a Father's Rights movement is a backlash against feminism.

Her name is Molly Dragiewicz, and her paper, Patriarchy Reasserted: Father's Rights and Anti-VAWA Activism, actually references Fidelbogen's blog in her citations.

While you cannot see the entire PDF document online without becoming a paying subscription member of Sage Journals Online, I have obtained a copy for which I am now going to excerpt and "Fisk."

First, the abstract preview:

The backlash against gender-sensitive responses to women’s victimization, offending, and imprisonment is inseparable from contemporary reaction against feminism and other progressive movements. The backlash against the American Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) provides a prime example of this resistance.

Yes, the backlash against the VAWA does provide an example of resistance...but feminism is hardly progressive -- more like "regressive." As in, regressing back to the social order of Matriarchy and the wonderful results in which it entails.

Despite widespread support for VAWA and other policies designed to address violence against women, some constituencies object to their existence. The author investigates fathers’ rights rhetoric on VAWA as an example of anti-feminist backlash.

The basic contention is not that some constituencies object to the existence of policies designed to address violence against women...but rather the recognition that in the name of "addressing violence against women," the feminist-extremists have passed laws that are used to to disenfranchise men from their children, cause further social chaos by contributing significantly to the proliferation of broken homes and fomenting the criminalization of an entire class of men -- Fathers -- who are guilty of nothing more than having Wives that decide to use the legal powers afforded them via legislation such as VAWA to gain advantages in divorce proceedings and custody disputes.

The entire premise of this paper is plainly revealed by Dragiewicz's abstract, and it rests entirely on the following premises:

* That VAWA is designed to address violence against women (it's not);

* That Father's Right's groups are a fringe minority group, and that they represent a backlash to feminism -- not because VAWA has been used to unjustly strip Father's of their children and assets and further the institution of peonage that has become the current child support system -- but because anyone opposed to it SUPPORTS VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN.

When I read this abstract at the beginning of the paper, I suspected that she was framing the debate into terms that define the backlash against feminism as nothing more than a bunch of men that want to oppress, dominate and violate women. Reading the rest of her paper confirmed what I ascertained from the very first: she had a pre-determined conclusion and the entire paper is nothing more than confirmation of her own bias.

In short, this paper is nothing more than an exercise in regurgitating Women's Studies propaganda in a pathetic attempt to sidestep and ignore the very real and legitimate reasons as to why anyone, male or female, would participate in a "backlash" against feminism and/or unjust and unconstitutional legislation like VAWA.

The following is her statement of purpose for the rest of the article:

In this article, I investigate fathers’ rights (FR) rhetoric on VAWA as an example of antifeminist backlash. First, I define key terms central to this discussion including sex, gender and patriarchy. Second, I describe the method I used in selecting my sample for analysis. Third I establish the theoretical bases for my analysis, including patriarchal peer support and backlash. Fourth, I present the key themes that I uncovered in FR resistance to VAWA, including calls for formal equality, calls for the reassertion of patriarchy, and objections to women’s authority. Finally, I conclude with remarks about the importance of considering FR backlash and suggestions for additional research.

The rest of my forthcoming postings on this topic will be based on deconstructing her arguments as the pertain to each of her five objectives in this article.

To be continued...