More on Feminism and State-Feminism. Strawman argumentation against critic to the state-feminism factor in the Assange case

Some weird self-appointed “radical-feminist spokesblog” have, as expected, reacted in quite subjective terms to the theses in my analysis

Introduction on the Origins of State-Feminism in Sweden

The arguments of the self-appointed radical feminist are however purely ad-hominem and Straw man alike. Not a single comment on the facts or developments presented in the cited analysis. I stand for every word in it. And such personal attacks will not detract my reasoning nor deter this blog.

Here is my reply to the Straw man fallacy of some self-appointed radical feminists:

1. Critic to feminist gender-supremacists is one thing. Support to the principles and the struggle for gender equality is another.

Professors blogg is not an “enemy” of feminism insofar feminism would transparently struggle or implement the aim of universal gender-equality. This can only be reached by an understanding and cooperation between all progressive segments of society. Hence, this column has repeatedly condemn the notion of gender-war, the hatred of men or the hatred of women.

a) Ideology

We instead promote and practice the struggle for a society with equal opportunities for all regardless gender, social class, ethnicity. This includes fighting towards the final achievement of equal opportunities for women and men in all spheres of society, such as equal salary [See Note 1]; But this column have been also, and always shall be, opposing all forms of authoritarianism and oppression, which includes the vigilance towards those “who merely seek to replace one authoritarian system with another“.

True egalitarian feminism and extreme state-feminism are two different things, and are expressed in different grades. State-feminism is the cultural and political movement aimed to establish – with the help of the authority – institutional privileges or legislation favoring women. Some of these measures adopted by State Feminism have been inspired in a notion of gender hatred or contempt. For the extreme feminist ideology behind the architecture of State-feminism, the gender-egalitarianism mantra is just a tactical cover in their strategic to achieve gender supremacy. In this sense, State-Feminism is the replacement of one abusive rule for another.

b) Feminism has become populism and radical-feminists seek to seize political power by means of psychological deceit

Many call themselves “feminist” in Sweden. It has became cultural fashionable but also a politically correct strategy for survival. Feminism has become populism. One after the other the Swedish political parties have seized the noun as an adopted family name (“XX Party, feminist”). However, few of them deploy in reality a consequent activity towards real equality. [2]

At left, world-famous American writer Naomi Wolf, who is also considered a leading spokesperson of the third wave of the feminist movement. Naomi Wolf is an often linked columnist in the Professors blogg.

In sum, my critic to fascist radical-“feminist” positions does not compromise my support for the sound classical human-rights claims on equality issues for all, for social and gender justice in society.

As I sustain that the sectarian gender-supremacists’ campaign is not to be equated with feminism, I maintain also that the strategy of universal vendetta against men – argued in their thesis of historical patriarch domination – is merely a pretext to profit of positions of power in a new political order sized by psychological deceit:

Radical feminists seek the “collective guilt” of all men by means of a mass-psychological campaign agitated in the media they have access to, or control. In Sweden, these radical feminists have even proposed the obligatory (by law) payment of a “Male-taxation” from the part of all Swedish men. This law would compensate women for a sort of endemic patriarchal rule, according to the radical feminists. Conspicuous such radical-feminist politicians, such as lawyer Claes Borgström (initiative-author in the accusations against Julian Assange) are reported staunch supporters of such male-taxation.

Radical-feminism advocates the demise of nuclear family as central institution in society. New “modern” forms should replaced it. I believe instead that it is exactly Family as a whole, and the family as central institution, the best and only natural structure able to secure the ontogenetic and philogenetic destiny of humankind and their survival. Not the state, nor the anti-natural constellations posing as “modern”, not the self-proclaimed gurus of a self-pretended vanguard of social-ideas evolution such as the Swedish FI. I have already put it in my clearest terms:

The so-called Swedish “radical” feminist movement is anything but a progressive movement. Its ideological matriarchal formulations are on the regressive side of a wheel moved historically by thousands of generations towards human justice and equality.

The epithets of “anti-feminist”, “misogynist”, “anti gender-egalitarianism” and the like, thrown to us that oppose the abuse of power coming from a Feminist-State ideology is just a dirty trick from a movement in despair and pregnant of defeatism anxiety.

It just similar in its psychosocial mechanics to the easy and cheap “racist” accusation given to any critic to a given failed immigration policy. This demonization tactic is and old Stalinist trick used in decades in the past by square bolshevists and modern Party-communists. E.g. true revolutionaries and social-anarchists were labelled “anti communists” because we opposed the dogmatic and ill-fated strategy of the old and modern Stalinist nomenclatures. [3]

Summing up: Above any sympathy I would have for a true feminist struggle, paramount for me is the support for justice, equality and human rights for all genders, and all nations, in all societies. In other words I do not do a fetish of WASP feminism, and I certainly do not support the idea of a supremacist female-rule in society. Neither I would accept the rule of male chauvinism. I have put my life on the line for my convictions about justice. And I do it still.

2. Sound legislation is one thing. Legal system is another, and case process implementation is yet another thing

It is equally absurd, or preposterous, disqualify a critic regarding some structural flaw in a Swedish institution as anti-Swedish behaviour. The far most of Swedes can basically agree with the modern Swedish crime-legislation and think in general it could very well function as model-legislation elsewhere, and still be critic to aspects of the legal system. And in the concrete case of the affair Assange the questions posed by the many among the Swedish citizens are for instance the following:

Are the authorities following that legislation in the case Assange?
Is the Swedish legal system flawless?
Is the Swedish legal system really independent from politics and ideology?
Have or not the highest political authorities of Sweden publicly taken side and thus influenced the juridical out come of the case? [4]

I am not an expert in the Swedish juridical system, and even considering – as I believe – it is grounded in a sound legislation, I am although critic with regard to the implementation of such legislation in occasions the gender-factor is implicated.

Further, neither can the political factor in the Swedish courts be totally disregarded with simple official declarations that the courts are independent of the state. Judges-appointments at the courts (nämdeman, a kind of permanent jury) are politically made. In fact, these judges are designated directly by the political parties according to their representation in the Parliament. However, this principle does not mean that in each court there is an “even” distribution according to that one of the Parliament. At the contrary, the political constellation of judges – read ideological majority – within each court can vary enormously. Further, considering that all Swedish political parties have allegedly positioned themselves in the Assange affair (all parties, including the Pirate Party), I even speculate as whether the Assange case has served some times as a vendetta for ideological reasons, or some times as instrument for populist reasons. And also if the case has been used as a pretext for radical-feminists to give international publicity to their theses.

With regard to structural flaws in the legal system as such, I only can subscribe what Jens Lapidus and Johan Åkermark have pedagogically explained in their debate article in DN . It was also shown there that the majority of Swedish lawyers manifest critic to the legal management of the Assange case.

3. The ptsd documentation

As to my comments on the particular usage, or missuses, of the diagnostic categories of PTSD in the Swedish courts. My critic is not new, and these comments have a very similar ground, if not the same, to the critic I have occasionally in the past raised against the Swedish psychiatrists who have – in absence of facts or contrary to facts – “used” such diagnosis (or suicide- behaviour assessments) in “expert statements” issued to help individuals in need to obtain a political refugee status in Sweden. All which does not make me a “immigrant-enemy”. But I am a political refugee myself, and to me – and principally to all who are worth the help of Sweden while still imprisoned for their political convictions in dictatorships elsewhere – the distinction between true political refugees with refugee simulants is very sensitive.

4. An hatred-ideology case

In the same sense I would support – not more and not less than anybody- the full application of the law against the perpetrator of a proven, demonstrated rape. Rape is an abominable crime and serious allegations of rape deserve professional investigation and due process. But I am equally sensitive to the horrible possibility than a man, or a woman, would be convicted only on the base of the allegations put forward by the purported victim and echoed in the hysterical applaud by a behind ideology of hate. For many those who have, dispassionate and unbiased, read the protocols on the investigation in the Assange case, it becomes clear that the accusations are not tenable in any sense of “rape” as understood both by the law and the common sense.

Notes

1. While been appointed as professor of public health sciences at the University College of Gävle, I presented a proposal (motion) at the Congress of my faculty (institution) for equal salaries to all strictly according to academic merits but regardless of gender. The motion consisted in the following: For each academic category (professors, associate professors, etc) it should first established a pool with the total of all salaries. Thereafter the total should be redistributed equal regardless gender.

The proposal above was not approved. And the most bizarre was that the majority of the Congress participants were women! The chairman of the Congress, Lennart Öhlund, who also opposed my proposal, was regarded as the most “feminist” male professors at the university. It was he whom had initiated the “gender-perspective” teaching and research in the department and created suitable academic positions according to the Swedish authorities’ general request (see role of social democratic minister Margareta Winberg, described elsewhere in the Professors blogg.

2. For instance, the social democratic politician and chairman of the worker’s union of Sweden (LO) Wanja Lundby-Wedin had in a nation-wide campaign an appeal for increase the wages of female workers. The enormous posters with her portrait spread all over the streets of Sweden read this “combat” text: “Let us diminish the gap between the salaries of men and those of women!”

I saw the huge Wanja-poster at Tycho Brahesväg in Uppsala on my driving to Stockholm to lecture at the Karolinska Institutet. I became very upset and first thing I did when I met the class of medical students was to ask them if they have seen the poster themselves. Most of them had. Then I asked them what was the terrible with the message. NO ONE among the medical students thought it was anything wrong with it. I said:

The horrible of the message from the “feminist” social democratic party is that they do not call for the abolition of the gap, for the ending of the difference in the wages between and women. The feminist socialists are just happy with “a diminishing” of such unjustified gap. A true feminist such poster’s main legend from Sweden largest worker’s union it should have read instead: “Let us abolish the gap between the salaries of men and women NOW!”

3. For instance, we argued at the time of the 60´s and 70´s that in no place in the world would a society of justice and equality succeed without a revolution, without taking the power from the oppressors that profited on that social injustice. But when we struggled – with our life on the line – for a revolutionary line to achieve universality of human rights, the communist parties were engaged – on behalf of international soviet interests – in their own line of “pacific coexistence” or “dialogue” with oppressive governments and dictatorships. To tackle with as in front of the public opinion they demonized us as “enemies of the proletarian cause”, “anti-communists”, etc. Some radical-feminists are repeating the same trick. Those who opposes to their fascist line are called “anti-feminists”.

4. This had Professors blogg published 9 Feb. in the analysis “Assange’s lawyer’s error shouldn’t determine the case“:

With regard to the “peculiar” position of de Swedish Judiciary and its outmost

artificially constructed proceeding in the Assange case.

These proceedings fit instead one hundred percent in the perspective-analysis of an active involvement of some Swedish officials, or institutions, as instruments in the geopolitical design of the foreign power they apparently obey.

I am aware how horrible and highly conspiratorial the above might sound, but I could myself hardly believe it was true – when I read an article in Expressen [8 Feb.] – that the very Prime Minister of Sweden Mr. Fredrik Reinfeldt, whom this column have elsewhere referred as a politician with honourable marks – made public statements involving officially and openly the Swedish government in the London Court deliberations referring exclussively to protecting the rights of the accusers (the two women) involved in the Assange extradition process.

Let me first to recall that in my article published in Newsmill Jan 11 I clearly advanced the hypothesis on whether behind the Sweden case against Assange it truly exists the intention of making a pilot case of the event. Meaning, to use Assange’s celebrity to reassure or move forwards positions in the Swedish legislative process towards a radicalization in the penalty of sex-offences, or the enhancing of criminal conceptualization in that regard.

In declarations published in Aftonbladet “i samband med domstolsförhandlingarna om utlämningen av Julian Assange i London”, PM Reinfeldt “reveals” what would be “really” the issue at stake. Reinfelt said concretely:

“Let us not forget what is here at risk. It is the right for women to have their case tested in court as to whether what they have been subjected of is a criminal abuse (offence)”

– Låt oss inte glömma bort vad som riskeras här. Det är ju rätten för kvinnor att få prövat huruvida det har varit ett övergrepp som de har varit utsatta för.”

I put in serious doubt that Reinfeldt would really consider the content of his statement above as THE reason for the Swedish offensive aganist Assange and Wikileaks. For there is evidence that the “pilot-case factor” is only a part in the constellation of causes behind the Swedish political crusade against Assange and Wikileaks.

Nevertheless, Reinfeldt did try also to defend the integrity of the kingdom’s judiciary – which would be totally understandable for his position as surrogate head of state (Sweden is still a monarchy and Prime Ministers receive formally the assignment from the king). However, he just made things worst. What Reinfeldt in the main ended in pointing out – in the name of the Swedish government – was the publicly taking side on behalf of the two accusers-ladies, for which he demanded respect very much exclusively. This is what he stated in Expressen:

“that in this way attempt to circumvent it and make it appear that their rights are worth very little, I think that’s regrettable.”

[“att på det här sättet försöka kringgå det och få det att framstå som att deras rätt är mycket litet värd, det tycker jag är beklagligt.“]

Previously in Professors blogg on the Swedish case against Assange

29 July 2011. Pseudo-Science in Swedish Rape Trials. With an Introduction on the Origins of State-Feminism in Sweden

· 3 July 2011. Swedish updates on the Assange case

· 18 April 2011. The affair Irmeli Krans in the case of Sweden against Assange

· 17 April 2011. Swedish authorities face yet another irregularity in their sex probe of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. By Andrew Kreig

· 15 April 2011. Sweden’s Serial Negligence in Prosecuting Rape Further Highlights the Politics Behind Julian Assange’s Arrest. By Naomi Wolf

· 15 April 2011. Rigged documentary on Julian Assange in the Swedish National Television. Part 3: “Men are animals”

· 15 April 2011. Rigged documentary on Julian Assange in the Swedish National Television. Part 2: “Men that hate women”

· 15 April 2011. Rigged documentary on Julian Assange in the Swedish National Television. PART 1: The Political Agenda and Dirty Tricks

· 14 April 2011. Rigged documentary on Julian Assange in the Swedish National Television. CONTENTS

· 10 April 2011. Om Sverigedemokraternas utrikes politik är ”osvensk” vad är då Socialdemokraternas? Kampen för Assange och Mannings frihet fortsätter.