Is Feminism on the Decline?
W.F. Price and Audacious Epigone recently posted a graph from Google Engrams which seems to suggest a that the prevalence of Feminism in newly printed material has been declining since the nineties. Many of the commenters noted that while the word Feminism might be declining, that might be due to the fact that so many Feminist tropes have become accepted as part of the mainstream; for instance, let’s consider the words “feminist” and “Women’s Suffrage”:
Although Women’s Suffrage and Feminism are connected at the hip ideologically, we see an initial divergence – Women’s Suffrage was almost four times more popular around 1900, only to be surpassed by Feminism once Suffrage was achieved; these days it seems safe to assume that Women’s Suffrage appears mainly in historical works, rather than polemics.
So what about Feminism, and Feminist ideology? Have they maintained the same talking points, while abandoning the need to label their ideology? Not from what I can tell:
A zoomed-in version, without “Feminism” (hover your cursor over the graph to see which terms I searched):
Every other obvious marker of Feminist ideology has been going down, aside from “Gender Equality” – and its increase is insufficient to offset the precipitous decline of the other terms.
So what does this mean?
As many commenters on the Spearhead pointed out “From where I’m sitting, I haven’t seen any decline; there’s still plenty of Feminist laws, still plenty of bad behaviour from women,” and that’s only to be expected. While us Men of the Manosphere constantly run into the (incoherent) New Demands of Feminist ideologues, as well as being thoroughly aware of all the collateral damage that’s being caused, the general realm of intellectual discourse is becoming quite tired of the argument; it’s been played out, and the damage is becoming increasingly obvious. Feminism is on the decline, its active voices becoming fewer and fewer, and it’s looking like the Fifth Horseman will be proven correct.
In the meantime, however, Feminism has become Institutionalized – this doesn’t mean that it’s “The New Normal” (if it were, we’d expect Feminist talking points to maintain their prevalence), but it does mean that Feminist men and women have attained positions of influence, which they’ll hold for some time, and have written laws which have yet to be overturned.
Looking at the slope, I expect to see its collapse gaining steam in the days to come.
EDIT: Also of note is this article by Karyn Wowina which I found after publishing this. The young lady discussing the lack of character amongst Gen-Y females, acknowledges that Game actually works, and that the Manosphere is about self-improvement.
“In comes the pick-up/seduction industry to help men attract women. This industry is no joke. There is a LOT of powerful material here that has helped men become better people, and also get a psychological upper-hand. Not just with seducing women but to become well-rounded people with strong emotional intuition and leadership qualities. A lot of rejection is a strong motivational force that got these men into polishing themselves—spiritually, physically, mentally, and emotionally— which allow them to “catch up” significantly to women in terms of presence in relationships and other social situations.”
lets just hope that we have more to rebuild with than the genetically weaker men staggering in circles today and the rubble they’ll give to their children tomorrow.
I’m incredibly optimistic (though frequently annoyed and frustrated).
Let’s put it this way: what sort of people (men and women) are most prone to blue-pill thinking?
I see it as this:
Nagasaki (in a hypothetical Japan which was not at war) has been wiped out by the atom bomb, and the newspapers are not anymore writing about the necessities of strafing the Nagasaki streets with Mustang P54s’ machine guns.
Will feminism implode? I think so. It has no other outcome. But while imploding it will likely take the civilization we are accustomed to with it, because civilization will be destroyed before feminism will be rejected.
I have already seen when is it going (the article) straight after seeing the first graph. Just look at the rebranding of many of the Women’s Studies departments at the universities. What was Women’s Studies has now become Gender Studies (this is especially true for Europe). The content and people didn’t change but Gender Studies sounds more scientific.
True, but it’s a rear-guard action; Gender isn’t advancing fast enough to counteract the fall of feminism.
Also of note is this article here: http://thoughtcatalog.com/karyn-rowina/2013/11/why-generation-y-females-are-disappointing/
A young lady discussing the lack of character amongst Gen-Y females, and admitting that Game actually works, and that the Manosphere is about self-improvement.
“In comes the pick-up/seduction industry to help men attract women. This industry is no joke. There is a LOT of powerful material here that has helped men become better people, and also get a psychological upper-hand. Not just with seducing women but to become well-rounded people with strong emotional intuition and leadership qualities. A lot of rejection is a strong motivational force that got these men into polishing themselves—spiritually, physically, mentally, and emotionally— which allow them to “catch up” significantly to women in terms of presence in relationships and other social situations.”
If we accept the notion that all systems alternate between moments of equilibrium- almost never equality; it’s a concept all but alien to nature- and periods of flux as the systems transition from one equilibrium moment to another, I think someone could make a solid argument that we are moving from a feminist equilibrium moment to a masculist equilibrium moment.
Yes, there are a number of men in the Manosphere who are bitter and hate women. But these are usually the men who have recently taken the red pill; they are dealing with feelings of betrayal and are adjusting to a new world view, which is never a pleasant experience. In time, these men decide that sitting around and cursing the darkness is not a viable option and begin to aspire to be Men in the archetypal sense of the word- the very best men they can be, with strength, logic, knowledge, wisdom, and skill guiding them. And really, what is so wrong about that?
finndistan November 22, 2013 at 03:10
“Will feminism implode?”
Definitely, although i would’t call it “implode”. Problably wouldn’t be anything sudden. It will most likely experience it’s most steep decline at the hight of the ageing population curve, somewhere around 2020.
Feminism needs an affluent society/large middle class which can finance it’s programs (tax money). Ageing population means: less tax money, more financial obligations and thus less money to waste.
Is feminism in decline? Well, maybe. I think it’s more likely that its peaking right now, although it will decline for sure. Since feminism is a result of government largess and its pretty clear that we’ll be seeing austerity or a major collapse very soon…femo-centric influence will decline. Another thing, someone mentioned equilibrium above, I don’t think feminism has resulted in any kind of systemic equilibrium. feminism is disequilibrium; consider that it depends on the state and numerous other artificial sources of support, such as, the constant mass media sermons on woman this and that if you choose to watch TV. You don’t have to manage a true equilibrium much which are freer systems that, surprise, men do exceptionally well under. Without feminism, on the other hand, and all it’s social engineering, their intended end states for crap like proportionality in sports or STEM would be unobtainable. Why? Because as the chips fall where they may on average most women don’t gravitate towards those things.