The pathetic provincialism of American feminists

One of the few insights from Karl Marx still relevant is the need for international solidarity among oppressed people. If American women truly believed they were oppressed, they would have all the more reason to zealously advocate for the liberation of their African and Asian sisters, but instead they will obliviously protest that the existence of suffering elsewhere is no reason not to focus on making improvements here, no matter how marginal those improvements seem. The defense proves hollow when American feminists refuse to even come to the aid of fellow Americans, whether they are the impoverished immigrants suffering under the cruelty of Islamic insanity, or the working-class women of the military, who too often encounter an institution more worried about public relations than justice for rape victims. In an irony invisible to the Left, American feminism has become an elitist expression of upper-class concerns. Highly educated and paid women endlessly describe their own inconveniences, while ignoring the legitimate suffering of the poor, in foreign countries and their own cities.

Tip O’Neill’s adage, “All politics is local,” has undergone an ugly mutation. “All politics is personal” now rules the cultural ethos with a farcical fist. Since all politics is personal, everything personal becomes political. An unpleasant encounter with an ill-mannered man is not an indictment of his character, but yet another haunting from the Patriarchal poltergeist—proof of America’s insidious sexism. The shooting spree of one deeply narcissistic and anti-social lunatic, who claimed women were the target of his violence, is not a horrific atrocity leading to an outpouring of sympathy and support for the victims and their families. It is an episode of American misogyny, and an opportunity for millions of young feminists to cast aside the corpses, and move their own confrontations with chauvinism to the center of the story.