Not long after romantic chivalry was invented and popularised a millennium ago, some medieval authors began to make jokes about the outlandish male sycophancy and pedestalisation of women that the new tradition entailed.  Christine de Pizan (1364-1431), a woman whom French feminists characterise as the “first feminist,” took public offense the attack on romantic chivalry and on female purity, which she considered a degradation of women’s dignity which feminists today would label misogyny.

Christine’s response launched a movement called La querelle des femmes (the quarrel about women’s rights), which continues today under the name ‘feminism.’ The basic theme of the centuries-long quarrel revolved, and continues to revolve, around advocacy for the rights, power and status of women, and thus the querelle des femmes serves as the originating title for the modern feminist movement.

Feminist historian Joan Kelly characterizes this early history of feminism as follows:

We generally think of feminism, and certainly of feminist theory, as taking rise in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Most histories of the Anglo-American women’s movement acknowledge feminist “forerunners” in individual figures such as Anne Hutchinson, and in women inspired by the English and French revolutions, but only with the women’s rights conference at Seneca Falls in 1848 do they recognize the beginnings of a continuously developing body of feminist thought.

Histories of French feminism claim a longer past. They tend to identify Christine de Pisan (1364-1430?) as the first to hold modern feminist views and then to survey other early figures who followed her in expressing pro-woman ideas up until the time of the French Revolution…

The early feminists did not use the term “feminist,” of course. If they had applied any name to themselves, it would have been something like defenders or advocates of women, but it is fair to call this long line of prowomen writers that runs from Christine de Pisan to Mary Wollstonecraft by the name we use for their nineteenth- and twentieth-century descendants. Latter-day feminism, for all its additional richness, still incorporates the basic positions the feminists of the querelle were the first to take.¹

When we consider the longevity of this movement, along with its aim to increase the power of women through the exploitation of gynocentric chivalry,² we might be forgiven for believing its time for romantic chivalry and the associated gender wars it has sparked to be finally put to rest.

A short summary:

 

 

References:

[1] Kelly, J. (1982). Early feminist theory and the” querelle des femmes”, 1400-1789. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 8(1), 4-28. See also: Bock, G., & Zimmermann, M. (2002). The European Querelle des femmes. Donavín G., Poster, C. Utz, R.(coords) Medieval Forms of Argument Disputation and Debate, Or: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 127-156.

[2] Wright, P. (2018). Bastardized Chivalry: From Concern for Weakness to Sexual Exploitation. New Male Studies, 7(2).

Accusations of wrongdoing, and the saddling of males with a sense of guilt and shame, is used as a means to increase male labor and productivity – a result that works extremely well to the benefit of women, companies, and the State.

That formula can be stated simply as – Aggression, Guilt, Repair.

It refers to a psychological process that happens when someone commits a slightly destructive or aggressive act, and they notice the damage they have caused, or otherwise are made to notice the damage by others. This triggers a guilt reaction for feeling that one has damaged people they may care about and, after feeling guilty, they will typically move to repair the damage with benevolent gestures.

It doesn’t matter whether the claims of destructiveness are accurate, somewhat trumped up, or completely fabricated; it has the same effect of generating concern in the minds of the accused, who will react with various attempts to fix the problem and smooth it over.

This formula is laid out by pediatric psychiatrist Donald Winnicott¹ who described the process already at work in earliest childhood, in infants who already show a concern over the results of their own destructiveness. Thus, when an infant bites his mother’s nipple, or screams and kicks, the mother typically gets frustrated, verbally upset and proceeds to walk away from the infant. At that moment the baby descends into what is described as a guilt state (becoming listless, crying, fearful), then when mother returns the baby goes all out trying to repair the damage – reaching out to hug mother, smiling, offering mother a rattle, etc. This is the process of aggression – guilt – repair,²  and it’s a cycle repeated thousands of times during everyone’s infancy.

It goes without saying that the repair effort is absolutely vital to any infant who is dependent on his mother for existence, and therefore we all carry that primal fear of loss when momma walks out of the room…… will she return? As a social and pair-bonding species the concern is real, and it probably goes a long way to explaining the popular cliché “If momma aint happy, aint nobody happy!” This sentiment is likely a hangover from childhood experience, one that can be exploited in adult relationships via acts of coldness; in the proverbial “silent treatment” or other forms of threat to a stable bond.

Winnicott contends that the aggression–guilt–repair cycle underlies all productivity in the wider social space; ie. that people wish to contribute into society to atone for supposed past destructiveness, no matter how insignificant, or to contribute as an atonement for future destructiveness that has not yet happened (and may never happen!). People want to feel good with the world, thus by contributing to people and the society around them they store up capital in their reparative bank accounts – often in the form of labor and sharing of finances, or otherwise via the currency of thoughtful gestures, deference, verbal compliments and the like.

When we consider that the reparative gestures more often take the form of labor – especially men’s labor – we could perhaps equally render Winnicott’s formula as Aggression – Guilt – Labor, and lose nothing of its meaning.

Here we note that the phrase ’emotional labor’ takes on a whole new, and very male sense.

On a more tangible level I’ve talked with a lot of men who admitted that when they feel they’ve done something bad, no matter how minor, or that they’ve done something destructive in the eyes of their wife or partner, they go all-out trying to repair the damage.  They may give her a bunch of flowers, or they might labor around the yard or paint the interior of the house or some other manual task, and via these constant reparative gestures they tend to provide far more labor than would normally be the case. This unfortunately can become a sick game between couples; if a man (or woman) can be made to feel bad enough, and frequently enough, they become pathologically productive.

To that end, many men feel that their wives have become daughters of B. F. Skinner, regularly hearing the nagging din of “You’ve been very insensitive to me recently, and you haven’t even painted the house yet!” or “You never show me any love gestures!”

The myth of Greek hero Heracles is paradigmatic of this cycle, showing the same pattern described by Winnicott in an endless loop; Heracles commits destructive deeds, feels guilt, and then attempts to repair the damage through hard labors. His desire to repair things often comes via contributing to society, by helpful assertions of strength to rid the world of monsters and lawless creatures, or performing useful engineering feats, while at the same time vigorously denying any weakness that would slow him down.  As Philip Slater observes;

The Heraclean myths also include the self-abasing strategy. This is inferred, not from his appearance as a buffoon in Attic drama, but from his role as a servant of the gods and a slave to women. He consistently performs “dirty work” for others, killing pests, cleaning the Augeian stables, herding cattle, reaping grain, and so on. Indeed, his entire life is one of suffering, servitude, and degradation, relieved only by his achievements and final apotheosis. From the slave of the cowardly Eurystheus he becomes the slave of Omphale, and is constantly being cheated of his wages (e.g., by Eurystheus, Augeias, Eurytus, and Laomedon).³ (p.375)

Heracles, along with every man who labors compulsively, is motivated to repair what he unconsciously feels are the results of his own destructiveness — even his potential destructiveness that may never manifest in real behavior. The mere potential of destructiveness is enough to set the compulsive work cycle in motion, especially if under the watchful direction of a scold.

Might this provide the esoteric rationale for why all men are labelled toxic? 

We can only imagine what the world would look like if men were not operating under pressure of guilt; it would probably look more like a series of relaxed traditional villages instead of the outlandish marvels of civilization we see today. When it comes to measuring national productivity, the benchmark GDP could perhaps be partly interpreted as men’s Guilty Domestic Product.⁴

Misandry as a fomenter of productivity

Misandry is not a simple scapegoating reflex, although that is a part of it. Misandric blaming is also an assist for increasing the power and enrichment of the State, of corporations, and of course women, because it increases men’s productivity.

That payoff is why misandry has remained normalized, but it doesn’t have to remain that way for conscious men.

Some of the phrases directed at men are proof of the desire to increase men’s labor; phrasings like “You need to man up!” which often means a man needs to work harder. Men are called deadbeats (not producing enough money), ‘man-babies’ (for not wanting to overdo things nor put their health at risk), or Peter Pans (too busy enjoying life instead of working), or they may be characterized sarcastically as a ‘failure to launch’ (for younger men failing to rush headlong into a career and a job by which he can contribute his labor to society).

Or, in the recent past, what about the negative disparaging of a man as “gay” (whether he was or not), which implied such a man was failing to indenture himself in service to women and family with some kind of productive contribution (gay men were busying themselves doing non-gynocentric things). We’ve even heard that some men assaulted homosexual men, on rare occasions, as if they were a reminder of their own beaten up, freedom-yearning soul. As ugly as this is, it provides an example of men’s internalized misandry that attempts to ‘put a man in his place,’ by violence if necessary.

In conclusion we can say that misandry is not only a vehicle for cathartic blame, but is more geared to ‘keep men in their place’ – and that place is to be a guilt-driven provider. Women in the long-ago past were similarly subjected to these ‘in your place’ roles, but those days for women are long gone in most developed nations.

It is now men’s turn to break the cycle and say no to imputed guilt, or at least refuse to make genuine guilt available for others to exploit. If you fail to protect yourself in this regard, you are on a fast track to slavery and, in all likelihood, are already there.

References:

[1]. Donald Winnicott, The Development Of A Capacity For Concern (1963), Chapter 6 in The Maturational Process And The Facilitating Environment, International universities Press, (1965).

[2]. Donald Winnicott, Aggression, Guilt and Reparation (1960), Chapter 16 in  Deprivation And Delinquency, Tavistock Publications, (1984)

[3]. Philip Slater, The Glory Of Hera: Greek Mythology and The Greek Family, Beacon Press, (1968)

[4]. Note: for those who are inclined to take comments literally, rest assured this comment about traditional villages (and GDP) is intended hyperbole.

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For a longer study on the psychology of guilt, from which this article is a quote, see Heracles: A Slave To Guilt And Shame

Don’t let the phony simp-science con you any longer. Here’s a debunking of the “humans are a gynocentric-species” foundations that gynocentrists don’t want you to consider:

• Gynocentric hypothesis: Women’s hypergamous behaviour indicates that human sexuality is driven by gynocentric imperatives, with societies historically prioritized around women’s desire for status.
  Fact: Women’s exaggerated hypergamy can be explained by the more recent rise of cultural narcissism which involves behaviors of self-enhancement and status-seeking. Moreover, narcissism is maladaptive in the sense that it contributes to a decrease in marriage, increasing divorce, and is implicated in plummeting birth rates.
• Gynocentric hypothesis: Women’s neotenous facial features prove that they evolved to be prioritized and pampered more than males.
  Fact: Today women’s neoteny can be explained in larger part by the use of cosmetics, practiced childlike gestures, and increasingly, plastic surgery. In comparison to other primates, human males also display a degree of neoteny, though not usually enhanced by cosmetic artifice as we see practiced by women.
• Gynocentric hypothesis: Women fall pregnant, give birth and care for offspring, which means that very few males are necessary for the perpetuation of the species.
  Fact: Women’s pregnancies are not more precious than male investment in child care and the provision of protective infrastructure for infant survival, without which a large percentage of infants would perish. Therefore men and women are equally important for reproductive success.
• Gynocentric hypothesis: Women are the gatekeepers of sex who decide which males get to have sex, and males generally comply with this exclusive female choice.
  Fact:  Women are not “the gatekeepers” of sex. An overwhelming majority of men are approached by females attempting to initiate sex with them, and at other times men approach women. In these situations men have the full capacity to say “yes” or “no” to sexual opportunities, thus men are also gatekeepers of sex.  Humans are a Mutual Mate Choice (MMC) species and males invest in parenting of offspring, leading them to also be choosy about the qualities of their sexual and reproductive partners.
• Gynocentric hypothesis: More females than males reproduced during human evolutionary history which suggests that women controlled which males had sex.
  Fact: this can be explained by the choices of powerful males sequestering women as wives and property, and by arranged marriages – this is not a result of female choice.
• Gynocentric hypothesis: Men go to die in wars for the single purpose of prioritizing and protecting women, thus indicating that women are more valuable to the human species.
  Fact:  Men dying in wars is historically for the sake of defending broader affiliations like religion, king, country, democracy, or entire family networks, and not simply for the sake of women’s survival.

The list could go on. There’s no evidence that humans are a “gynocentric species” whose relationships must, by evolutionary nature, be gynocentric. At most we can say men engage in a limited number of gynocentric acts that are matched by commensurate androcentric acts and gestures by women. Eclipsing both of these motives is a wider family centrism, and genecentrism.

Why does it matter?

It matters because if men and women imagine gynocentrism to be the natural default for human relationships, and for the human species, they tend to resign themselves to unbalanced relationships based entirely on deference to women’s needs and wants. Retaining the belief that we are a gynocentric species works as a mental constraint which stymies our mental ability to override it, whereas clearing out such ideological garbage allows the mind to act more efficiently and to make wiser life decisions for the purposes of pair-bonding, families, society and for oneself.

The following is an excerpt from a 1921 book Foundations Of Feminism which links early feminism to the “gynocentric” belief that women are biologically superior, and thus more important to the human species than are males. This as mentioned is a forerunner to contemporary theories appealing to evolutionary psychology to posit the same conclusions of women’s superiority.

SOURCE: Lucifer the Light-Bearer, 23 Aug 1895, Fri, Page 3