At risks of sounding sexist I think it's accurate to say that we're missing the "feminine touch" around here. Snuffling about the aether I found this work which provides a thumbnail of various schools of thought viewed from a socialists ecofeminists pov. A starting point, in any case. From the intro:


In this work, I would like to examine the debate between the fields of feminism and social ecology regarding the need or desire for the separate endeavour of ecofeminism. The evolution of all three bodies of theory is relatively recent, with ecofeminism being the youngest member of the trio. This is an important debate because ecofeminist theory claims that gender oppression and the oppression of nature are intimately interlinked. I will argue that if the feminist and the social ecology fields fail to communicate and disregard the connections drawn by ecofeminism, due to a myopic focus on early ecofeminist writings, then the resolution of humanity's conflict between itself and the non-human world will remain an unrealisable goal. Thus I will defend ecofeminism, and socialist ecofeminism particularly, against irrelevancy, against charges of strong essentialism, biological determinism, and non-inclusiveness, and will defend a role for strategic spirituality within the ecofeminism movement.

http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:DL ... d=10&gl=us (http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:DLuphWp1U4wJ:www.lancs.ac.uk/depts/philosophy/awaymave/onlineresources/megan%2520salhus.rtf+feminist+discussion+ecofeminism+socialist&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=10&gl=us)

That the author has tactical concerns is a plus. Maybe we'll even get some input from some real live females cause


http://www.on.br/revista_ed_anterior/janeiro_2003/noticias/astro_arte/imagens/filme-marsneedswomen.jpg

Has feminism become a reactionary force, similar to the way "progressive" and "liberal" have? Has the "empowerment of women" become the empowerment of bullies who happen to be female, just as "liberal" has become a haven for bullies?

If you call yourself a "liberal" - or at some places "progressive" or "independent" - that becomes perfect "cover" for the most outrageous things. Question them, and you are questioning the good and righteous cause.

Similarly, are there people using feminism the same suppressive way?

I was hoping to attract some no bullshit women here like RealityBender.

There is some sort of nursery school management style over at PI, and it sometimes takes the form of accusing people of sexism - "you just can't handle strong and assertive women." No, it is bossy, domineering, manipulative, authoritarian people that are hard to handle, and it has nothing to do with gender except that there are certain styles and methods of dominating others that are roughly associated with gender.

Notice the scolding and nagging when the bad boys track mud in on the nice "progressive" carpeting, or use rude language or otherwise shock the teacher-nanny with their "uncivilized" or "sexist" behavior.

Should you use the word “nagging” you may be accused of sexism. I once said that the liberals were all “screeching” about something, and was accused if sexism. You can say that a male is “screeching” or “nagging” but not that a woman is.

Notice that the men who are most accepted at PI are the tame ones: low key, soft-spoken, almost invisible. There are other roles that are acceptable for men to play: New Age guru, for example. Very tame, very bland.

Newswolf has remarked about the false feminism that attacks men and the traditional male occupations, such as commercial fishing, lumbering, hunting, soldiering, farming. He also made a great post once about the young women being lured away from the farm, where they become a pool of available working class females accessible to the ruling class males. I see the young men here wanting to farm - take on big challenges, work outdoors, take risks, wrestle with the elements - but the young women all leave and the men are forced to follow and wind up in some cubicle somewhere, miserable.

The same pattern is found in urban areas as we see in rural areas. It is the young women who have the most opportunities and benefits, not the young men. The young men are suffering mightily. But this cannot be said without angering people – terminally angering them. By “terminally” I mean angry in such a way that their opinion will prevail, the person expressing it will not bend, and will stop at nothing to prevail. Men are the butt of jokes, at best, and should you object to that all hell breaks loose.

Men who do not fit a certain limited profile – who are not docile, gentle, soft-spoken and New Agey - are liable to be seen as criminals, misogynists, gangsters, pedophiles, Neanderthals, war-mongers, gun nuts, anti-social, maladjusted, and what not.

There is a real crisis for young African American males. Females are less threatening and can adapt to the required gentrified style demanded by the corporations, are more submissive, and so are getting jobs while the men cannot. There is a similar crisis for young rural males. When the women leave – and they have much easier time leaving and much more opportunity – the men are forced to tag along and leave farming. Both groups of men are at a distinct disadvantage in the academic and corporate circles the women are moving into. Many are ill-equipped to adjust to that gentrified world, and they are competing against very high status men for access to the females.

For years I tip-toed around liberal sensibilities, around New Age sensibilities, and then around Democratic party loyalist sensibilities, and was careful not to invoke the screeching and nagging LOL – the wounded cries of “persecution,” and of “shock” and “outrage” and so forth.

Are we tip-toeing around false feminist sensibilities, and are people taking advantage of that to dominate and be authoritarian and promote reactionary political agendas?