945 Gabriele Kuby sexual revolution - Africa & Eastern Europe resist LGTBI

Gabriele Kuby sexual revolution - Africa & Eastern Europe resist LGTBI

Newsletter published on 13 March 2018

(1) Gabriele Kuby sexual revolution - Africa resists Western pressure to
adopt LGTBI
(2) EU bullies countries to report 'intolerance', 'hate crimes',
'transphobia'; Facebook thread closed
(3) 'Safe Schools' program pushes LGTBI - Gabriele Kuby
(4) Gabriele Kuby: East European resisting LGBTI; the new totalitarianism
(5) Feminists draw on Marx & Engels; abolish the monogamous family

(1) Gabriele Kuby sexual revolution - Africa resists Western pressure to
adopt LGTBI

http://catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2016/08/26/how-gabriele-kubys-conversion-led-her-to-write-about-the-sexual-revolution/

"How Gabriele Kuby’s conversion led her to write about the sexual revolution

by Francis Phillips posted Friday, 26 Aug 2016

The author explains why she believes her book has helped spark
resistance to the 'gender revolution'

I blogged about Gabriele Kuby’s book The Global Sexual Revolution:
Destruction of Freedom in the Name of Freedom, here. Her book explains
why the traditional distinction between men and women is under such
attack today in the West and why for instance in Germany today peaceful
demonstrations on behalf of family values now need heavy police
protection. Indeed, as Kuby points out, anyone who believes in a divine
purpose for men and for women is now labelled a "religious
fundamentalist" or a "biological, sexist fundamentalist."

Kuby is a convert. I asked her what led to her own conversion. She tells
me that she had been searching for God for more than 20 years down the
wrong paths, within esoteric philosophies and psychology. Her marriage
had broken down and her life was in crisis. Alone with three teenage
children, a young woman rang her doorbell and told her to pray. She
prayed a novena – in front of a Buddhist statue – and by the end she
knew she would become a Catholic. Her conversion led to speaking and
writing about her new-found faith and about the global sexual revolution.

How was her book received in Germany? Kuby replies, "The mainstream
media tried to block it by not reviewing it. Nonetheless it has had six
editions in two years and has been translated into seven languages so
far." She thinks the book has helped spark resistance to the "gender
revolution".

Could she expand on this resistance? "Wherever I go I meet Christians
who are involved in this cultural battle, despite the fact that money
and power are in the hands of the other side. Nobody can stop us, as
Christians, from our faith, hope and love of God. The course of history
is in God’s hands."

She adds, "We will encounter fear, insecurity and risk. They can only be
overcome by prayer. If we sincerely want to work for the kingdom of God,
we will find a way. God needs us and will provide the grace necessary."

Where does the Church’s future lie? Kuby mentions the former Cardinal
Ratzinger’s phrase about "creative minorities" of Christians in Europe.
She adds that although the West blackmails Africa to adopt the LGTBI
agenda, the continent is a "great hope for Christianity and [Guinean]
Cardinal Sarah a bright light for the Church." She affirms: "We can lose
our life but not our hope."

(2) EU bullies countries to report 'intolerance', 'hate crimes',
'transphobia'; Facebook thread closed
http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2016/08/11/what-happened-when-i-explained-church-teaching-about-gender-on-facebook/

"What happened when I explained Church teaching about gender on Facebook

by Francis Phillips posted Thursday, 11 Aug 2016

The thread on Facebook was promptly closed (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)

First the commenters became angry – then they demanded the thread be
shut down

Recently I had a surreally disquieting experience. Someone had randomly
posted up a photograph of girls in school uniform on my school’s Old
Girls’ Facebook page (this school used to be a convent boarding school
but is now a girls’ Catholic day school). Above the photo was a caption
referring to private schools having to face up to new transgender issues.

I added a one-line comment, saying I hoped that such schools would not
give in to political correctness on this matter. There were instant
strong objections to my remark. So I added a couple of paragraphs,
explaining why Christians follow history, the Bible, biology and common
sense on sex and gender and recommending a couple of books. This led to
an irrational and angry response on the part of several commentators who
demanded that the thread be closed immediately. It was.

I thought of this incident when reading Gabriele Kuby’s book, The Global
Sexual Revolution: Destruction of Freedom in the Name of Freedom,
recently republished from the German by Angelico Press. Her book, as its
title suggests, carefully explains, with the aid of much research and
citing many telling statistics, just why western society (it doesn’t
apply to the rest of the world) has moved in recent decades from
militant feminism to the destruction of marriage and now to an
aggressive push for "gender ideology" and the right to "choose" your sex.

It is a frightening story, in which the UN, with its international
conferences on population control and women’s rights, and the EU, which
bullies reluctant member countries to report "intolerance" and "hate
crimes" such as "transphobia", as part of its secularist agenda, is
highly influential. As Kuby comments, "Never before has there been an
ideology that aims to destroy the gender identity of man and woman and
every ethical standard of sexual behaviour."

She adds, "People are no longer allowed to preach, teach or be raised to
believe that the purpose of sexuality is the bond of love between a man
and woman and the creation of children."

Herald readers will know of this insidious development and deplore it.
Christians generally have an increasingly dwindling voice in the public
square, where "tolerance" has become the battle-cry of relativism and
where rational, reflective and respectful debate is now impossible – as
I learnt to my cost on my school’s Old Girls’ Facebook page.

(3) 'Safe Schools' program pushes LGTBI - Gabriele Kuby

https://www.catholicweekly.com.au/gabriele-kuby-the-woman-exposing-the-gender-agenda/

March 2, 2018

Meet Gabriele Kuby, the woman exposing the gender agenda: ‘There is no
innate same sex attraction, no innate gender identity’

By Natasha Marsh   October 24, 2016   0 ?

On 14 October last year, a play called FEAR premiered in Berlin. The
play, written and directed by Falk Richter, centres around five
"zombies", who are five pro-family women known to Germans for their
public rejection of gender ideology.

The "actors" poke out the zombies’ eyes, and at one point a character
says "to shoot them in the brain, as only then will they be really
dead". The curtains close to loud applause.

Not surprisingly, life soon imitated art and there were arson attacks on
two of the women. One, Hedwig von Beverfoerde had her van firebombed,
the fire spreading to the headquarters of her family business,
destroying it.

One of the five is Gabriele Kuby, German sociologist, writer and mother
of three. She is author of the book The Global Sexual Revolution:
Destruction of Freedom in the Name of Freedom, published in English
translation in 2015.

She visited Australia in October, sponsored by Parousia Media, to warn
of the dangers of gender-ideology and legalisation of same-sex marriage.

When asked if she was afraid for her personal safety, Gabriele thought
for a moment before responding; "No, we have the truth on our side."

It is not for nothing that she has been called a modern day Joan of Arc.

So what is it that she has been saying that caused such vitriol?

Gabriele speaks out against the global project of "gender mainstreaming".

Although most people haven’t heard of the term, it has been "the guiding
principle" for most of the Western world since the early nineties, and
is being forced on the developing world.

Simply put, gender mainstreaming is the unqualified acceptance of all
sexual practices under the banners of "diversity" and "freedom".

While we may not have heard the term we certainly know its fruits:
normalisation of sexually deviant behaviour; STDs; sex "education";
same-sex marriage; same-sex adoption; widespread pornography; legalised
prostitution; contraception; IVF; abortion and the more recent "gender
theory" which calls for the acceptance of bi-sex, inter-sex, trans-sex
and any other "-sex" which fits under the roomy term "queer".

Gabriele sees these developments as a "project" and not simply a
by-product of culture after 1969.

"At first sight, it seems to be about the equality of men and women–a
long, necessary and successful battle of the woman movement," she said.
"[But], radical feminism turned it into a war against men, motherhood
and the right to life."

"Then, at the 1995 UN-Women conference in Beijing, the term ‘gender’ was
introduced, to promote the notion that sexual differences between men
and women are only ‘constructed’ and need to be deconstructed. How can
this be best done? By demolishing sexual morality, and proclaiming any
sexual lifestyle is as good as another."

Her insights help explain the extraordinary coincidence that all Western
countries have a preoccupation with gender issues simultaneously.

It also helps explain how legislations that advance gender mainstreaming
have been consistently non-democratic. "It is the ideology that forces
students to adopt it, if they want to have a career." said Gabriele "It
used to be Marxism. Now it is genderism."

Democracy was denied on the first sitting day of Australian Parliament
(October 11), where the Labor Party, along with the Greens and other
balance-of-power Senate benchers blocked the Coalition’s plebiscite.
This is despite the majority of opinion polls showing that Australians
want a say on marriage.

The so-called "Safe Schools" program followed a similar pattern. The
radical, unscientific program that denies the existence of male and
female was given $8 million state funding and implemented across 75
primary schools before parents even knew about it.

Despite public outcry, Victorian premier Daniel Andrews is rolling out
the program and plans to make it "compulsory" for all high schools by
2018. The briefest research shows its toxicity. One gem is the website
Minus18, one of the resources found on the Safe Schools Coalition page.
As well as links to gay nightclubs and sex-shop Tools for Life (both
removed after national pressure), it also features helpful articles such
as ‘Healthier and Safer Ways to Bind your Chest’ – "if you do decide to
bind … do it safely."

Sexualisation of children aside, the ideology of gender mainstreaming
does not pass muster in scientific research, despite the billions of
dollars and academic dishonesty poured into it.

In a meta-study of 200 studies, Professors Paul McHugh and Lawrence
Meyer exposed the non-scientific nature of the claims used to push the
"gender agenda".

"The whole LGBTQI narrative collapses," said Gabriele.

"There is no innate same sex attraction. It is not supported by
scientific evidence. There is no innate gender identity. It is not
supported by scientific evidence. Most children with gender dysphoria
grow out of it. It is not supported by scientific evidence that all
these children need some kind of hormonal measures of sex change, which
I think is simply a severe abuse of children."

"Every cell of the body of a woman is XX and every cell of the body of
the man, of all the trillions of cells, is XY," she said.

The darker side of the movement is seen when it crushes opposition from
those within the LGBTQI community itself.

Members of the same-sex community are ostracised when they do not agree
with the narrative, do not stand for same-sex marriage or seek therapy.

It also explains why only two per cent of same-sex couples apply for
marriage in the countries that have legalised it — two per cent.

"Judith Butler, American philosopher, is the inventor of gender-theory"
as outlined in her book Gender Trouble—Subversion of Identity (1990).

"Her incredible ‘success’ in destroying the binary structure of human
existence can only be explained because she is useful to the powerful
elites of this world," she said.

In this way, LGBTQI rights are the Trojan Horse that will bring gender
mainstreaming into every corner of society.

The argument is simple: If you disagree, you are "homophobic", and you
might even be the cause of suicide. In this way, people’s innate sense
of kindness is the weapon used to keep us in line.

Because the narrative does not accord with reality, it has to "force
itself" on society. "It has to become totalitarian", said Gabriele.

However, this is not Brave New World, and Gabriele is not Huxley.

She is Catholic, and knows there is always reason for hope. The sun will
dispel the rainbow.

In her penultimate chapter of The Global Sexual Revolution entitled
"Resistance" Gabriele lists the grassroots movements pushing back
against gender mainstreaming.

Demonstrations in France; petitions in Germany; the closing of the
Competence Centre for Sexual Pedagogy (which came up with the "Basel Sex
Box" for kindergarten children) in Switzerland and on and on.

"We now have Catholic conservative governments in Hungary and in Poland.
And the EU goes crazy," said Gabriele.

"These governments have come into power by perfectly democratic
elections but are portrayed as close to fascism, just because they
return to Christian values and protect marriage, family and life from
conception to natural death."

For a "zombie", Gabriele is certainly full of life, hope and vitality.

"People have to get up on their feet," said Gabriele, "especially the
fathers. Maybe if they see the danger, they can raise their head again,
which has been so subdued through radical feminism."

People like Gabriele are a rallying point for those whose ideal is a
world where marriage is ordered, nature is cherished, children are
innocent, men are chivalrous and women are ladies, and over all of it is
a canopy of design and purpose – held in existence by He Who Is.

Get your copy of The Global Sexual Revolution: Destruction of Freedom in
the Name of Freedom at Parousia Media. It’s not light bedtime reading,
but it does make you think twice about skipping your prayers.

(4) Gabriele Kuby: East European resisting LGBTI; the new totalitarianism

http://www.catholicworldreport.com/2014/09/08/the-global-sexual-revolution-and-the-assault-on-freedom-and-family/

German author and sociologist Gabriele Kuby discusses "gender
mainstreaming", the new totalitarianism, and being called a "homohater"

  September 8, 2014   Benjamin J. Vail

In early April 2014, German author Gabriele Kuby visited the Czech
Republic to give a number of public presentations promoting her new
book, The Global Sexual Revolution: The Destruction of Freedom in the
Name of Freedom, recently translated to Czech. During her visit to Brno,
I had a chance to interview Kuby about her book and ask how her Catholic
perspective helps her understand one of the most important issues of our
time: the continuing sexual revolution that is leading not only to
private lifestyle changes but a new legal understanding of sexuality and
the family.

Kuby warns that the global trend of "gender mainstreaming" threatens the
fundamental understanding of our very human nature, with dire
consequences for children, families, and society as a whole. For
example, until 2014 users of Facebook had to indicate their sex –
whether they are a man or a woman. But now the popular internet social
network gives users 58 different options to indicate their gender. Also
in 2014, the winner of the popular "Eurovision" song contest was an
Austrian man named Thomas Neuwirth, known by his stage name Conchita
Wurst, who attracts curiosity by cross-dressing in women’s clothing
while wearing a thick beard. Kuby points out that these kinds of
situations create confusion and real psychological and spiritual harms
for individuals and society.

CWR: For the benefit of our readers, would you please summarize the main
thesis of your new book?

Gabriele Kuby: After my conversion to the Catholic faith, and given my
background in the study of sociology and interest in political and
social developments, I began to realize that sexuality is the issue of
our time. We live in a time when sexual norms are being turned
completely upside down, which is unique in human history. No society
does has done this. No society has ever said, "Live out your sexual
drive any way you like," but our society does. I think this issue of
sexuality is the main attack on the dignity of the human being, and on
society as a whole, because if a society lets go of its morality in
general, and especially in the area of sexuality, it tumbles into
anarchy and chaos, and this can result in a new totalitarian regime by
the state.

CWR: A main theme of your book is "gender mainstreaming." Can you
educate our readers about gender mainstreaming, and explain why it is
dangerous?

Kuby: The term "gender" was a grammatical term used to differentiate the
genus of a word, before it was used for a political agenda. Then radical
feminists discovered this word and used it to create a new ideology. I
marvel at the strategic far-sightedness of knowing that you need a term
to promote a new idea, and this is the term "gender." Gender now means
there is a "social sex" which can differ from you biological sex. Of
course, there are cultural and historical differences in the ways people
live their masculinity and femininity. But the feminist theory is, there
is a social construction of sex which can be different – indeed, need
not be identical to – your biological sex. And if we give up our
identity as a man or a woman, and say there is no such identity, then of
course the whole sexual order collapses, and anybody can have sex with
anybody – which is not just a theoretical claim, but a practical claim
of this movement: there are not two sexes, or two genders; there are
many genders, like heterosexual men and women, homosexuals, bisexuals,
transsexuals, transgender, intersexual and queer people ("queer" being a
term for any kind of sexual deviance from heterosexuality).

Gender theory says our sexual orientation is the main criterion for our
identity. The main value by which this is promoted is freedom. Our
hyper-individualized society claims that we have freedom to choose our
sex, whether we are man or woman, and it is our freedom to choose our
sexual orientation. Society must not only tolerate but positively accept
any kind of sexual orientation. But in fact, heterosexuality is the
natural condition of our human existence, and more than 97 percent of
the population of this earth is heterosexual and has an instinctive
rejection of homosexuality. The people who push the gender agenda around
the world of course have to start with very young children and teach
them that any kind of sexual orientation is equally valid.

The whole thing is "sold," so to speak, as ever more rights for women.
If people have heard anything about it, they think gender mainstreaming
is about more rights for women. But if men and women are seen as no
longer different, then what is the point of fighting for the rights of
women? It’s an internal contradiction.

After 150 years of feminism – which was an important and necessary
social movement because women did not have equal rights – the movement
has radicalized and today in Western society, we are in a power struggle
of women over men. Men are discriminated against, and it is men who are
really underprivileged. For instance, in the German education system,
women and girls are the winners, while boys more and more fall through
the cracks. Women are privileged in job acquisition by quotas, and women
are privileged in divorce law suits. Behind all this is a constant
complaint by feminist organizations who say men are basically aggressive
rapists, and women are the victims.

CWR: Why did you choose to have your book translated from German into
East European languages, such as Slovak, Hungarian, Croatian, and
Polish, before English and other West European languages?

Kuby: It was not a choice, it just happened. I didn’t do anything for
this to happen. These doors opened by themselves. Czech is now the fifth
language into which the book has been translated, and this year it will
be published in Romanian as well. The book now is being translated into
English but we are still looking for a publisher. It was not a strategy
on my part. All I did was sit at my desk and try to write the truth; the
translations and invitations to speak in many countries are not my doing.

CWR: Promoting your book is taking you to many countries, making you a
witness of different cultures in Europe. Do you notice any differences
between the gender situation in Western Europe and the post-communist
countries?

Kuby: There is definitely a difference. The East European countries
were, so to speak, protected by communist totalitarianism from the 1968
cultural revolution in the West. They did have abortion on a huge scale,
and still do, but they did not have the sexual revolution. There was not
a direct attack on the family through the sexual revolution and radical
feminism. There was a communist attack on the family, but it didn’t go
as deep as the sexual revolution now does.

When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989 we all had this hope of freedom
and entering an era beyond ideology. But while we were delighting in
that hope, powerful forces prepared for the next step of the global
sexual revolution. Don’t ask me who these forces are, but I see this
revolution taking place at a global scale, with a clear intent to
destroy the basis of the family. The destruction of the family uproots
every single human being. We become atomized human beings who can be
manipulated to do anything.

A new totalitarianism is developing under the cloak of freedom. But now
the East European countries are becoming aware of this trend, and my
book seems to be helping awaken people. The destruction has not gone as
far here and people are motivated to resist it. My great hope is that
these East European countries will become a stronghold of resistance in
the European Union. There are signs of this happening.

CWR: Is it true that in at least some parts of Europe today, a man can
go to his local government office and redefine his gender, and walk out
with a new identity card stating he is a woman?

Kuby: In Germany the Left and the Greens are working for this. They
suggest that in your passport there should be no indication of male or
female. They are fighting for this, and whether we already have a German
state where this is happening, I don’t know. It is moving in that
direction, no doubt. In my country, there was a legislative initiative
in the parliament to have the sex category removed from the identity card.

CWR: What would that mean for society? What would be the consequences?

Kuby: The idea behind these initiatives is that it is an expression of
the ultimate "freedom" to "choose" whether I am a man or a woman. But
this is madness! The truth is, such confusion makes a person sick. If
you do not identify with your sex as a man or woman – such a situation
is called transsexuality – this is officially recognized as a
psychological disorder. From a criminological point of view, if you can
change between man and woman, it will be pretty difficult to identify
people.

The idea of changing our sex upsets the notion of what it means to be
human. It is the deepest rebellion against the conditions of our human
existence that you can possibly imagine. It makes people sick and
rootless and they do not know who they are. We are losing our roots in
faith, nation, and family, and now even one’s identity as man or woman
is under attack to create a new vision of humanity. What will this make
of us? A whole mass of sexualized consumers who can be manipulated to do
anything. At the same time, the division between rich and poor is
growing globally, so we have a concentration of wealth and power in a
minority and masses of people who have no roots. That is what the gender
mainstreaming agenda is apparently aiming at.

CWR: So there is an elite, and this gender confusion is one of the tools
they use to manipulate the masses?

Kuby: I only observe what I can see: a strategy in the United Nations,
in the European Union and leftwing governments to enact a policy of the
deregulation of sexual norms, thus destroying the basis of the family.

If you go beyond that, and ask: "Who are the people who want this, who
profits from this, cui bono?" then of course you get into so-called
conspiracy theories. I’ve actually not gone into that because it doesn’t
really help us to do what we can in the place where we are. If I can
identify, say, the hundred families who control the wealth of this
planet – what does it help? I cannot do anything against the
Rockefellers and Bill Gates and George Soros and Warren Buffet. We know
they are financing the LGBT-agenda and the abortion industry, but we
have no influence on that level.

But still we are not powerless. What can they do if there is a rebellion
against their agenda, if parents say, "we do not want this sexualization
of our children in school"? In France, parents have gone on strike, and
do not send their children to school once a month because they don’t
want gender education. What can the elites do about such a reaction?

There are many initiatives and many awake people, many very good
Christians who have a perception of the signs of the time. They hear the
sound of the bell and they work against gender mainstreaming. There is
resistance now growing in many countries. So, I work for that.

CWR: What is your goal? What do you want to achieve, and what’s your
motivation?

Kuby: Personally, the deepest motivation in my life is truth. This
fueled my search for a very long time, and finally led me to the
Catholic faith at a late stage in my life. I had a powerful experience
of God in 1973. Then there were more than 20 years of searching in
esoterics, psychology, and what not. All this led to a life crisis in
which my marriage broke up. When I was alone with my three teenage
children a neighbor came to my door and said: "Pray!" I did, and all of
sudden it was clear that I would enter the Catholic Church – and that
was at a time, when I had many reasons to reject the Catholic Church.

Today I had a meeting with the bishop of Brno, and he said he can use my
material. That is a joy for me. My intention was not, "how can I write
something that is useful for bishops?" I just have to say the truth, and
here something is happening with it. I had a wonderful opportunity to
visit Pope Benedict emeritus, and he said sex education is not only
brainwashing, it is also "soul-washing." If children are sexualized it
destroys their sense of shame, their relationship with their parents,
their relationship in general to authority, and it destroys their
relationship with God. They tell us gender mainstreaming is about
"tolerance," but it’s really about changing us as human beings.

CWR: The forces that you’re describing, such as the education system and
also consumer culture and politics, are very powerful, and I want to ask
what is your sense of the future. Are you optimistic or pessimistic
about the fight against these forces? What do you think is the direction
today?

Kuby: I am neither optimistic nor pessimistic; I hope to be realistic. I
want to see reality as it is. I can see that the forces are very
powerful, the money and the power are on the other side, and they have
victories every day which astound me. On the other hand, there is
resistance accumulating in many countries now. In Croatia there was a
referendum to define marriage in the constitution as between one man and
one woman. It was achieved against the influence of the mainstream media
and the socialist government. In Hungary there is a Christian
constitution and the government of Viktor OrbÁn has just been reelected
with a two-thirds majority. Wherever this resistance happens, the
European Union gets very excited and threatens: "We will use our power
to go against this! It is undemocratic and against our values!" Their
value is same-sex "marriage" and sex education of children "free of taboos."

Recently in Paris and in France a huge movement has sprung up, called
"Manif pour tous." Last year more than a million people – among them
20,000 mayors – were on the streets protesting against homosexual
"marriage," a movement called "Marriage pour tous." The law legalizing
homosexual "marriage" did get passed, but many people have awoken and it
doesn’t seem that the government of President François Hollande is very
stable.

In Germany, resistance is growing. Currently there is movement against
the so-called Bildungsplan – education plan – in the state of
Baden-Württemberg where recently a Green-Red government came into power.
This education plan says there should be LGBTTIQ education in the
schools for children of all ages and in all subjects. LGBTTIQ refers to
lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, intersexual, and
queer. It’s mad!

Under the plan, the whole education system would be permeated by the
sexual agenda. But one teacher (who is also a parent) said, "OK, let’s
start a petition against this." One person! 200,000 people signed, which
was a great surprise for everybody. Those promoting gender mainstreaming
became very excited. They said, "This is against democracy!" But a
petition is a perfectly democratic instrument. Now we have
demonstrations in Stuttgart and more organizations are participating, so
we’ll see where this goes.

There is also resistance at the level of the European Union. At first
all these gender mainstreaming issues were enacted by the EU easily,
with no resistance at all. But now we have resistance.

The "One of Us" movement is such an initiative. It was amazingly
successful – 1.8 million people in Europe signed up, though only 1
million was necessary, stating that they do not want the European Union
to use money for the destruction of life, be it by embryonic stem cell
research or abortion. The hearing took place on April 10, 2014 and now
the Commission has to answer to that.

Another example is the recent rejection of the Estrela Report. The
socialist Member of European Parliament Edite Estrela had proposed a
resolution to the European Parliament that demanded sex education
"without taboos" and the elimination of the freedom of conscience for
medical personal, so they must be willing to participate in providing
abortions. This agenda was rejected by just seven votes. Many people
were mobilized by that fight, and it shows that the gender mainstreaming
agenda is getting wobbly.

CWR: The public debate about gender mainstreaming is framed in terms of
human rights, freedom, tolerance, and discrimination. A common label
used against people like you, in the media and by activists, is
"homophobe" or "fundamentalist." How can Catholics avoid being labeled
as bigots or homophobes?

Kuby: We get all sorts of labels. We are called "homophobe" and even
"transphobe." The worst thing you can possibly be called in German is
"right wing." And if you are labeled "right radical," you are completely
expelled from the discussion. This is the number one stigma in Germany.

In contrast, you are allowed to be "Left." I ask people why "Left" is
good. It’s not so easy to explain because hundreds of millions of people
have died under leftwing ideology and terror. Why do these victims not
count? Why is it that if you’re "Left" you’re fine in the public square,
but if you have the slightest touch of "Right" you are expelled?

And there is another label – "homohater." There are hate laws in Canada,
South Africa, Denmark, Great Britain, and in some states in the USA. If
you say anything which the LGBT lobby doesn’t want to hear – like "what
are the reasons for homosexuality?" or "what are the risks of
homosexuality?" or "there is therapy for homosexuality" – you are
"homophobic." Added to this is now the term "transphobic." So now you
are not even able to say that, for instance, you don’t want a
transsexual as a teacher of your children. How mad can you get?

The term "homophobia" is interesting. It was created by an American
psychoanalyst called Weinberg in the 1970s. Weinberg’s theory is that
anybody who is against homosexuality rejects his own inherent homosexual
inclinations, and this is the reason for their homophobia. It is a term
which states that anyone opposed to homosexuality has a neurotic fear.
So we are the ones who need a psychiatrist! Things are turned upside
down. The book of Isaiah says, "Woe to those who call evil good and good
evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness." We live in a
time when this is happening.

We cannot protect ourselves from these accusations. I think there’s just
one way to deal with it: to live in accordance with your conscience. As
a Christian I do not hate. If I hated anybody, I would separate from
God, and I would lose my Christianity. So I do not hate. If a homosexual
was sitting right here next to me, I would speak with him in the same
way that I speak with you. But I would not be quiet about what I think.
I would say, "You can choose to live that lifestyle, but I will not call
the relationship you have with a man a marriage. I would object if you
start adopting children, because each child has a right to a father and
mother, but people who cannot have children do not have a right to a child."

Jesus says, be wise as serpents and gentle as doves. We have to be wise,
and train ourselves in asking for guidance through the Holy Spirit. Is
it the time to speak up, or a time for silence? We each have to do this
in accordance with our position in life.

CWR: I teach sociology at a state university in Brno. For one of my
courses, a student recently wrote an essay about gender theory. He wrote
that gender is a social construction completely divorced from physical
reality. How would you respond to this young man?

Kuby: I would let him do a writing assignment on the neuro-psychological
research which shows that the male brain and the female brain are very
different: on the mere physical level, on the hormonal level, and in the
way they work. These differences are there to make us good fathers and
good mothers. The working of the female brain results in more empathy,
emotion, and the making of social connections and relationships. Men
tend more to aggression, achievement, hierarchy, and order. This is what
we want a father to be, and what we want a mother to be.

CWR: I have a colleague in America, a sexology professor at a
university, who says (along with other feminists) that men and women are
no different than North Dakota and South Dakota – two states that are
next to each other and very similar. She wants to minimize or even deny
sex differences.

Kuby: But why should we be deluded by this kind of thinking? You are a
man and I am a woman, and we know we are different. We are fundamentally
different. I don’t want such mad theories to take over. We share our
humanity, of course. We are human beings and as such have human dignity.
But there is an obvious difference between us which allows us to live in
different ways. What is just astounding to me is such fundamental
confusion, about things which anybody can recognize.

You know, it’s easy to convince people to work toward a classless
society, as with communism – to create this utopian vision in your mind,
"Yes, we will build the just society!" We have seen it doesn’t work, but
we can understand that people can fall for this way of thinking. You can
even understand that people fall for ideologies that assert, "We are the
strongest ones, the most wonderful race on this planet!" But that a
theory is devised – gender mainstreaming – that says we are not men and
women, it’s just amazing that people fall for it.

CWR: It sounds like today we’re living in a time of great change, and
faith is essential. We need to fight for what’s right.

Kuby: That’s it, exactly that. Even if we are not successful in our
lifetime, we will have used our lives to fight for the right cause. As
Christians, our basic hope cannot be destroyed, and that is our hope in
Jesus Christ. We believe that He will come back, and as long as we are
truly grounded in that hope we have our roots in truth and in eternity,
and we cannot be wiped away. We can die, yes, but we know that the
ultimate victory is ours. And from that hope, we have to work.

In a talk in the 1990s called "Death and Resurrection," Joseph Ratzinger
said that first there is the crucifixion, the passion, which is followed
by Easter Saturday, a time of total silence. The disciples go to Emmaus
and they are so blinded that they don’t even realize God is walking next
to them. Isn’t that the time we live in now, when we fear that God is
silent? Like the disciples in the boat, there’s a storm and they feel
they will lose their lives and their boat will sink, and Jesus is
sleeping. "Why do you not care for us?" they cry. He reproaches them and
he says, "Oh, you of little faith!"

We are called to have a strong faith and I think it’s the only way to
get through this time. We have to grow in a living relationship with
Jesus Christ. Such faith will be the vessel to get us through this time,
and will give us the energy to work, and to accept the sacrifices,
whatever they may be. Jesus doesn’t give us illusions about that. We can
only pray that by the grace of God we are strong enough.

About Benjamin J. Vail  ?  7 Articles

Dr. Benjamin J. Vail, OFS is an American Secular Franciscan living with
his family in Brno, Czech Republic. He has studied sociology and
environmental studies at the University of Oslo (Norway), the University
of Wisconsin-Madison, and Masaryk University (Czech Republic).

(5) Feminists draw on Marx & Engels; abolish the monogamous family
http://www.hungarianreview.com/article/20150514_the_internal_contradictions_of_feminism

14 May 2015

Belinda Brown

The Internal Contradictions of Feminism

One of the most striking things about feminism is the extent to which a
body of beliefs based on notions of equality has produced new
inequalities without hardly anyone seeming to notice. I particularly
have in mind the inequalities between a rich, privileged female elite
and the majority of other women as well as the growing inequalities
between men. These are partly the consequence of changes in the
employment market produced by a growing pool of female labour prepared
to work for a lower wage because their priorities lie elsewhere.

However, they are also due to changes in the structure of the family
which have resulted from the way in which Marxist ideas have shaped
feminist thinking and ensured that its impact on a rich, privileged
minority has been quite different to its impact on others. I believe
that this has happened because those ideas were based on a flawed
conception of the relationship between the family and the workplace.
However, it should be noted that the developments to which I refer are
far more pronounced in Western societies than they are in former
communist societies where relatively high levels of employment among
women and somewhat greater access to top jobs meant that the motivation
to develop a women’s movement was not as strong as in the West. I would
urge caution on those women’s groups in Central and Eastern Europe who
may feel tempted to adopt Western-style feminism: to do so would risk
jeopardising the progress achieved since the collapse of communism by
allowing some Marxist assumptions to be readmitted through the back door.

XX WOMEN AND THE OTHER 80 PER CENT

In Britain, the debate over the inequalities between different female
socio- economic groups has been stimulated by Alison Wolf’s book, The XX
Factor: How Working Women Are Creating a New Society.1 This revealed
some striking disparities in incomes and lifestyles of contemporary
women. Broadly, the top 15–20 per cent work in environments where men
and women are more or less equally represented and rewarded. These are
women who live to work: career women who work full- time, and who take
little time off to have children. The other 80 per cent of women are
likely to work in environments where there is a disproportionate number
of female employees; these women are less well paid, attach a
significantly lower priority to work and are more likely to work part-time.

As a consequence, feminists are being criticised for focussing on issues
which are the concern of the rich and privileged such as the number of
women in the boardroom or in the broadcasting studio, rather than upon
the problems of ordinary women. The feminists respond to this charge by
saying that they have been fighting to improve educational opportunities
for women and to raise the status of female employment, and by pressing
for greater access to flexible employment or childcare so that women can
spend more time at work. However, the evidence suggests that given the
choice, ordinary women want to reduce the amount of time spent at work
in order to spend more time with their children; only the least well-off
of all regard long working hours as a solution to their problems.2 For
many, the real source of disadvantage and disappointment is not to be
located in the workforce but in the family, for the family is very
different among the less well-off. This group is less likely to be
married; if they do have partners they are more likely to split up and
if they marry they are more likely to be divorced and they are unlikely
to have a male partner that earns more than them; indeed, they are
unlikely to find a partner from the dwindling supply of hardworking,
motivated and employable young men.

MEN: A HIDDEN RESOURCE

If one peers behind the façade of feminism and female independence, it
turns out that in the lives of the modern liberated woman the man
actually plays an important and very useful role – even if this is not
so in the case of their less fortunate sisters. This is evident from the
fact that among married and cohabiting couples in contemporary Britain
only ten per cent of mothers with pre-school children are the only, main
or equal earner. Among graduate mothers of three- year-olds, only one in
five works full-time. By contrast 91 per cent of graduate fathers have
full-time jobs. Surveys suggest that in such situations women are far
from clamouring to do more work, although once their children are at
school this changes. Even then it is those with partners who are more
likely to be able to return to work when their children are older than
those without.3

In such privileged households men work just as hard as women, albeit
more outside the household than in. This had led feminists to complain
that if men did more housework and childcare women could work more
outside the home. However, the available evidence suggests that on the
whole men are responsive to women’s preferences in this regard.4
Research indicates that in both the immediate and longer term, it is the
mother’s employment schedules that determine the levels of paternal
involvement with the father increasing the hours spent on childcare as
the mother spends longer at work.5 The paternal involvement in housework
and childcare enhances life satisfaction for both partners with the
result that they live happier lives.6

It also appears that overall men do earn more than women (and
consequently contribute 72 per cent of the total tax take) while women
are responsible for 70 per cent of domestic expenditure; these figures
draw attention to the contrast between the lives of a privileged elite
with male partners who contribute significantly to domestic expenditure
and those who lack male partners.7-8

Finally, it is clear that the high level of female employment depends
largely on informal childcare with grandparents providing 42 per cent
and resident partners 20 per cent of the care provided; non-resident
partners play only a negligible role.

Women with partners inevitably have far more access to childcare not
only because this can be provided by the partner but also because there
will be two sets of grandparents to give support, rather than one. Such
resources are especially important to those on low wages. Meanwhile,
many ordinary women become more dependent on the state or on poorly paid
employment for the lack of an adequate supply of male providers.

MARX AND FEMINISM – A MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE

To understand how we arrived at this situation it is necessary to dig
deep into core feminist assumptions and to reflect on the blind faith
which early feminist myth makers such as Kate Millet and Germaine Greer
placed in two middle-class, middle-aged males: Engels and Marx. Greer,
Millet and others quoted extensively from both and more recent
theoreticians have continued to acknowledge their role with pride.
According to an article in the International Socialist Review: "It is no
exaggeration to say that Engels’ work has defined the terms of debate
around the origin of women’s oppression for the last 100 years."9
Another feminist theoretician credits him thus: "His analysis has been
indispensable to my organising. He penetrates capitalist reality
including in my own life and, from what I can see, in other people’s, as
no one else does, and helps keep me focussed on that reality by warding
off invasions of the enemy’s logic, excuses and invitations to egomania.
I am profoundly grateful for that help."10 A universalistic theory which
sought to upend traditional social institutions was no doubt popular to
Sixties women, helping to knit their discontents, post-pill confusion
and serious disadvantages and privations into a comprehensive
theoretical whole. For the socialists, feminism provided a neat solution
to the problems of the practical application of class.11

There is one key aspect of Marxist-Engelsian theory which I would
identify as crucial to the formation of feminism; the underlying
assumption on which all other theoretical innovations depend. That is
the identification of the means of production, i.e. the workplace and
its political apparatus, as the heart of society and the site of
potential transformation. All change stems from here. Marx expresses it
thus:

The mode of production of material life conditions the general processes
of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness
of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that
determines their consciousness…12

Similarly, Engels traces the origins of what he refers to as the "world
historical defeat of the female sex" as lying in the development of
technology, for example the cattle- drawn plough, which women’s
childcare responsibilities prevented them from using. This results in
men having ownership of surplus resources which they need to pass on to
their children. To do so they need to gain control of the women through
whom inheritance would otherwise occur. What follows from this is the
subordination of the family and women within it for the purposes of
transferring wealth:

The woman was degraded and reduced to servitude, she became the slave of
his lust and a mere instrument for the production of children.

Monogamous marriage is regarded by Engels as the "subjugation of the one
sex by the other".13 For Marx the woman is similarly subjugated but his
focus is more on the reproduction of the labour force than on the
transfer of wealth:

The bourgeois sees in his wife a mere instrument of production. He hears
that [under communism] the instruments of production are to be exploited
in common, and, naturally, can come to no other conclusion than that the
lot of being common to all will likewise fall to women.14

THE SPAWN OF MARX AND MILLET

The fundamental belief about the relationship of the family to the means
of production forms the plate tectonics of feminism. Through feminism
Engels’ words are still with us today:

Then it will be plain that the first condition for the liberation of the
wife is to bring the whole female sex back into public industry, and
that this in turn demands the abolition of the monogamous family as the
economic unit of society…

In its early days feminism focussed unambiguously on the need to destroy
the family. For example this is what Kate Millet had to say:

"Why are we here today?" "To make revolution." "What kind of
revolution?" she replied. "The Cultural Revolution." "And how do we make
Cultural Revolution?" "By destroying the American family!" "How do we
destroy the family?" "By destroying the American Patriarch." "And how do
we destroy the American Patriarch?" "By taking away his power!" "How do
we do that?" "By destroying monogamy!"15

And so on. Germaine Greer wrote in The Female Eunuch: "Women’s
Liberation, if it abolishes the patriarchal family, will abolish a
necessary substructure of the authoritarian state; … so let’s get on
with it".16

The need to excise the father from family life became part of mainstream
thinking. So for example Anna Coote in a 1991 article for The Guardian
has this to say:

The father is no longer essential to the economic survival of the unit.
Men haven’t kept up with the changes in society; they don’t know how to
be parents. Nobody has taught them: where are the cultural institutions
to tell them that being a parent is a good thing? They don’t exist. At
the same time, women don’t have many expectations of what men might
provide.17

The British journalist Polly Toynbee takes a similar line:

Women and children will suffer needlessly until the state faces up to
the reality of its own inability to do anything about the revolution in
national morals. What it can do is shape a society that makes a place
for women and children as family units, self-sufficient and independent.18

This is just what the state proceeded to do. One example of this can be
found in the fact the British tax system has ensured that lower income
families are better off living apart. The Institute of Fiscal Studies
has calculated that in 2010, 95 per cent of single people would incur a
"couple penalty" if they married or started living together as couples.
89 per cent of existing couples with children presently incur a couple
penalty of averaging £109 per week.19 A recent pamphlet shows how much
better off a family is when its members separate. It explains that if
the family stays together the main provider (usually a father) is caught
in a tax trap and does not escape the high effective tax rates until his
salary reaches £38,000. If he chooses to live apart from his family he
could escape the tax trap at about 16k while the mother could access
state benefits as a lone parent with children. The authors conclude that:

The high Marginal Effective Tax Rates across a large income range are
not only a disincentive to earn more but reduce pressure on employers to
pay better wages, creating instead a dependency on welfare. The system
destroys aspiration, denies the father the opportunity to provide for
his family, discourages extra work and holds back business. Worse still
it encourages family separation.20

All of this has been accompanied by a strong emphasis on female
employment and tax policies which put pressure on women to go out to
work. As men are regarded as marginal to the family there is little
focus on male employment or on the ever declining educational
performance of men. At the same time the inability to effectively
perform the provider role is used by the courts, legal system and
mothers as a stick to beat men with and further exclude them from family
life.21 I would argue that it is precisely the resulting dearth of
motivated, employable educated men which constitutes the real difference
between the lives of ordinary women and those of the privileged few.

TRANSFORMING MEN

This provider role, which feminists are so intent on undermining, is not
about creating dependency among women, nor even is it necessarily about
provisioning them – although of course this is extremely valuable. It is
part of a process of motivating, socialising and getting the most out of
men. Geoff Dench has written a book in which this is convincingly and
elegantly argued:

… if women go too far in pressing for symmetry, and in trying to change
the rules of the game, men will simply decide not to play. The
traditional male weapons in the sex war are non-cooperation in domestic
chores, and flight. The traditional female weapon is celebration of
paternity and male responsibility; as it is this which is the proven key
to male commitment. If women now choose to define this as patriarchal
oppression and withdraw the notion that men’s family role is important
then they are throwing away their best trick. Feminism, in dismantling
patriarchy, is simply reviving the underlying greater natural freedom of
men…

And:

...the current attack on patriarchal conventions issurely promoting… a
plague of feckless yobs, who leave all real work to women and gravitate
towards the margins of society where males naturally hang around unless
culture gives them a reason to do otherwise. The family may be a myth,
but it is a myth that works to make men tolerably useful.22

Dench’s hypothesis is supported by a wide range of evidence. It has been
found that male unemployment and low income increased rates of union
dissolution whilst the opposite had a positive effect on marriage.
Married couples are much more likely to divorce if the mother is the
only earner. An unemployed husband is more likely to choose to leave a
relationship than a married man with a job; there is a positive
correlation between good labour market participation and lasting
marriage for fathers at all educational levels.23

PUTTING THE HEART BACK IN THE HOME

For Engels, the shift towards agricultural production increased the
productivity of labour which in turn increased the demand for labour,
because it meant more surplus could be produced. Reproduction was at the
service of production. In the real world relations are the other way
around. People work in order to feed and provide their family and this
seems to occur regardless of sex or age. So for example if we look at
the employment patterns of women we find that the category of women who
have raised their workplace participation the most and most rapidly are
precisely mothers with young children, suggesting that reproduction is a
push towards work. However, this does not mean that they have
prioritised employment. The clear preference of most women for part-time
work strongly supports the conclusion that work is valued insofar as it
fits in with family and community life and serves those purposes.24

Reproductive relations seem to be central for men too. Dench in his
research finds that it is among men who don’t have partners expecting
them to earn a living that the worklessness is heaviest. He suggests
that this is not simply a matter of women choosing partners who work. It
is also that men who do not get the experience of living with and
providing at least some support for a female partner may not develop the
necessary motivations to hold down a job.25

What is also interesting is that grandmothers turn out to be more likely
to be working than other women of their age and their decision to work
tends to coincide with their daughters’ decision not to work. Thus the
behaviour of different members of the family is determined by the needs
of the youngest – this is the driving force and, as Darwin discovered
only a few years before Engels wrote his tome, it is this instinct which
determines the survival of the race.

Once the primacy of private relations is acknowledged the heart is put
back into society. The stage is then set for some very positive social
changes.

Indeed, faced with the problem of combating poverty policymakers with an
understanding that individuals can be motivated through the opportunity
to support their loved ones will set about devising policy approaches
that recognise not only the needs of women and children but which also
seek to release the potential of that far more challenging group – men.

A workplace relation is based occasionally on exploitation, but always
on exchange of labour for a wage. As more and more women have entered
the economy the work done in the household has moved into the workplace.
Thus, despite their best intentions feminists are vulnerable to the
accusation that they have brought even the most intimate caring
relations under capitalist control.

By contrast, familial relations are based on trust, love and
interdependence; in such an environment material and non-material goods
circulate through reciprocity and exchange. Where families are strong
these networks will be outward-looking and will come to include more and
more people who are not necessarily related by blood, providing
additional sources of support and exchange. In this way, the flourishing
of family-type relationships based on care rather than self-interest can
act as a protective buffer, compensating for a weakening welfare state.

A strong domestic realm has been shown to contribute to gender equality;
this is most likely to occur where the home is a unit of production.
Social reproduction where varied social networks spiral outwards from
the family could compensate for the loss of role in material production.
This could serve to promote gender equality by increasing the power and
influence of the home.

In traditional societies the family often provided the mediating link
between production and reproduction. Those who earned more were able to
have more children and this helped to redistribute their wealth. The
less well-off restricted the number of children they had, when they were
able to, in order to better look after the few, although in developing
countries poor families might have many children in the hope that at
least one might provide for them in old age. The erosion of the family
has broken these links and thus a mechanism which had a regulatory role
facilitating equality has been destroyed. For example the very wealthy
now tend to have very few children, thus concentrating wealth in fewer
hands. The less well-off appear to have more children presumably because
children attract state benefits. A focus on the family unit for tax and
benefit purposes might help to restore the family’s regulatory and
supportive role.

CONCLUSION

Feminism wrought essential social change from which we have all
benefitted. The place of feminists in history is secure. However, social
landscapes constantly change and if the feminist movement is again to be
constructive it will need to significantly adapt. If this is not
happening this has much to do with the absence of any serious critical
analysis of feminist ideas and assumptions. Standing in the way of such
an analysis is the tendency to regard the body of feminist theory as if
it were objectively true rather than as the theoretical basis for
practical action to achieve change. This brief essay is intended to
provide just such an analysis as the first step in providing an
alternative approach to understanding gender relations which which I
believe is better suited to our times and circumstances.

1 Wolf, A., The XX Factor: How Working Women Are Creating a New Society,
London, Profile Books, 2013.

2 See for example
http://www.netmums.com/home/netmums-campaigns/the-great-work-debate Or
Alakeson, V., "The Price of Motherhood: women and part-time work",
Resolution Foundation, 2012.

3 Dench, G., What Women Want: Evidence from British Social Attitudes,
London, Hera Trust, 2010.

4 Bloemen, H. G. and Stancanelli, E. G. F., "Market hours, household
work, child care, and wage rates of partners: an empirical analysis", in
Review of Economics of the Household, 2013. DOI:10.1007/s11150-013-9219-4.

5 Norman, H., Elliot, M. and Fagan, C., "Which fathers are the most
involved in taking care of their toddlers in the UK? An investigation of
the predictors of paternal involvement", in Community, Work and Family,
2013. DOI:10.1080/13668803.2013.862361.

6 Agache, A., Leyendecker, B., Schafermeier, E,. Scholmerich, A.,
"Paternal involvement elevates trajectories of life satisfaction during
transition to parenthood", in European Journal of Developmental
Psychology, 2013. DOI: 10.1080/17405629.2013.851025.


7https://j4mb.wordpress.com/british-men-pay-72-of-the-income-tax-collected-in-the-uk-women-just-28-so-why-does-the-state-relentlessly-assault-men-and-boys-while-advantaging-women-and-girls/

8 http://she-conomy.com/facts-on-women

9 Smith, S., "Engels and the origin of women’s oppression", in
International Socialist Review, issue 2, 1997.

10 James, S., Marx and feminism, Crossroads Books, 1994.

11 Lyndon, N., Sexual Politics; Heresies on Sex, Gender and Feminism, 2014.

12 Marx, K., The Poverty of Philosophy, Progress Publishers, 1955.

13 Engels, F., "The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the
State", 1884, in Feminism: The Essential Historical Writings, Miriam
Schneir, 1972.

14 Marx K. and Engels F., The Communist Manifesto, New York, 1948, p.
27. Engels, op cit.

15 www.frontpagemag.com/2014/mallorymillett/marxist-feminisms-ruined-lives/

16 Greer, p. 326

17 "The Parent Trap", The Guardian, 16 September 1991. Cited from Neil
Lyndon, op. cit.

18 The worm-turned syndrome",in The Observer, 17 October 1989.

19 Draper, D., Beighton L., Independent Taxation – 25 years on, CARE,
2013, p. 33.

20 Fennel, A., Who Cares about the Family?, Mothers at Home Matter,
2015, p. 14.

21 Bryan, D. M., "To Parent or provide? The effect of the provider role
on low - income men’s decisions about fatherhood and paternal
engagement", in Fathering, 2013, vol. 11, no. 1, pp. 71–89. DOI:
10.3149/fth.1101.71

22 Dench, G., Transforming Men: Changing Patterns of Dependency and
Dominance in Gender Relations, New Brunswick, Transaction Publishers, 1996.

23 Brown, B., "Reviewing Gendered Employment Policies", in Men for
Tomorrow, 2014, working paper 09/14.

24 Brown, B. and Dench, G., The Family Strikes Back: Changing Attitudes
to Work and Family, London, Hera Trust, 2014.

25 Dench, G., What Women Want; Evidence from British Social Attitudes,
New Brunswick, Transaction Publishers, 2011.