Gerard Casey - After #MeToo: Feminism, Patriarchy, Toxic Masculinity and Sundry Cultural Delights

I must begin by making a confession. When it comes to women, I am biased. We knew it! some of my readers will think, weve always suspected as much, and now hes finally come out and owned up to it! Yes, but wait a minute. I am indeed biased when it comes to women, but I am biased in their favour! All my life I have been more favourably disposed towards women than towards men and indeed, when I was teaching at the university, I was always instinctively more accommodating and sympathetic to my female students than I was towards my male students, so much so that I had to be vigilant to ensure I didnt inadvertently relatively disadvantage the male students. Despite the deep suspicions of some of those who do not love me, then, Im not a misogynist; I just dont happen to believe that all women are, like Mary Poppins, practically perfect in every way. I believe, on the contrary, that they are real human beings, with all the virtues and all the faults that being human brings with it. I shouldnt have to say this but I suppose I must: my criticisms of feminism in this book are not criticisms of women in general.

To pre-emptively avoid possible misunderstandings, let me make it clear where I stand on male-female issues. I believe that, subject to the constraints of reality, there should be no state-imposed discriminatory legal policies that favour either women or men. However, I also believe that, subject to the zero aggression principle ( No one may initiate physical violence against the person or property of another ), individuals or groups of individuals should be free to do as they wish with their property, including favouring one sex over another when it comes to its disposal, if that is their choice. Such decisions, of course, have their consequences, and those who make them must be prepared to live with negative non-aggressive responses to them, including criticism, shunning or boycotting. I believe that women and men should be free to make the social and career choices that they wish, whether others approve of them or not. As long as such choices involve no violation of the zero aggression principle, others are obliged to tolerate such choices, but there is no obligation on others to facilitate them, nor should they be obliged to approve of them on pain of legal sanctions. This is the libertarian core of After #MeToo . That said, many of the views I express and the approach I take in After #MeToo , while they are consistent with the bedrock principle of libertarianism, the Zero Aggression Principle, are not necessarily implied by it, and some libertarians could well, and very likely will, disagree with some of what Ive written. If I had to find a label to describe the general tenor of my extra-libertarian approach here, the best one would probably be socially conservative.

When I was polishing the final version of the text, I came across a second-hand copy of David Thomass 1993 book, Not Guilty: Menthe Case for the Defence . This discovery was quite serendipitous as I wasnt looking for this bookI couldnt have been looking for it since I didnt even know it existed! As I read through it, I was alternately exhilarated and depressedexhilarated to find a book from the last millennium touching on so many (but not all) of the points I wanted to make in my own book, and depressed for exactly the same reason! It really is depressing, despite the rampant gynocentrism of the last forty years, to find feminists today still chanting the same dirges of oppression, harassment, rape culture, pay gaps and so on ad nauseam . The biggest difference between now and forty years ago is that matters are now much worse, so much so that 1993 begins to look like the good old days. Another excellent book I came across just before finishing the final draft of this book was Steve Moxons The Woman Racket . Once again, I was alternately exhilarated and depressed to find a book, this time from the twenty-preteens, that echoed many of Thomass points and pre-echoed not a few of my own. Whether the convergence of Thomas, Moxon and Casey is either a case of great minds thinking alike or fools seldom differing, I will leave to the reader to decide.

Some may take exception to the levity displayed at various points in this book in the form of sarcasm, irony and rhetorical exaggeration. I make no apology for such levity and it is not to be taken as an indication that I dont think the issues are serious. However, some kinds of folly are so egregious that rebutting them piously gives them more credit than they deserve. I do, of course, employ arguments in various places in the book but my main weapon throughout is the solvent power of laughter. The Devil, it is said, cannot bear to be mocked, and mockery is what the devils of #MeToo and the other diabolical members of the sorority of sorrowful siblings get in full measure. My mockery is directed primarily at human folly and not, except incidentally, at the humans who perpetrate that folly. My religion demands that I love my enemies (that particular commandment really cramps my style!) and I believe that in this book, I am doing just that by practising one of the spiritual works of mercy, namely, counselling the ignorant. I write what I write not de haut en bas but as a fellow sinner among sinners; God only knows (and so do my family and friends!) that I have committed my share of idiocies to the common pool of human folly, perhaps more than my share if some of my severer critics are to be believed.

In a few places, I have made use of some material I have already published but Ive kept this to a minimum. The re-used material comes primarily from Freedoms Progress? (on the patriarchy) and from ZAP (on women and work).

I believe that all the statements made in this book about named or identifiable individuals are substantially true. In almost every such case, these statements are a re-publication, either verbatim or in paraphrase, of reports already available in the public domain. In any event, statements made in this book are my honest opinions and are made in the public interest.