To simplify, the Motte & Bailey (M&B) strategy consists of a group using a term or concept in an insane or despicable way among themselves (the bailey), but then, when attacked for their insanity retreating a position where the term or concept means something sane or reasonable (the motte). By this they hope to force aceptance of the term and thereby eventual acceptance of the insanity.

I’ve already shown how feminists use the motte-and-bailey strategy, although, without using the term, but we can see this in action right now, so another helpful little reminder can’t hurt.

Some women have taken taken to react against the excesses of modern feminism by creating the Women Against Feminism (WAF) movement. As with many modern female-controlled internet movements, it consists of taking selfies. Not that I’m complaining, as these selfies are much easier on the eyes than previous selfie campaigns.

Despite the positive aesthetics of the WAF and the generally positive tone of the messages, the WAF does have a problem, it was already entirely pwned before it even began, as this pretty young gal and this older wife well demonstrate:

The WAF are rejecting modern feminism while fully accepting the equality nonsense of first-wave feminism and the women-in-the-workforce concepts as givens, then thinking these are not a part of feminism. Sadly (and to their own detriment), the women are only rejecting contemporary feminism while accepting all of feminism’s original values and goals. If modern feminists weren’t so utterly stupid and evil they’d rejoice and call it a day, they won so very hard that even anti-feminists uphold feminist goals and values.

But of course, feminists are utterly corrupt and the ratchet never ends, so instead the feminists’ answer is, “how dare these ungrateful whores?”

You think I’m exaggerating, don’t you? (h/t: VD)

Its tumblr is constructed of selfies of young women, dressed and posed like ads for DIY escort services, holding up bits of notebook paper on which they’ve scrawled screeds against feminism.
…
Everything about Women Against Feminism suggests it’s a sock puppet for the aggrieved misogynists and pedophiles of the anti-feminist men’s rights crowd. The main clue is that almost all the women on the site are nubile and posed in ways that fulfill dirty old men’s wildest dreams about pliant young things.

Remember, slut-shaming is only evil if it is men or non-feminists shaming actual sluts. It’s awesome when feminists are slut-shaming non-sluts.

I’ll note here that I didn’t see a single picture on on the WAF that would have been out of place walking our modern streets on a sunny afternoon and there was only one picture there that showed more cleavage than Nina Bureligh’s (the author) bio pic.

Of course, from her picture it’s fairly easy to see why Nina Burleigh is expressing hatred towards this pretty young woman:

I guess she never learned that jealousy just isn’t that attractive. But, maybe she can be forgiven, as getting old sucks, especially considering that even when she was younger Bill Clinton still chose this over her. Her calling other women sluts is especially funny given how this adulteress married a guy, then divorced him almost immediately to marry another guy. I guess projection is real.

But now I’m getting mean and off-topic. I still haven’t even started on my original point.

Feminists won, they won a while back and they won hard, but in their victory they’ve only won the original goal of ‘equality’, they have not yet gained what they truly desire: the complete destruction of any civilized restraints on women and the complete takeover of civil society by the state.

So, now they are in the difficult position of having achieved all their even remotely reasonable goals. You can hardly claim misogyny with a straight face when the state pays for your birth control and abortificants, when most employers give you special hiring privileges (affirmative action), when you consistently win in family court (and criminal court for that matter), when your partner can be removed from your home without cause or recourse at a single word from you, and you outnumber men in college by about 3:2, not that feminists don’t still try.

All they have left are their most unreasonable goals, like making it so that men can get jailed with no recourse and no trial simply because a women says rape or forcing men to sit down to pee by law or having all women treat all men like rapists by default.

Feminism itself has become bailey, as many women are beginning to realize contemporary feminism doesn’t actually benefit them.

Whenever anyone posts about how modern feminists, as represented by Jezebel, Feministing, Slate, Salon, Lindy West, Amanda Marcotte, etc., are generally bitter, anti-male, entitled, and looking for special privileges for women, they retreat to the motte.

“Feminism is about equality.”
“Feminism is simply acknowledging that women are people.”

Obviously, Nina above opted for slut-shaming and name-calling rather than the M&B approach, but some feminists aren’t quite so gracelessly, viciously stupid. This one highly linked article put M&B into play quite an entertaining manner.

Basically the article argues that sure, you young woman in North America have a great life free from misogyny and discrimination, but why don’t you think of the Muslim, Indian, and African women who are brutalized?* (Of course, actual feminists almost never talk about the brutalization of foreign women. In fact, they often support the Islamics wishing to bring that brutal behaviour to the West).

But she goes right from gang rapes and forced marriages in third world countries to “women still only fill 24% of senior management jobs”, “comedy panel shows usually only have one female panellist compared to 4-5 male ones”, and “almost every dieting product on the market is solely aimed at women”. (I’m being serious here, read the article if you don’t believe modern feminists are that narcissistically self-absorbed).

Here, she tries to get us to accept the motte of feminism is against horrific evils like mass rape, so we must accept the baileys of the wage gap (which anybody who is not ignorant or ideologically-blinded already knows is a myth) and government enforcement of quotas in comedy panels.

She doesn’t even do so gracefully: a straight jump from gang rape to comedy club panels.

The entire feminist response to WAF is the M&B in action. Pretend modern feminism is about ‘equality’ and ‘women are people too’ to try to convince the average, decent gal to be feminist, while taking a hardline vicious anti-male, anti-child, anti-freedom, anti-civilization elsewhere.

This is the M&B in action, don’t fall for it.

****

* Also, of course, she ignores that the proscriptions against gang rape and forced marriage predated feminism by quite a bit and were actually products of Christian chivalry. I doubt she is going to be happy when she gets her goal and civilized, patriarchical Christian norms are replaced by more primitive and destructive norms.