In this article, I, using Paul C. Mocombe’s structurationist theory of phenomenological structuralism against feminist theories, put forth the argument that the third wave (1990 to the present) of feminine activism against the Protestant Ethic and the spirit of capitalism has given rise to feminine patriarchy, the push by women for equality of opportunity, recognition, and distribution with their white male counterparts by recursively organizing and reproducing the patriarchy of the society, which is institutionalized as the nature of reality as such, in a genderless position of their own. Hence, women have pushed for integration and equality in the Protestant Ethic and the spirit of capitalism as gender neutral agents of the protestant ethic against any other alternative forms of system or social integration, which renders their historical activism dialectical, oppressive, and exploitative; they, paradoxically, reify, commodify, and glorify their sexual female identity as feminine men.

Keywords: ideological domination, capitalism, underclass, globalization, feminism, theory, phenomenological structuralism, structurationism

In this article, I, using Paul C. Mocombe’s structurationist theory of phenomenological structuralism against feminist theories, put forth the argument that the third wave (1990 to the present) of feminine activism against the Protestant Ethic and the spirit of capitalism of the West has given rise to feminine patriarchy, the push by women for equality of opportunity, recognition, and distribution with their white male counterparts by recursively organizing and reproducing the patriarchy, which is only a particular of the universality of the system, of the society, which is institutionalized as the nature of reality as such, in a, paradoxically, genderless position of their own. Women have pushed for integration and equality in the Protestant Ethic and the spirit of capitalism as gender neutral agents of the protestant ethic against any other alternative forms of system or social integration, which renders their historical activism dialectical, oppressive, and exploitative. They paradoxically reify, commodify, and glorify their gender identity as feminine men, the ability to be and do as men despite being women, a gaze they would like their male counterparts to also assume by celebrating their success in the system as, originally, constituted by men.¹

Background of the problem

According to Lengermann and Niebrugge feminist theory identifies three waves in its development, which is tied to feminist activism, within the constitution of the Protestant Ethic and the spirit of capitalism global social structure: first wave feminism (1848-1920), which is tied to the fight for voting rights and integration into the political process; second wave feminism (1960-1990), which is tied to the fight for equality of opportunity, recognition, and distribution with men; and third wave feminism (2000 to the present), which I want to argue here is a continuation of second wave feminism but characterized not by a change (feminization) of the social structure given their formal integration. Instead, third wave feminism highlights the integration and equality of women into the Protestant Ethic and the spirit of capitalism social structure as feminine men, giving rise to what I call here feminine patriarchy. The latter is characterized by women holding leadership positions while reifying, commodifying, and glorifying their gender identities in those positions amidst their masculine purposive-rationality, i.e., recursively organizing and reproducing their behaviors as embourgeoised agents of the Protestant Ethic in pant and squirt suits for capital accumulation, domination, and exploitation. Hence, their identities become both reified and commodified; the former as feminine men who behave like men, and the latter as a market for capital accumulation in the postindustrial stage of Protestant capitalism where they produce commodities and services for their female counterparts who are then celebrated by men as successful (independent) women.

Theory and method

Feminist theory attempts to understand the status and condition of women in society while simultaneously working to offer solutions to their situations. Four theoretical traditions characterize feminist theorizing: gender difference, dominated by cultural, biological, institutional, interactional, and phenomenological feminism; gender inequality, pushed forth by liberal feminists; gender oppression, supported by psychoanalytic and radical feminists; and structural oppression, pushed forth by social feminists and intersectional theorists. Gender difference theorists recognize that women are biologically different from their male counterparts, which influences both their structural positions and worldviews, i.e., women have distinctive standards for ethical judgment, caring attention as a mode of women’s consciousness, different achievement motivation patterns, a female style of communication, women’s capacity for openness to emotional experience, women’s fantasies of sexuality and intimacy, and women’s lower levels of aggressive behavior and greater capacity for creating peaceful coexistence. For gender difference theorists the inclusion of feminine practices in the structure of society are keys to resolving the subordination of women. Gender inequality theorists, against gender difference theorists, focus on the unequal treatment of women in Western society, which they attribute not to biology but to their structural positions. For gender inequality theorists the equal treatment (equality of opportunity, recognition, and distribution) of women to their similarly situated male counterparts is key to changing the conditions of women in Western society. Gender oppression theorists highlight the patriarchal domination and oppression of women, and argue for the transmogrification of patriarchal societal institutions (to matrifocality) as key to liberating women. Finally, structural oppression theorists focus on the overall social location of women within capitalism as key to understanding their status in society. Like gender inequality theorists, the structural oppression theorists seek to resolve gender issues by fighting for equality of opportunity, recognition, and distribution with white men within the social class language game of Protestant Ethic and the spirit of capitalism.^2–20

Mocombeian phenomenological structuralism, which is a structurationist theory that views the constitution of society, human identity, and social agency as a duality and dualism, views all four positions on their own as incomplete descriptions and explanation for not only understanding the social status of women in society, but the contemporary rise of what the author is calling feminine patriarchy to describe the third wave of the feminist movement. Mocombeian phenomenological structuralism posits that societal and agential constitution are a result of power relations, interpellation, and socialization or embourgeoisiement via five systems, i.e., mode of production, language, ideology, ideological apparatuses, and communicative discourse, which are reified as a social structure or what Mocombe¹ calls a “social class language game” by persons, power elites, who control the means and modes of production in a material resource framework. Once interpellated and embourgeoised by these five systems, which are reified as a social structure and society, social actors recursively organize, reproduce, and are differentiated by the rules of conduct of the social structure, which are sanctioned by the power elites who control the means and modes of production, language, ideology, ideological apparatuses, and communicative discourse in a material resource framework. Hence, societal and agential constitution are both a duality and dualism: a dualism given the reification of the social structure via the five systems; and a duality given the internalization of the rules of the five systems, which become the agential initiatives or praxes of social actors. Difference, or alternative social praxis, in Mocombe’s structuration theory, phenomenological structuralism, is not structural differentiation as articulated by traditional structurationists; instead, it is a result of actions arising from the deferment of meaning and ego-centered communication given the interaction of two other structuring structures (physiological drives of the body and brain; and phenomenal properties of subatomic particles that constitute the human subject) during the interpellation and socialization or embourgeoisiement of social actors throughout their life span or cycle, which produces alternative praxis that is exercised at the expense of the threat these practices may pose to the ontological security of social actors in the social structure or society.^21–50

Mocombe’s theoretical framework is a universal framework that makes no gender, racial, or ethnic distinctions in its application. Hence, applying Mocombe’s conceptualization to the constitution of the female identity and theorizing about them, his understanding is that feminine consciousness, praxis, and pride in the Protestant Ethic and the spirit of capitalism social structure of the West rests on the interpellation and embourgeoisiement of biological women to be agents of the Protestant Ethic without serving as power elites in the social structure or society. Feminist theorizing is a particular struggle, which does not attack or intersect with the overall universality of Western society. It only attacks its particular conception and treatment of women, which are not allowed to serve as power elites. The absurdity of which (feminist theorizing) is fully articulated in the gender oppression camp, which, in its most radical positions, radical and psychoanalytical feminism, want to replace patriarchy with a matriarchy that highlights the particularity of feminine difference, which emerges from the universality of the social class language game, in a national position of femaleness at the expense of the overall universal structure of society. The latter is an absurdity in that societal constitution is based not on its connection to the material resource framework; instead, it is a particular reaction to, and inversion of, the particular application of the universality of the social structure or rules of conduct that are sanctioned in order to convict the society, under masculine rule, for not identifying with its universal values. In essence, women from this perspective are only virtue signaling in order to participate in the society. Hence, in the end, women, fighting for the recognition of their differences, equal rights, or against patriarchy, regardless of their “isms,” simply do so by assuming the liberal agential initiatives and ideals of their male counterparts in order to achieve equality of opportunity, recognition, and distribution with them.

For Mocombe, in other words, women, as highlighted by the gender difference perspective, are biologically different from men, and this difference is institutionalized in the overall mode of production, language, ideology, ideological apparatuses, and communicative discourse of society to recursively organize and reproduce women who internalize and reproduce this difference as their practical consciousness. Hence women, once interpellated and embourgeoised by society, participate in their own oppression as they recursively organize and reproduce the ideals of the society for themselves in their praxis as their practical consciousness. They either seek to recursively organize and reproduce their differences in the society for acceptance (the gender difference position); in a national position (standpoint theory) of their own (the gender oppression position), celebrating their difference as an alternative form of system and social integration, i.e., matriarchy, outside of the greater metaphysical system, which produced the difference; or attempt to recursively organize and reproduce the masculine ideals and practices of the society as women for equality of opportunity, recognition, and distribution (the gender inequality and structural oppression positions) with their male counterparts. Third wave feminism is dominated by the latter form of system and social integration and oppression under (neo) liberal Protestant globalization. The majority of women, contemporarily, in the age of neoliberal globalization, are pushing for integration and equality in the Protestant Ethic and the spirit of capitalism as gender neutral agents of the protestant ethic against any other alternative forms of system or social integration, which renders their historical activism dialectical, oppressive, and exploitative; they, paradoxically, reify, commodify, and glorify their sexual female identity as feminine men, female agents of the Protestant Ethic and the spirit of capitalism, seeking to hold power positions in the society like their male counterparts by recursively organizing and reproducing the (neoliberal Protestant) rules of conduct that are sanctioned, for men, in the society, not change its universal orientation, i.e., form of system and social integration. Third-wave feminism in the age of neoliberal globalization is thus dominated by (neo) liberal feminine men, feminine patriarchy.^51–72

Contemporary neoliberal globalization represents a Durkheimian mechanicalization of the world via the Protestant Ethic and the spirit of capitalism under American (neoliberal) hegemony. The latter (American hegemon) serves as an imperial agent, an empire, seeking to interpolate and embourgeois the masses or multitudes of the world to the juridical framework of the Protestant Ethic and the spirit of capitalism, and in the age of (neoliberal) capitalist globalization and climate change this is done within the dialectical processes of two forms of fascism or system/social integration: 1) right-wing neoliberalism, and 2) identity politics masquerading as cosmopolitanism or hybridization. Both positions represent two sides of the same fascistic coin in the age of (neoliberal) globalization and climate change, and structurally differentiated identities, in this case, women, are simply seeking integration by recursively organizing and reproducing both sides of the fascistic coin for equality of opportunity, recognition, and distribution.

On the one hand, in other words, neoliberal globalization represents the right-wing attempt to homogenize (converge) the nations of the globe into the overall market-orientation, i.e., private property, individual liberties, and entrepreneurial freedoms, of the capitalist world-system. This neoliberalization is usually juxtaposed, on the other hand, against the narcissistic exploration of self, sexuality, and identity of the left, which converges with the neoliberalizing process via the diversified consumerism of the latter groups as they seek equality of opportunity, recognition, and distribution with white agents of the former within their market logic. Hence private property, individual liberties, diversified consumerism, and the entrepreneurial freedoms of the so-called marketplace become the mechanism of system and social integration for both groups in spite of the fact that the logic of the marketplace is exploitative and environmentally hazardous. Women in their third wave of activism in the age of neoliberal globalization seek integration in the aforementioned systemicity, paradoxically, through the narcissistic exploration, reification, and commodification of their sexual and gender identities as a market and commodity, means for capital accumulation, amidst their attempt to behave like men and hold power positions as signs of their equality. In other words, gender identity has been reified and commodified amidst the liberal push by women to achieve equality of opportunity, recognition, and distribution with men by behaving like them in similarly situated status positions and roles, not to offer an alternative form of system and social integration to the universality of the Protestant Ethic and the spirit of capitalism by which the West fascistically attempts to homogenize the globe. Hence third-wave feminism in the academy and the larger society is dominated by feminine patriarchy, women fascistically pushing forth their reified and commodified market, gender identities, whose praxis assumes masculine behavior in order to integrate in the universality of the Protestant capitalist social structure.

Traditionally, right-wing fascism is usually associated with radical authoritarianism, ultranationalism, forcible suppression of opposition, and strong regimentation of society and of the economy. In the age of (neoliberal) globalization the latter processes are utilized by the American empire to retrench and force nation-states to adopt the juridical rules and policies of neoliberal capitalism, i.e., private property, individual liberties, and entrepreneurial freedoms, for capitalist development and accumulation. Paradoxically, the left, women especially, utilize these same processes (under the guise of cancel culture), via identity politics and diversified consumerism, contemporarily, in order to promote equality of opportunity, recognition, and distribution with the white globalizing power elites of the right in spite of the climate change problematic caused overwhelmingly by the latter processes under capitalism and American hegemony. Hence, instead of promoting an alternative form of system and social integration to the neoliberal fascism of the right, the cultural elites of the left, antagonistically, seek to integrate within it using the same methods, i.e., radical authoritarianism, ultranationalism, forcible suppression of opposition, and strong regimentation of society and of the economy, of the fascist right to promote identity politics, diversified consumerism, and equality of opportunity, recognition, and distribution as the counter-hegemonic alternative to neoliberalism in the age of globalization and climate change. This process is not counter-hegemonic, however. It represents a hybridization that complements the fascism of the neoliberal framework. That is to say, the purposive-rationality of women, interpellated and embourgeoised within the Protestant capitalist social structure is for the liberal clarion call for equality of opportunity, recognition, and distribution, with white men within a fascist and vacuous call for identity politics and diversified consumerism for capital accumulation not to overthrow or offer a counter hegemonic alternative systemicity to a process, capital accumulation, domination, and exploitation which threatens all life on earth via neoliberal market forces, pollution, global warming, overconsumption, etc. Third wave feminism is characterized by this (negative) dialectical struggle as feminine men seek integration in neoliberal globalization by recursively organizing and reproducing the ideas and ideals of the Protestant Ethic and the spirit of capitalism for equality of opportunity, recognition, and distribution, while simultaneously convicting the white male power elites for not recognizing their ideals in the praxis of their feminine counterparts who desire to behave like them.

None.

There are no conflicting interests declared by the authors..

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