– The new neoliberal right-wing populism normalises male hierarchies and dominance.

This may hit women hard, writes Linn Stalsberg in Agenda. She believes it is worst in MAGA-land. Are there other countries than the United States that are influenced by MAGA? I think immediately. Is it better to be a woman in Somalia, Afghanistan and Iran?

According to Stalsberg, “the way women, the poor, immigrants, refugees, other nations, cultures, religions and queer people are spoken about” is almost unbearable.

This is of course followed by a sentence about abortion rights, the eternal nagging about the rights of queer people, and the struggle against colonialism, but naturally not against a Europe that is actually being colonised, day by day.

Concepts such as “politically correct” and “woke” are a weapon for the neoliberals, she writes, referring to the history professor Quinn Slobodian in the book Hayek’s Bastards. It appears that there is neither ability nor willingness among people like Stalsberg to understand the problems that, for example, the madness of woke leads to.

What was to be protected was no longer only the market, but civilisation itself. Freedom for capital was combined with hierarchy in society and gender.

This concerns us feminists, because if this ideology gains further ground, their narrative will also gain ground – that the political struggles of social movements against injustice and discrimination from the late 1960s were merely a brief historical deviation from the course of nature.

Discrimination against women thus enters a larger “natural” narrative in which hierarchies and dominance are celebrated and reinforced, and are not to be fought with “artificial” instruments such as equality, for example.

Us feminists? At that point I understood that my participation in the discussion was hardly desired.

“Artificial” instruments such as equality are a problem? Drill baby drill is obviously bad, since the phrase comes from the detested Trump.

A hierarchy essentially means that the most capable people become leaders. Anyone who has spent a few years in uniform understands that the major has more authority than the lieutenant. But this cannot be accepted by the woke mafia.

For it is so sad for the oppressed women and immigrants, according to Stalsberg.

For nature too is something that is to be dominated, destroyed and used. Just like women, just like immigrants, just like other people’s countries that can be bombed to pieces.

Where neoliberalism previously (Hayek, Friedman) saw the state, communism, socialism and a large welfare state as the main threat to (market) freedom, the new threat is now universities, activists, feminists, anti-racists and LGBTQIA+ environments.

Here my enemies are listed quite beautifully, without my having to do the work myself. The nonsense continues; I will spare the readers all the arguments. But I include some below.

“Woke” then becomes a collective term that can be used as an accusation against everyone who challenges hierarchs, nations, traditions and an alleged “order”.

Can anyone provide an example of something positive that woke ideology has resulted in?

The right-wing populism that Stalsberg dislikes is said to have two different female figures. Both are merely objects who are either to be rescued or despised. And of course minority women are particularly vulnerable, Stalsberg believes.

Then comes the following tirade:

In this logic, inequality between the sexes is a result of nature and competition, and not discrimination that should be fought. If we understand this, we understand the striking shamelessness that at first glance may appear confusing.

But if one feels that one has nothing to be ashamed of, then one simply goes ahead. If one believes hierarchies to be God-given or natural, the white man can stand upright and dominate and rampage without shame.

In other words: If you are an ordinary Norwegian man with a family that has lived in Norway for several thousand years, you must simply bow in shame because you have the wrong skin colour. Well, I will not bother with that.

Further down come familiar concepts such as intersectionality, and the insane expression that “the women’s struggle must always be an anti-racist class struggle”.

People who belong to the political right are excluded in Stalsberg’s world. One thinks: Should I bother to defend this woman in a crisis situation?

The answer comes quickly. We so-called right-wing extremists are indeed willing also to defend our political opponents, particularly if women are involved.