I agree with you there partially. I think #resistance is not futile in this case however. Declining female satisfication with life and increasing anxiety and depression are symptoms. Change will come. A re-embrace of the feminine will appear. 
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I appreciate that. However, I'm still stuck on how theory becomes adopted without the scholarship of said theorists being 'cared about'
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Because the ideology is cared about. Academics and activists can get condensed forms of their 'theories' accepted and complied with due to social pressure even tho almost no-one is reading their stuff and the 'scholarship' is largely an illusion.
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This is the problem that James is trying to highlight. The belief that these ideas are based on a body of scholarship is false. The vast majority of it is completely ignored and yet key ideas of the *ideology* still possess great cultural power and this presented as scholarly.
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A useful analogy is with religion. Take Islam for an example, We know that much, much complicated Islamic theology is written but we also know that most fundamentalist Muslims haven't read any of it. Or even the Quran. They rely instead on a few key ideas built into an ideology.
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In countries where Islam is the dominant cultural force (which is why I chose it), the Islamic scholars and leaders possess great power to influence policies because they are regarded generally as 'good' and 'knowledgeable' even by ppl who haven't read them.
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Do you share James's sense that the hegemony of the feminist ideology is too entrenched to be overturned or at least abridged somewhat?
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I am usually more optimistic than James! But I see the same problem he does and also think we have a long way to go to unpick the assumptions and norms we have talked ourselves into.
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Well, we all need to keep doing what we're doing if that is ever going to happen. So keep it up!
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Feminist scholars have power but this is not because people are reading their papers. There is much evidence that almost no-one is. This is fuelled by political social justice activism and really boils down to certain keywords.
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OK, so no one reads their papers, but plenty read their...blog posts? Listen to their speeches? How does an ideology become adopted? And if it is adopted, is the means by which it does relevant?
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Missed this. Yes. people are much more likely to read blog posts of activists than papers of academics. There is a big difference between these. Popularised feminism vs academic obscurity.
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If blog posts are more influential on society than academic papers, it begs the question...
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