CHAPTER ONE. FEMINISM AND GENDER.

Without fanfare or debate, the word gender has been substituted for the word sex. We used to talk about sex discrimination, but now it's gender discrimination. Forms, like credit applications, used to ask for an indication of our sex, but now they ask for our gender. It certainly seems innocent enough. Sex has a secondary meaning-sexual intercourse or sexual activity. Gender sounds more delicate and refined. But, if you think the change signals a renaissance of neo-Victorian sensitivity, you could not be more wrong. This change, and a number of other things you may not have taken much notice of, are all part of the Gender Agenda.

Those who believed that the defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment signaled the end of the militant feminist era need to take another look. The militant feminists are back; they are ensconced in places of power and are determined to enforce a new version of their revolution-the Gender Agenda. Those who think affirmative action is an idea whose time has passed may be very surprised to find that there is an active movement to enforce worldwide fifty/fifty-male/female quotas.

The militant feminists have learned from their defeats. When they couldn't sell their radical ideology to ordinary women, they repackaged it. Now, they are very careful not to reveal their actual goals. They have worked themselves into positions of power within existing institutions. They intend to achieve their ends not by open confrontation, but by changing the meanings of words. The wrapping may be different, but the contents are just as unacceptable.

LISTENING TO FEMINISTS

My interest in feminism began with the publication of Betty Friedan's Feminine Mystique. The book came out right after I graduated from Smith College, which also happened to be Ms. Friedan's alma mater. My fellow alumnae were excited about Ms. Friedan's "myth-shattering" insights, but I found myself unconvinced. As the years passed, the more I heard about feminism, the less I liked it. Feminists claimed to promote the progress of women, but the feminists appeared to me to have a very warped idea of what it meant to be a woman, and an even weirder idea of what constitutes progress.

Intrigued by what appeared to me to be obvious contradictions in the feminist ideology, I decided to investigate feminism. I read the popular feminist writers: Simone de Beauvoir, Betty Friedan, Kate Millett, Susan Brownmiller, Gloria Steinem, and numerous others. Oppression of women certainly does not seem to have prevented them from getting books published. Libraries and bookstores display stacks of feminist literature. The New York Times book review section regularly publishes glowing reviews of the latest weighty feminist tomes.

Most of the books I read had a common theme: Men are monsters, and women always and everywhere have been oppressed. The weight of this evidence might have been convincing (certainly many others had been converted by it to the feminist cause); however, I wasn't convinced because what they said was contrary to my experience.

For example, feminists talked about how all women in the 1950s had been oppressed, but I had lived in the 1950s and knew firsthand that the things they said weren't true for all women. Feminists talked about the oppression of women in the nineteenth century, but my grandmother and great aunts had grown up in the nineteenth century and they weren't oppressed. They were tough, resilient women. My mother's mother supported the family when her husband lost his job and his confidence. My father's mother managed to hold the family together when her husband went blind. My great aunts were professional women. After several months of reading feminist diatribes, I said to my husband, "I don't understand why feminists are always complaining about oppression. I have never been oppressed." He smiled and replied, "Of course you haven't. No one would ever dare."

Indeed, no one had ever dared, or if they had, I hadn't noticed. My doting father encouraged me to major in physics. My mother wanted me to be a lawyer. One of my grandfathers taught me Greek; the other, Shakespeare, art, and poetry. My teachers supported my aspirations. No one ever told me that girls weren't as intelligent as boys, and if they had, I wouldn't have believed them. In my high school, girls played sports, participated in all activities, and equaled boys in academic subjects and standardized test scores. My mother was the vicepresident of a small company. My grandmother was born in 1884 and had a woman doctor who was older than she was. My mother had a woman obstetrician when I was born. My husband and I had a woman doctor. Lest anyone think that I lived a privileged life or was part of an idealistic leftist community, let me assure you that I grew up in an ordinary family in small town America.

While I was not naive enough to believe that my positive experiences were universal, I could not suppress the suspicion that the feminist writers were prone to universalizing their own negative experiences.

UNDERSTANDING THE PAIN

I am skeptical about one-size-fits-all historical theory, and particularly skeptical about conspiracy theories of history. Furthermore, I find the feminist theory of the universal oppression of women insulting. I simply refuse to believe that all my foremothers and all the women of the world had been so stupid that they had allowed themselves to be enslaved and abused, or that all the men in the world were so smart that they had been able to create this massive conspiracy. I know too many smart women.

History, it is true, is full of stories of the abuse of women, denials of women's rights, and violence against women, but it is also full of abuse, violence, and denials of human rights in general. Men, women, and children have been victims in every age. Every time a woman was abused it wasn't necessarily because she was a woman.

No one can deny that women have suffered, but outrage at the abuse of women doesn't solve the problem. Agreeing with the feminists that women have suffered does not require agreeing that the feminists have the solution to end that suffering. The feminists offer radical revolutionary solutions when far simpler changes would suffice. A woman who goes to the doctor with an infected toe is looking for a simple solution, not to have her foot amputated. It is true that a guillotine will solve the problem of migraine headaches, but most people would not consider it a viable solution.

Reading the feminist accounts of the emotional, physical, and sexual abuse of women, one senses that the feminists identify with the suffering of women because they themselves have suffered. One must ask, however, if it is suffering that makes a woman a feminist, or the inability to deal with suffering. Many women have had difficult lives and suffered terrible abuse, yet have been able to forgive and get on with their lives. They learned how to turn adversity into triumph.

The feminists I read obsessed over negative comments which other women would have laughed off. They seemed unable to distinguish male humor from male abuse. They couldn't forget the slightest insult, and they absolutely, positively would not forgive.

As I read through the feminist texts, I was reminded of the prayer "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference." To me, it appeared that the feminists lack that crucial wisdom. They rage at things that can't be changed-like human nature-and accept things which can be changed-like their attitude toward past offenses.

In all this I could see nothing that was liberating for women, and much that would psychologically handicap women. I would have willingly joined them in a battle to eliminate real abuses and make life better for ordinary women, but the militant feminists' idea of positive change was pulling down the family, promoting sexual liberation, and defending abortion on demand.

Ideologies should be judged objectively, but in studying feminism and the Gender Agenda, it is difficult to put aside the suspicion that the entire enterprise is a giant rationalization created by hurt women to justify their anger, grudges, and selfdestructive behavior. Their abortions, sexual promiscuity, rejection of motherhood, and lesbianism seem more like the acting out that results from childhood trauma than courageous selfliberation. Sometimes it is easier to blame oppressive structures and demand that the world change, than to admit responsibility for one's own self-destructive behavior.

GLORIA'S STORY

Gloria Steinem, the darling of the feminist movement and editor of Ms. magazine, exemplifies the relationship between personal experience and feminist activism. To the world, Steinem presents herself as the epitome of the liberated woman, but in her book, Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions, she reveals that behind the cosmopolitan image is a little girl who was afraid she would grow up to be like her mentally ill mother. Steinem's mother was diagnosed with anxiety neurosis and required periodic institutionalization and medication. Steinem's father deserted the family, leaving teen-age Gloria to cope with a "crazy mother" who was afraid to leave the house and would lie in bed talking to herself. Gloria tried to take care of her mother as well as she could, but admits that she was obsessed with the fear that she would end up like her mother:

Many years passed before I saw my mother as a person and before I understood that many of the forces in her life are patterns women share. Like a lot of daughters, I suppose I couldn't afford to admit that what had happened to my mother was not all personal or accidental and therefore could happen to me. [Gloria Steinem, Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions (New York Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1983), p. 144]

As her mother benefited from treatment and was able to emerge from her withdrawal, Gloria struggled to understand the woman her mother had been before her illness:

I used. to say, "But why didn't you leave? Why didn't you take the job? Why didn't you marry the other man?" She would always insist it didn't matter, she was lucky to have my sister and me. If I pressed hard enough, she would add, "If I'd left you never would have been born."

I always thought but never had the courage to say: But you might have been born instead. [Steinem, p. 139]

Reading the story of Gloria's youth, one cannot help but have compassion for the young girl left alone to cope with a "crazy mother." One can see how Gloria could blame herself for her mother's illness-if only she hadn't been born, her mother might have escaped from the marriage that Gloria sees as the cause of her mother's mental breakdown. Years later when asked about her mother she would say, "My mother was not mentally ill. She was defeated by a biased world" [Marcia Cohen, The Sisterhood (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988), p. 50].

In 1956 Gloria found herself pregnant by a young man who wanted to marry her. She was able to arrange an abortion in England. When asked years later what would have happened if she had the baby, she replied:

I don't know what I would have done. I really don't know . . . If I had to come home and got married and had a child . . . Maybe I would be functioning . . . Maybe I would have survived, but I don't see myself surviving . . . not in any real way ....

I can only imagine going quietly crazy . . . [Cohen, p. 106]

One can understand why Gloria believes that marriage and children can drive a woman crazy and why she cannot admit that her mother's condition could have been the manifestation of a mental illness that could have occurred even if her mother had a perfect husband or had never married and had children.

I can feel compassion for the real suffering which Steinem and other feminists have undoubtedly experienced, but that does not force me to accept their theories or their schemes. Feminists can't be allowed to tear down all families and destroy all marriages because they are afraid of marriage and motherhood.

Not all those attracted to feminism have had difficult childhoods. Sometimes, the feminists reminded me of little girls standing beneath a boys' tree hut. Forbidden to enter because they were girls, some of them vowed in their childish hearts that one day they would force their way into that tree hut. Others vowed that when they grew up they would cut down the tree; if they couldn't play, no one could. Still others became determined that they would never again allow anyone to call them girls. I have to admit that I had been spared this envy because when I was young, I had talked my way into the boys' tree but and discovered that nothing all that exciting was happening there.

UNBALANCED HISTORIES

Reading through feminist texts, it is easy to feel outraged at the catalogue of abuses, but anyone with a knowledge of history can recognize that these litanies of abuse are only one side of the story. For every victim the feminists mention, there is a heroine they ignore, or worse, turn into a victim. For example, feminists routinely complain about how the patriarchal Puritans suppressed women, yet the feminists themselves neglect to mention the heroic Puritan women who were famous in their day, such as Anne Bradstreet, who was the first published American poet, male or female.

In her book on rape, Susan Brownmiller fails to credit the courage of Goodwife Mary Rowlandson, whose account of her captivity during the King Philip War in 1676 was the first American best seller. Worse still, Brownmiller implies that Rowlandson might have been lying when she insisted that the Indians who held her captive had not "offered the least abuse of unchastity to me in word or action" [Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will (New York: Bantam, 1976), p. 151].

The feminist writers talked of the importance of positive role models for women; I agree. But, it is they who have demeaned, ignored, or distorted the stories of strong confident women like Catherine Beecher, a nineteenth-century advocate for women; Frances Willard, a Christian activist who masterminded the Women's Temperance Union and was key to women winning the right to vote; Sarah Pierpoint Edwards, a mystic considered by her contemporaries as having more spiritual insight than her husband Jonathan Edwards; Susanna Wesley, the mother of nineteen, including John and Charles Wesley, the founders of the Methodist church who gave her all the credit for their work; St. Catherine of Sienna, named a doctor of the Catholic church for her mystical theology, from whom the pope took advice.

Feminist theologians insist that the Bible suppressed the stories of women, but one can easily find many heroic women in Scripture, including Jael, who killed the enemy of her people by driving a tent peg through his temple, and Judith, who chopped off the head of Holofernes with two whacks of his own sword, and thus rated her own book in the Bible.

I found so many factual errors and distortions in feminist writings that I could have spent a lifetime providing the documentation to correct them. For example, Susan Brownmiller sees patriarchal oppression in the fact that "Judith and her Book appear in the nether regions of the dubious Apocrypha" [Brownmiller, p. 365]. Contrary to Brownmiller's assertion that Judith "was not the sort of role model that any patriarchy in its right mind would wish to put forward" [Brownmiller, p. 365], the Book of Judith is included in all Catholic Bibles. At the time of the Reformation, for reasons which had nothing to do with Judith's threat to "patriarchal" ideology, the Lutherans relegated all parts of the Old Testament which were written in Greek to "Apocrypha" status. This included the Book of Judith. Furthermore, Judith's story was a favored subject in Catholic art. On the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, the room where the pope's election takes place, Michaelangelo depicted Judith deftly making off with Holofernes' head. The fresco of Judith is balanced by one of David cutting off the head of Goliath, demonstrating both symbolic symmetry and sexual equality. And, Judith is not the only woman on the ceiling. Female sibyls are balanced with male prophets, while the male and female ancestors of Jesus are shown without discrimination.

The more I read, the more errors I found. If everything I was familiar with was incorrect, I could only assume that those things with which I was unfamiliar were probably equally flawed.

History is not the only thing distorted by feminist writers. Christina Hoff Sommers, in her book, Who Stole Feminism?, documents how the feminists have created myths about violence against women, distorted research on teen-age girls' selfesteem, and suppressed evidence which didn't fit their theories. The feminists have railed against the suppression of women by men, and then turned around and suppressed any woman who opposed their ideology. Women researchers who study the differences between men and women are often denied funding and routinely warned to choose a different line of inquiry. Gloria Steinem decries such research as antiwoman: "It's really the remnant of anti-American, crazy thinking, to do this kind of research. It's what's keeping us down, not what's helping us" [John Stossel, "Boys and Girls are Different: Men, Women, and the Sex Difference," ABC News Special, 1 February 1995].

Lastly, while feminists have been known to state plainly that they consider logic "a patriarchal plot," I believe that the various arguments an author presents should not be contradictory. The feminists had only one point: "men are awful"-and everything was viewed as proof. If men raped women, that was oppression-agreed. But, if men were outraged at rape, that, according to the feminists, was also evidence of oppression. Slamming a door in women's faces was oppression, but opening the door was also oppressive. Marrying women and condemning them to family life was oppressive, but so was not marrying them. Men were damned if they did and damned if they didn't.

Feminist evidence was unconvincing, their theories contradictory, and besides this, something about feminism sounded vaguely and unpleasantly familiar. I had heard this tune before, but I couldn't quite remember the words. Eventually, I discovered there was a great deal more wrong with feminism than I had imagined. As I probed further, the music became louder and clearer, and ultimately I discovered whose song they were singing.

CAIRO TO BEIJING

Feminism is only one of many issues that divides the parties in the culture wars. Since I had been tracking, reporting, and commenting on the various battles in this conflict for over fifteen years, it was not surprising that in 1994 I was interested in the preparations for the U.N. Conference on Population in Cairo. The battle over Cairo had been heating up for months. Eight weeks before the conference began, the opportunity to cover the Cairo conference presented itself, and I jumped at the chance. Population issues are not my area of expertise, but it appeared clear by mid July that the conflict in Cairo was crucial, and anyone who wanted to be where the action was had better be there.

In the culture wars, the location may change, but the issues remain the same. The sex and life issues dominated the debates in Cairo just as they do at local school board meetings, outside abortion clinics, and in the halls of Congress. For me, the road from Cairo led to Beijing and the U.N. Fourth World Conference on Women.

What happened in Cairo and Beijing matters. Not so much because the U.N. can force its will on the United States, for only poor countries who depend on foreign aid will be forced to accept the agendas promulgated at these conferences. It matters because the culture war is a battle of ideas, and the U.N. has the resources and prestige to promote its agenda to world leaders, schoolchildren, and the media.

At the moment, the U.N. is devoting its resources and prestige to promoting the "gender perspective," and the supporters of this Gender Agenda expect more than talk. They have demanded that the plans made in Cairo and in Beijing be implemented and funded. The Platform for Action of the Beijing conference on women called on governments to "mainstream a gender perspective" in every program and policy in every public and private institution.

The Clinton administration, the Canadian government, the European Union, and a host of U.N. agencies are busily "mainstreaming the gender perspective," but there has been very little discussion in the media about exactly what a "gender perspective" entails. If a "gender perspective" is about to be "mainstreamed" in every public and private program in the world, prudence would require that, at the very least, the public be informed as to the nature of this agenda. Instead, implementation proceeds without public enlightenment. The Gender Agenda sails into communities not as a tall ship, but as a submarine, determined to reveal as little of itself as possible.

Those who are willing to search through U.N. documents can, however, find a definition of the gender perspective and its goals. According to a booklet published by the United Nations International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW), "To adopt a gender perspective is `. . . to distinguish between what is natural and biological and what is socially and culturally constructed, and in the process to renegotiate the boundaries between the natural-and hence relatively inflexible-and the social-and hence relatively transformable' " ["Gender Concepts in Development Planning: Basic Approach" (INSTRAW, 1995), p. 11]. In plain English, it means that the evident differences between men and women aren't natural, but were made up, and can and should be changed.

Is this gender perspective a self-evident truth which should, without debate or discussion, be imposed upon all the peoples of the world? What is the relationship between the gender perspective and the fact that its proponents have an extreme aversion to words like mother, father, husband, and wife? Why do the advocates of the Gender Agenda refer to marriage and family in negative terms? Why does a U.N. document about women have almost nothing positive to say about women who are full-time mothers? Why does the U.N. no longer promote a "woman's perspective"?

The forces behind the U.N. Fourth World Conference on Women believe that their "gender perspective" is a self-evident truth. They were busy even before the Beijing conference putting in place their plans to "mainstream the gender perspective" in every school, every business, every family, every public and private program, at every level, and in every country. Given the power of the forces behind it, the speed at which it is being implemented, and what is at stake, the Gender Agenda demands, at the very least, strict scrutiny.

NAMING THE PARTICIPANTS

Chronicling an ideological conflict requires naming the participants. You can't speak of how "they" did this and how "they" did that without defining who "they" are. Since this conflict involves two large and diverse coalitions held together only by a general commitment to certain principles, listing the members of the coalition would be awkward, if not impossible. The leaders of the coalition of groups promoting the Gender Agenda call themselves feminists, but advocacy of the Gender Agenda is not limited to women nor to those whose major concern is feminism. Support for the Gender Agenda comes from activist groups, all somewhat interrelated or overlapping in interest, but nevertheless distinguishable: 1) population controllers; 2) sexual libertarians; 3) gay rights activists; 4) multiculturalists/promoters of political correctness; 5) environmental extremists; 6) neo-Marxists/progressives; 7) postmodernists/ deconstructionists. The Gender Agenda is also supported by big-government liberals and certain multinational corporations.

The term gender feminists seems most appropriate for a coalition of interest groups promoting the Gender Agenda, since they have taken as their goal "mainstreaming the gender perspective" in every program and policy in the public and private sector. It seems fair to say that they are interested in establishing gender as the governing force of the world. At times, it would be more accurate to speak of the Gender Establishment, since the promotion of the gender perspective is not being accomplished by grassroots activists, or ordinary women, but by people who have established themselves within various centers of power and are using their influence to forward this agenda.

Politeness generally requires calling people by the name they have chosen for themselves. In the case of feminists, however, this presents difficulties, since women with radically different philosophies call themselves feminists. Gender feminists do not refer to themselves by that name. Instead, they call themselves feminists and pretend to represent all women. Besides this, there are other forms of feminism which preceded gender feminism and which continue to have an influence.

In 1977, in a textbook designed for women's studies programs, Alison Jagger identified liberal, Marxist, socialist, radical, lesbian, and matriarchal separatist forms of feminism [Alison Jagger, "Political Philosophies of Women's Liberation," Feminism and Philosophy (Totowa, NJ: Littlefield, Adams & Co., 1977) p. 5-37]. Christina Hoff Sommers distinguishes between old, mainstream, or equity feminism (roughly equivalent to liberal feminism) and new, "resenter" (angry at men), or gender feminism. Recently, some have taken to distinguishing between liberal, radical, Marxist, and postmodernist feminists.

Some have suggested that the term feminist should be reserved for liberal feminists and others referred to as "feminist extremists." This would give the inaccurate impression that the "feminist extremists" are atypical, which is not the case. Liberal feminists are not the dominant force in the women's movement. Among feminist theorists and feminist activists, the percentage of liberal feminists grows smaller every year. Furthermore, women who even suggest moderation are often castigated by "true believers" as traitors to the cause or captives of "backlash."

A number of women have chosen to call themselves prolife feminists or Christian feminists. They feel that the word is broad enough to include all women who believe in women's rights and women's equality. While the desire to express support for women is understandable, it seems to me that there is a substantial difference between being for women and being for feminism. Whatever positive image the word feminist may have had, it has been tarnished by those who have made it their own, and I, for one, am content to leave the militants in full possession of the term. But, that leaves us with the problem of what to call those who oppose militant feminism.

While many Americans are politically dyslexic, the terms Left and Right are still useful. In the culture wars, the Left generally supports sexual liberation, sexually explicit entertainment, abortion on demand, homosexual rights, contraceptivebased sex education, quotas, and affirmative action, while the Right supports marriage, the family, life, chastity, and equality of opportunity.

The feminists label their opponents "fundamentalists," "the Religious Right," or "right-wing extremists," implying that they represent a narrow, extremist, sectarian religious point of view which has no place in the public arena. The opponents of the Gender Agenda are, however, united not by adherence to a -particular religion, but by a commitment to the family and a belief in human nature. They think of themselves as profamily. Feminists insist that they too support the family, but they redefine family so that the term could refer to two roommates and their dog. On the other hand, most profamily activists would support the following definition of the family:

The "family" in all ages and in all corners of the globe can be defined as a man and a woman bonded together through a socially approved covenant of marriage to regulate sexuality, to bear, raise, and protect children, to provide mutual care and protection, to create a small home economy, and to maintain continuity between the generations, those going before and those coming after. It is out of the reciprocal, naturally recreated relations of the family that broader communities-such as tribes, villages, peoples, and nations-grow. [Allan Carlson, "What's Wrong With the United Nations' Definition of `Family'?" The Family in America (August 1994), p.3]

Profamily advocates are unequivocal in their support for women's equal rights. They believe that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; they have no doubt that "all men" refers to men and women equally.

Profamily advocates have been falsely accused of hating people who do not agree with them, women who have abortions, and men and women who engage in homosexual acts and other forms of self-destructive behavior. In fact, profamily people care deeply about these people as individuals and worry about their health and welfare, but they also worry about society and innocent people who will be harmed if dangerous policies are promoted.

Many women believe that feminism is so destructive and contrary to the best interests of women, that they actively oppose feminism. Women who are prowoman and antifeminism believe just as passionately in women's equality. These women never doubted they were equal as persons to men, although some would agree with my mother, who loved to say that she didn't want equality with men since she had no intention of stepping down. These women don't want inclusive language. They consider themselves included in the word man. They prefer chairman to chair, wife to spouse, and Mrs. or Miss to Ms. They call God Father, and believe that sons of God refers to them as much as to their brothers.

To be prowoman and antifeminism is not to ignore the problems women face in their everyday lives, and certainly not to excuse abuse, violence, exploitation, or unjust discrimination against women or anyone else, but to believe that a feminist revolution not only won't solve the problems of ordinary women, it will make things worse.

THE U.N.

Some people have asked why I have bothered to write a book about the United Nations. Isn't the U.N. irrelevant? To this I respond: This isn't a book about the U.N.; it is a book about the Gender Agenda, the redefinition of equality, and the war on motherhood. I could have written about how the Gender Agenda is being promoted in the universities, in public schools, in government, in the media, or even in business, but the U.N. Conference on women was a unique opportunity to see the entire Gender Agenda laid out in one place.

Because the Gender Establishment firmly controls the U.N., they have been open about revealing the fill scope of their plans to remake the world. It was easy to get it all in writing in their own words. Because in public debates the defenders of the Gender Agenda are less than forthcoming about their intentions, I have included a large number of quotations.

Some may think that this book backs up the contention that the U.N. should be abolished or at least kicked out of the U.S. While I can understand that sentiment, my personal experiences in Cairo and Beijing made me realize that the U.N. has much to offer as a place where the people of the world can meet and learn to understand one another. We do have a duty to be concerned about the needs of others and how our policies affect those in other countries. Unfortunately, the U.N. has become captive to dangerous ideologues, who are using the U.N.'s power and influence to forward their dangerous schemes.

The U.N. should not try to become an international government, or worse, an international bureaucracy, but a place for sovereign nations to meet, where the voices of the small, the poor, and the powerless can be heard. Pope John Paul II in his speech to the U.N. in October 1995 chose to speak about the rights of nations, respect for differences, and the fundamental right to freedom of religion and freedom of conscience. These are clearly threatened by some who wish to use the U.N. to impose an ideological straitjacket on the world.

What happened in Beijing does matter, because what was planned in Beijing will be coming to every town, every school, and every business (if it isn't there already)-unless it is exposed and we stand up against it.