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What Does Female Empowerment Mean?
Townhall.com ^ | September 25, 2018 | Dennis Prager

Posted on 09/25/2018 5:48:52 PM PDT by Kaslin

My last column elicited tens of thousands of comments – from the thoughtful to the sick – on the internet and Twitter. In the column, I made two points. One was that the accusation made against Judge Kavanaugh – for which there is no evidence, that was made by an anti-Trump activist, that concerns an event that allegedly took place in high school 35-plus years ago at an unidentified time and place, that has been either denied or not substantiated by the other named individuals who were allegedly present, and that is against a man known for an entire adulthood of exceptional moral decency – should have been ignored.

I noted that everything I have learned from a lifetime of teaching the Bible and religion led me to value the notion of positively assessing people who may have sinned when young but have led a truly upright life for a long time as adults. As I asked on my radio show, will people clamor to remove sainthood from St. Augustine because of his sinful life as young man?

The other point I made concerned the issue of women's empowerment. In this regard, I cited the statement released by Susanna Jones, head of Holton-Arms School, the private preparatory school for girls in Bethesda, Maryland, that Kavanaugh's accuser attended: "As a school that empowers women to use their voices, we are proud of this alumna for using hers."

To which I responded, "'Empowers women'? Please. ...

"My mother was groped by a physician. She told my father about it. My father told the physician that if he were to do it again, he would break his hands. And it remained a family folk tale. If you had told my mother she was a 'survivor,' she would have wondered what you were talking about. The term was reserved for people who survived Nazi concentration camps, Japanese prisoner of war camps and cancer survivors, not women groped by a man.

When my wife was a waitress in her midteens, the manager of her restaurant grabbed her breasts and squeezed them on numerous occasions. She told him to buzz off, figured out how to avoid being in places where they were alone and continued going about her job. That's empowerment."

These two examples infuriated many people who charged me with excusing unacceptable male behavior against women, with trivializing sexual assault and worse.

So, allow me to explain what was obvious to the many who agreed with me and, apparently, not obvious to those who differed.

I never wrote or implied that groping women against their will is acceptable. My concern was with what constitutes empowerment. I believe, as I wrote, that feminism has not empowered women nearly as much as it has weakened them (and men).

I gave the examples of my mother and wife to provide examples of powerful women not allowing being groped to traumatize them – not as examples of acceptable male behavior. My mother was a very strong woman, a career woman who administered a 300-bed nursing home for decades. And my wife is a lawyer who left law to raise her late sister's children as well as her own. If there is a stronger individual than my wife, I have not met her or him.

I used them as examples of the ability of strong people, whether men or women, to withstand noxious behavior and move on with life, rather than wallowing in the self-pity, victimhood, anger, contempt for men, lies ("colleges have a culture of rape") and ingratitude (for living in one of the best countries, if not the best country, a woman can live in in the world today) that have permeated feminism from Betty Friedan to today.

How we react to life's vicissitudes is what defines empowerment.

The late columnist and commentator Charles Krauthammer was rendered a quadriplegic as a result of a diving accident while at medical school. From the day it happened, he decided he would live as normal a life as possible – and incredibly went on to graduate with his class. He never defined himself as a victim. By using Charles Krauthammer as an example of empowerment, have I negated the seriousness of being paralyzed from the neck down? Of course not. No more than I deny that the men who groped my mother and wife acted like pigs.

Why is that controversial?


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: antitrump; brettkavanaugh; charleskrauthammer; michaelavenatti; sexualabuse; sexualallegations; sexualassault
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1 posted on 09/25/2018 5:48:52 PM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

Feminism means forcing the father of your children out of the house.


2 posted on 09/25/2018 5:51:49 PM PDT by CivilWarBrewing (Get off my back for my usage of CAPS, especially you snowflake males! MAN UP!)
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To: Kaslin
Accusations of rape must be believed. Anyone who doesn't instantly believe them hates women and wants them to wear puritan garb. Anyone who questions obvious inconsistencies in their story is a misogynist who wants women to be stoned for having sex out of wedlock, unless that person is a muslim.
3 posted on 09/25/2018 5:56:10 PM PDT by Steely Tom ([Seth Rich] == [the Democrat's John Dean])
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To: Kaslin

According to Marcia Brady it means women get anything they want.

Or was that everything they want. Can’t remember exactly.


4 posted on 09/25/2018 5:58:17 PM PDT by yarddog
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To: CivilWarBrewing

And taking his house, his kids and at least half his wealth.


5 posted on 09/25/2018 5:58:33 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man ( Gone Galt; Not averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: Kaslin

Feminism means:

Women have choices, men have obligations.

You will be a drone worker bee, you have no other choice.


6 posted on 09/25/2018 5:58:42 PM PDT by Ouderkirk (Life is about ass, you're either covering, hauling, laughing, kicking, kissing, or behaving like one)
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To: Steely Tom

same loyalty demanded by salem witch trials.


7 posted on 09/25/2018 5:59:20 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man ( Gone Galt; Not averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: Kaslin

Feminism is overreacting emotionalism with blindness to truth and reality.


8 posted on 09/25/2018 5:59:29 PM PDT by tflabo
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To: Kaslin

It means the Bitch set you up. Just ask Mariam Berry.


9 posted on 09/25/2018 5:59:30 PM PDT by Kickass Conservative (Democracy, two Wolves and one Sheep deciding what's for Dinner.)
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To: Kaslin

“What Does Female Empowerment Mean?”

I don’t know but I don’t like it.


10 posted on 09/25/2018 5:59:48 PM PDT by Bonemaker (invictus maneo)
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To: Secret Agent Man

11 posted on 09/25/2018 6:01:17 PM PDT by EEGator
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To: Bonemaker

It means that Hawaiian Senator hack Mazie Hirono tells men they just need to shut up and believe all women.


12 posted on 09/25/2018 6:02:58 PM PDT by tflabo
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To: Kaslin

To feminists it means the ability to destroy a man on the flimsiest of accusations.


13 posted on 09/25/2018 6:04:28 PM PDT by Blood of Tyrants (Democratic socialism is when the majority of people vote to steal your property.)
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To: Kaslin

Women empowerment is all a lie to control you- men and women both. Just like all the other social justice lies.


14 posted on 09/25/2018 6:10:11 PM PDT by TianaHighrider
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To: Kaslin

My old friend, and alcoholism counselor, told me the usual scenario.

Woman divorces father of her children. Knocks chair over in kitchen, scratches her own face, claims domestic violence. Gets a restraining order, moves to another state so dad can rarely If ever see his own kids. Serious emotional distress, heartbreak for the dad.

Feminist marries a new husband. After ten years, pulls the same stunt. He has raised the first man’s kids but not allowed to see them again. Nobody cares how much he loves them...he does, and so do the kids, but not the women and the courts.

This is a huge win. They get the money from two guys, are, in their own vicious minds, “Liberated Feminists.”

I actually heard several women proudly stating this at my first — and last—feminist meeting.


15 posted on 09/25/2018 6:10:53 PM PDT by Veto! (Political Correctness Offends Me)
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To: Kaslin

This article seems fishy...


16 posted on 09/25/2018 6:11:39 PM PDT by EEGator
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To: Kaslin

Apparently female empowerment now means cowering as victims.


17 posted on 09/25/2018 6:12:58 PM PDT by Sans-Culotte (Time to get the US out of the UN and the UN out of the US!)
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To: yarddog

I thought it was Marsha Brady


18 posted on 09/25/2018 6:18:02 PM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

Males reading this, please check inside your undergarment, just in case.


19 posted on 09/25/2018 6:21:56 PM PDT by frank ballenger (.End noncitizen & illegals voting & leftist media news censorship or we're finished.)
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To: Ouderkirk

Years ago the New Yorker ran ads for a woman’s book: Men Are Not Cost Effective By June Stephenson (males commit more serious violent crimes and cost too much in health care and abuse women and are thus not worth being allowed to stay alive. Extermination warranted.)

Will new edition be out soon?


20 posted on 09/25/2018 6:25:37 PM PDT by frank ballenger (.End noncitizen & illegals voting & leftist media news censorship or we're finished.)
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