Posted on 07/12/2004 1:50:33 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
At the recent United Nations' Commission on the Status of Women, the focus was on the role of men and boys in achieving gender equality. The bottom line was clearly stated: We must nurture boys into developing more feminine characteristics -- gentleness, compassion and tenderness, among others -- and train them away from the more typically male aggressive and competitive behaviors.
Now, there is nothing wrong with masculine gentleness, compassion and tenderness. Likewise, there is nothing wrong with teaching boys to be kind, considerate and thoughtful. There is also nothing wrong with competitiveness or aggressiveness within bounds. For girls as well as boys, those qualities are essential for leadership and for achieving one's goals though, for Christians, they must be governed by appropriate motivation and exercised under the authority of Scripture.
And, there is definitely nothing wrong with masculinity (boys being boys and men being men) or with femininity (girls being girls and women being women).
Strangely but predictably, given the distorted visions of life in the post-modern era, there are those who advocate a blurring of the distinctions between masculinity and femininity. We are familiar with the radical feminists' attempts to teach girls to act like the guys. Now there is a concerted effort to mainstream the feminization of boys.
I spent the first 10 years of my life living near my grandparents and my father's four younger brothers. I heard dozens of tales about the escapades of those five Shaw brothers and, from the accounts, my dad and his brothers certainly fit the description of boys by one psychologist who called them "little aggression machines." The mischief of my dad and his brothers was tolerated (and often encouraged) by my grandfather; but he also established boundaries and meted out decisive punishment when the boys found ways to sneak around the rules. In the process of taming those troublemakers while cherishing their masculinity, my grandfather taught them how to become men. Each of the four older ones volunteered for service in WWII in different branches of the service, thus becoming members of the "greatest generation." These fine men illustrate that the liberals lie when they say that such boys will become abusive and controlling as adult men.
There is more and more research indicating that my father's and uncles' development, under the watchful eye and Godly guidance of my grandfather, was just "the way it's supposed to be" -- confirmed by the neurological patterns to the hormonal testing, from the psychological analyses to the behavioral studies. And a wide variety of authors are addressing the issue. James Dobson wrote Bringing Up Boys. Christina Hoff Sommers wrote The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism is Harming Our Young Men. Stephen Rhoads wrote the newly released and destined for best-seller status, Taking Sex Differences Seriously. The common theme of these books is that sex differences are hard-wired into human beings and that culture and nurturing have only minor influence on the development of those traits typically associated with masculinity and femininity.
Despite the overwhelming evidence that boys ought to be allowed to be boys, efforts to make little boys more "feminine" have become part of the national culture and accepted policy. Formal efforts can be traced from the passage in 1994 of the Gender Equity in Education Act. This legislation poured many hundreds of millions of dollars into efforts to end so-called bias against girls. Sadly, the "evidence" of bias was based on a study from the early 1980s. It was soundly discredited only after it had been widely accepted as fact and after having made headlines in the major media, creating a massive policy response that continues today. In spite of its blatant falsehoods, the "findings" of that long-ago flawed study are still part of "conventional wisdom."
Today, while many of the gender stereotypes that caused problems for girls are now reversed, the emphasis has swung so far in the opposite direction that we are seeing equal problems today for boys. As a consequence, boys are falling further and further behind girls in academic achievement, and more and more of them are growing up uncertain about how to express their masculinity. Tragically, this leaves many young women of the present generation who desire nothing so much as a husband and family without men who qualify.
Worse still is that the submerged but testosterone-fueled maleness of young boys - deprived of positive role models of disciplined, restrained manhood - can explode in the horrific ways they continually hear described in misogynist rap music and see vividly depicted in violent movies and on television. Little wonder that little boys who grow up without fathers turn into predatory males who women have good reason to fear and loathe.
Far from providing solutions to the problem of male aggressiveness through the proper socialization that has occurred for centuries in the bosom of marriage and family, the feminist vision, which goes completely against nature, is a recipe for disaster. Foolish feminism includes encouraging females to act like aggressive, promiscuous and uncommitted males, à la the popular television shows Sex in the City and Friends. At the same time, those same foolish feminists argue that women are not inherently vulnerable; they pretend that they don't have to protect themselves from the violence engendered among boys and men who have been raised without male socialization or role models.
All this would be laughable and absurd were it not for the disastrous effects produced in the United States and throughout the Western world as a consequence of this vision. It is being embraced as the normative ideal by so many educated but self-absorbed women.
Well, I went into music, where both sexes are equally underpaid. ;-)
Now...as if this were new. The wussification of the American male began back in the '70s, if not earlier.
Sounds like this week's Table thread will have a subject, after all. I can write it if need be, but if anyone would like to volunteer for this week, let me know. My folks are in town and I've been pressed for time.
Sounds like this week's Table thread will have a subject, after all. I can write it if need be, but if anyone would like to volunteer for this week, let me know. My folks are in town and I've been pressed for time.
That's my favorite shower gift! Glad I am not the only one!
It's good. So far, nothing strange. All of us leaders are Christians, so I'm glad about that. I'm not very active with the other troops, and I don't go to many meetings with other leaders. When I have, I haven't heard anything controversial.
Well,Yeah! Most of my math profs and two of my best friends.
Ping. Fear for YOUR children.
What? Fear that those posting here are raising their boys, as, gasp! Boys?
I kid.
I may be wrong. I just know that's what she called them (small white-pink berries that were about the size of a large garden pea.)
You're going to DIE if you eat them was the admonition everytime we went into her garden.
I think that most girls are different, but some of are great in math and sciences. I'm the latter. I'm great in math (better than most men), and suck in English and literature.
However, I do think that engineering is a awful career for mothers. It's not something that you can easily do part time, and it is very easy to become out of date (especially in computers).
I'm thinking about going back to work now that my kids are in school full time, but I can't go back into engineering. I don't know what I'll do.
I don't know if I'll encourage my daughters to go into engineering either.
It seems like the more traditional "women" jobs are easier to be a mom: teaching, nursing.
Your math profs are women? I never had one math prof that was a woman. I did have a woman chemistry professor.
They are also liberal feminist types?
All the smart technical women that I know are all very conservative. I always attributed it to being smart. The smarter you are the more conservative you are.
(That's why the Hollywood types are liberal.)
Yup. My math department chair was a woman. My stats professor was a woman. My oh so lovely and gave us all a graden party chem lab prof was a woman.
And (ta da!) this was in the early 80's! No they weren't feminists, anymore than the rest of us were. We were all under 30, some of us a whole lot, Most of us were married, with small children and or expectant. I was the latter.
My best friend (female) from high school is a mechanical engineer married to an electrical engineer (an arab OMIGOD alert!).
Oh, hell. I spent a lot of time in theatre and all the producers and the money men/women are republicans.
Actors are morons and the money people know that.
Heck, I'd help, but I am so unreliable since the kids got out of school. :(
That was my point. That if you're smart, you're not a feminist (or at least a feminist of today).
I'm certainly not a 50's type mom, but I'm not a male-hating feminist.
Even though I have a degree in engineering, I also still think that there are some things women do better and there are still things that men do better.
I also like the idea that women have more choices today. However, I think too many of the feminists put down stay at home moms.
Quite honestly, I think it is a a cheap anti-feminism (kind of a poof! I'm not butch!) that colors many of my math and engineering minded female friends. Kind of an I'll show those guys! I know that's wrong on some parts.
Why some of us decided that having a math major was superior to having a French major is beyond me. The world need the wordsmiths who while away in the English Lit aisles as much as it does the IT nerds. Everyone is dedicated to their preference.
Me (Flame retardant suit on) was a summa cum laude Psychology major. I hate therapy, as a discipline. It has it uses and they are myriad, but I can't do it. Research was my thing and I couldn't get in where I wanted to go (not grades, just geography) so I ended up in the MBA program at X U.
The thing of it is: It's like the stupid ass arguements about homeschooling. People a hundred years ago moved hell and high water to get their kids into the local school and lucky them, be on the school board.
People today, at least some of the posters on here, act as if you are ready to dip you child in boiling oil when you kiss them and pat their heiney as they trot off to the bus.
The truth be told, you want to school your kids and you can, Ga head! Don't jack with the rest of us.
This is a bunch of garbage.
Men and women are different .. GOD made them that way on purpose.
These UN groupies just want to stop wars - because they are cowards and cannot stomach to fight for what they believe in.
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