Posted on 04/17/2002 1:58:35 PM PDT by M 91 u2 K
Men of today's older generation grew up in the chivalric miasma of their time, which held that women were morally superior to men, and that civilized men protected women against any available vicissitude. A corollary was that women needed protecting. So common has this understanding been throughout history that one may suspect it of being based in ancient instinct: In a less hospitable world, if men didn't protect women, something disagreeable would eat them, and then there would be no more people. So men did. And do.
Instincts have consequences, particularly when the circumstances requiring them cease to exist.
Because women were until recently subordinate, and in large part played the role of gentility assigned to them, men didn't recognize that they could be dangerous, selfish, or sometimes outright vipers. They were no worse than men, but neither were they better. Men believed, as did women, that women were tender creatures, caring, kind, and suited to be mothers. Males deferred to women in many things, which didn't matter because the things women wanted were not important.
When women came into a degree of power, it turned out that they were as immoral, or amoral, as men, probably more self-centered, and out for what they could get. Not all were, of course, as neither were all men, but suddenly this became the central current. This too followed lines of instinctual plausibility: Women took care of children and themselves, and men took care of women. It made sense that they should be self-centered.
These newly empowered women knew, as women have always known, how to wield charm, and they quickly learned to enjoy power. The men of the old school didn't notice in time. They deferred, and they were blind-sided. They gave gentlemanly agreement to one-sided laws hostile to men.
Political deference became a pattern. It remains a pattern. It probably springs in part from the male's instinctive recognition that, by giving women what they want, he gets laid. Between individuals this worked tolerably well, but less so when applied to abstract groups.
When women said they wanted protection against dead-beat dads, the old school fell for it. They were attuned to saving maidens and the sheltering from life's storms of white Christian motherhood. "Dead-beat dads" was of course that sure-fire political winner -- an alliterative slogan of few words that embodied a conclusion but no analysis. So sure were men that women were the kinder gentler sex that they never bothered to look at the statistics on abuse of children, or the track records of the sexes in raising children.
The romantic elderly male believed -- believes -- that women were the natural proprietors of the young. This led to laws virtually denying a divorced father's interest in his children, though not the requirement that he pay for their upkeep. The pattern holds today. Male judges in family law defer to women, almost any women no matter how unfit, and female judges side with their own. The demonstrable fact that women can and do abuse and neglect children, that a female executive clawing her way up the hierarchy may have the maternal instincts of a rattlesnake, that children need their fathers -- all of this has been forgotten.
The reflexive deference continued. Feminists wanted congress to pass a vast program of funding for every left-wing cause that incited enthusiasm in the sterile nests of NOW. They called it the Violence Against Women Act, and men deferentially gave it to them. Of course to vote against it, no matter what it actually said -- and almost no one knew -- would have been to seem to favor violence against women. A law to exterminate orphans, if called the Domestic Violence Prevention Act, would pass without demur.
There followed yet more male deference to female desires. When women wanted to go into the military to have babies, or a Soldier Experience, men couldn't bring themselves to say no.
When the women couldn't perform as soldiers, men graciously lowered standards so they could appear to. It was the equivalent of helping a woman over a log in the park, the legal and institutional parallel of murmuring, "Don't worry your pretty little head about a thing."
On and on it went. The aggregate effect has been that women have gained real power, while (or by) managing in large part to continue to exact deference and, crucially, to avoid the accountability that should come with power. A minor example is women who want the preferential treatment that women now enjoy, and yet expect men to pay for their dates. In today's circumstances, this is simple parasitism.
Today men are accountable for their behavior. Women are not. The lack of accountability, seldom clearly recognized, is the bedrock of much of today's feminist misbehavior, influence, and politics. Its pervasiveness is worth pondering.
A man who sires children and leaves is called a dead-beat dad, and persecuted. A woman who has seven children out of wedlock and no capacity to raise them is not a criminal, but a victim. He is accountable for his misbehavior, but she is not for hers. It is often thus.
Consider the female Army officer who complained that morning runs were demeaning to women. A man who thus sniveled would be disciplined, ridiculed, and perhaps thumped. Yet the Army fell over itself to apologize and investigate. Again, men are held accountable for their indiscipline, but women are not. Men expect to adapt themselves to the Army, but women expect the Army to adapt to them. And it does. The male instinct is to keep women happy.
Note that a woman who brings charges of sexual harassment against a man suffers no, or minor, consequences if the charges are found to be unfounded -- i.e., made up. A man who lied about a woman's misbehavior would be sacked. He is accountable. She isn't.
Yes, large numbers of women are responsible, competent, and agreeable. Few engage in the worst abuses, as for example the fabrication of sexual harassment. Yet they can do these things. A man cannot throw a fit and get his way. A woman can. Only a few need misbehave to poison the air and set society on edge. And the many profit by the misbehavior of the few.
People will do what they can get away with. Men assuredly will, and so are restrained by law. Women are not. Here is the root of much evil, for society, children, men and, yes, women.
I anticipated that someone would present the "doubting Thomas" argument to avoid the subject. It's going to take more than that to convince me, however. Given that I wasn't around for much of this time period.
Do you say these occurrences are "so obvious and valid" because you actually saw it occur, or are you basing it simply on what the media told you?
I realize that you can easily go after me and ponder whether I dispute whether the Holocaust occurred, etc. Nonetheless, pretend I am completely ignorant. Convince me.
And I especially enjoyed the way Nick Danger nailed RLK. Beautiful analysis. His comments have helped me to better understand some of the guys who are so quick to defend feminazism.
Exactly my thinking (See? I actually think!) When Spyder Tim questioned the truth behind my reference "bra burning," I automatically assumed he was a twenty-something who had never actually seen one. Turns out to be true, but it hadn't occurred to me that he may also be the product of feminist revisionist educators who claim bra burning never took place.
Peace. Despite ourselves.
Yes, but only in newsclips. I missed most of the action having attended college in the late 70's and early 80's. The verifiable fact that feminists went braless en masse in the early 70's is another data point that puts the lie to the the claim that bra burnings never happened. They openlky spoke out about these undergarments being "restraints" on their feminine power. As a twenty year old, I approved of this aspect of feminism, especially for twenty year old feminists - but RLK's ugly lesbian sans underwear story was more the norm than the cute and perky co-ed out to show her stuff. These were dangerous times for girl watchers.
From my research yesterday, an early, feminists threw girdles and bras into a trash drum at an infamous protest at the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City around 1970 - it was more of a "fat-ugly liberation" protest than a women's liberation protest. Reports vary on whether the drum actually was burned, or even whether there were really any bras in the drum, but the press fell in love with the term "bra burning." By all appearances, campus feminists capitalized on the phenomenon for publicity's sake. It was probably a joke played on the feminist movement more than anything else, which makes it understandable that they would try to pretend it never happened.
LOL! I'm confused as to who's being condescending towards whom!
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There is nothing in the world I could do to convince you. If I said I was there you could say I am overgeneralizing. You could dismiss anything as media hype, or whatever. You have a need to believe what you want to believe. So be it.
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Me defend feminism? You're crazy. Much of it has been an attempt to castrate men.
Your "Exhibit A" and the examples that follow are all from societies that have eschewed Western Civilization and the Judeo-Christian concept of human dignity. Yet feminist radicals don't seem to congregate outside of mosques and embassies with their signs and soap boxes... they infiltrate the churches, synagogues and social agencies instituted to provide them with the abilities and the rights to form just such protests. In this light, the radical feminist deconstructors are doing more to take America in the direction of the Taliban than vice versa.
It might also interest you to know that, in some of these Middle Eastern hell holes that you mention, the children - including the boys - are socialized by their mothers moreso than their fathers, who may not even meet them until they are almost teenagers. This would make room for the argument that these societies are more matriarchal than feminists would have us believe. Also, parallels could be made between children being raised sans paternal influence in communal "harems" and children being raised sans paternal influence in daycare facilities and public schools. Looking at the results of 50 years of increasing fatherlessness and feminizing of boys, the United States may yet produce an Osama bin Laden of its own.
Yes, RLK, sadly so. It's how you ended up with a snapping dog like me at your heels. The chivalrous concept of all women being the victims of "men behaving badly" is a linchpin that holds radical feminism in its place in the machinery of politics. By way of example, some of the most notorious feminist apologists and man haters on FR have come to your defense on this thread.
According to her biographers Gloria Steinem had her first abortion in 1956. She has been angry at men and the world since then. It was her decision to participate in the Margarete Mead type liberated sexual experimentation preaced at liberal women's colleges. That was her contribution, not men's. Just because she searched until she found a willing partner for her antics is not the fault of all men.
Women walking around half naked should not complain that they are not looked upon as brain objects instead of sex objects.
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The way you view things is of little interest to me. I routinely curse with proficiency in English, German, Chinese, Greek, and Italian. What you call name-calling is what I refer to as truth in labeling. Do funga. Gha mo to.
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....but not consistency enough to create much confidence in your consistency or capability.
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I don't need to see the smirk on your face. I can see the smirk in your words from the beginning of this thread, as many others here have also done.
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Ginsberg.
On one side of your mouth, you ask "Where are the men?" With the other side of your mouth you say to the men "Shut up and sit down!" The mark of a truly misguided ideologue - you've become that which you hate.
The radical feminists you praise as liberators have institutionalized child abuse via the forced feminization of boys in schools. They demonize and villify the fathers you glibly mock to the point that people no longer see us as visible - let alone influential - in the lives of our own children. Stating these facts - as Dr. Christina Hoff-Sommers has done in her books - doesn't make one a mysogynist or an angry "finger pointer."
It's dissembling of the lowest form to try to stifle valid argument by calling it divisive or "finger pointing." It's nothing but common clintonism - and it generally doesn't get anyone anywhere here at Free Republic.
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