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.
At the very least, I'd have to characterize that as a damned lie. The term "radical feminst" encompasses people of both sexes. Never - never - have I, or Dr. Sommers for that matter, ever interchanged the term "woman" with "radical feminist." Pointing to specific feminists who happen to be women does not contradict this fact.
Your desperation to end this discussion is reflected in your use of pejorative terms like "whiner." When hate speech labeling all men as "pigs" and all fathers as absent "deadbeats" passes for casual conversation, the feminist pendulum, however nobly set in motion, has travelled too far. While you pretend to lament the state of fatherhood, radical feminism works in earnest to further politically undermine it. As you criticize Dr. Sommers' documented, footnoted, verified facts and data as "whining," feminists get prime time coverage with their baldfaced lies and flat out man-hating boy-hating bigotry. And finally, when you are faced with a married, responsible and involved father telling you all this, you still need to generalize with references to unmarried, irresponsible, and uninvolved fathers. There simply is no dissent tolerated within the feminist ideology that you pretend to eschew.
Every single prejudice and tactic, of which you've tried in vain to accuse me, can be found within your response. The dishonesty was as stale as the sarcasm.
My response: Forgive me for questioning what you refer to as "common knowledge." Your presumption is that I know nothing about feminism and the "gender wars" an need an explanation of the basic terms that define the discussion. In time you may see that I am a fair-minded person who is in good-faith simply seeking an intelligent discussion. When you resort to insulting my level of knowledge, it does no service to this discussion, and only serves to benefit your own ego.
Harrison Bergeron: “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.”
My response: Just as Mortimer Snavely, you choose to assume. Why is that when someone plays devils-advocate as I am doing, they are automatically branded as the "enemy"? You know nothing about where I have obtained my education, nor who has been my professor. I realize that pointing this out opens me up to your possible criticism for wondering if you had two identities on this thread. However, when I was informed that it was a false assumption, I didn't resort to any personal attacks. I hope that you will be able to return to an intelligent discussion rather than diverting from the subject.
RLK: “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.”
My response: More presumptions. You assume that my mind has been made up on this issue and that I would only disagree with you. My mind has not been made up. I am open to your point of view. I'm only seeking good evidence. Isn't that fair enough?"
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I just disagree with you after having been there at the start of rejuvenation of the movement in the 60s and after 40 years of study. Whether you accept my explanation is entirely up to you. Take it or leave it.
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You systematically misinterpret what I have said, accuse me of saying things or holding positions is haven't said or don't hold, and either haven't thoroughly read or misinterpret the whole of my material. You come across here as someone who is parading himself by capacity to jerk people's chains. A pile of people have told you that and dismissed you. The difference between them and mee is I'm still continuing to post.
I believe you are confusing me with another poster.
That is preposterous and another example of your dreadful style. It is the equivalent of using a ten pound maul to swat a fly.
Cripes, I was the only one on the thread to talk nice to you and extend myself with helpful research. I'm beginning to think you lied about your age... junior high school.... right?
Ridiculous.
"Cripes, I was the only one on the thread to talk nice to you and extend myself with helpful research. I'm beginning to think you lied about your age... junior high school.... right?"
I certainly recognize that you offered up some information and suggested sites that I might visit. I appreciated that honesty. But when you refered to me as a "product of feminist revisionist educators" that was a bit of a low blow, and an untrue assumption. You're right, I've never actually seen a "bra-burning." I was only playing devils advocate from the get go because you used the reference in another post, and I wondered how true that actually is. Not because some feminist instructor denies it, but because I happen to be someone who questions the world around me. Why you have resorted yet again to personal shots is beyond me. I'm not playing the victim, and I most certainly wouldn't work for N.O.W. Again, I'm only seeking answers to questions I have.
In Koestler's book Darkness at Noon the protagonist, a member of the pre-revolutionary intellectual class, who became a Marxist and joined the Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution, is interrogated by a younger member of the Communist Party who knew nothing of the world prior to the Revolution and had no way of knowing. The protaganist has no common language beyond political rhetoric with which to dispute his inquisitor. He talks about the new generation as being "born without umbilical cords" to describe their complete and total ignorance of all that went before them.
This is a fair description of how I feel when I get into discussions such as this, involving life in the USA when the Second World War generation was still in charge. That was not so long ago. There is no sense of the connection between the here and now with the extremely recent past. I see no evidence of such awareness in your posts.
I'm in my early forties and am by no means an aged, hoary sage, but I swear I feel about two hundred years old when I read stuff like this. It can also be described as feeling like I'm talking with someone from another planet. There are no common points of reference beyond the merely actual.
For example, when I was a mere six years old living in Los Angeles, my parents would regularly give me thirty five cents to walk about three blocks down the street unaccompanied to go to a drugstore to get the latest issue of MAD magazine. Is such a thing possible today? Can you imagine what would be required to restore that level of law abiding tranquility to the nation?
It does not change the fact that I'm just looking for evidence. I didn't live during the '70s. I've yet to see someone provide a convincing defense of the "common knowledge" that "bra-burning" occurred. Of course, I must admit that I haven't been convince that it didn't occur either. I'm only seeking to be presented with evidence, and to make my mind. Both sides have thus far provided insufficient evidence.
"convinced" and "make up my mind"
God made men and women different for a reason and set guidelines to live by for a reason, and contrary to what some would have us believe, that reason is not to cramp our style and spoil our fun but rather to give us the most rich and abundant and healthy life possible. It is very sad that we have overthrown the natural order of things for so-called "gender equality", which I submit is nothing more than gender tyranny by those who have no clear idea what gender they represent.
Pardon me for jumping in, but perhaps your thirst for knowledge in this matter would be more readily quenched if you would be so good as to elaborate as to what, exactly, you would consider conclusive proof, or convincing evidence, that such events took place.
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