April 2002
Posted April 14, 2002
Gloria Steinem - The feminist equality myth! June 7, 1970 -
One of feminism's most effective lies was that it would liberate men as well as women:
"Women's liberation aims to free men, too."
Back in the 1970s, this was the lie they told to quell concerns feminism was really a female supremacist movement:
"It is a movement that some call 'feminist' but should more accurately be called humanist; a movement that is an integral part of rescuing this country from its old, expensive patterns of elitism, racism and violence."
They told us that feminism was about everybody's freedom to choose. What could be more American than that? Freedom. Choice. Powerful words that resonate deep with promise.
"Let freedom ring!" A rousing refrain they played well as they assured us their objective was to achieve an equal partnership in which women and men of all races would stand shoulder-to-shoulder in solidarity, partnership and love. No more oppressive demands on men to head the household and shoulder the burden of breadwinner. They promised a new age of equality, equity and equanimity:
"I don't want to prove the superiority of one sex to another: that would only be repeating a male mistake."
Thirty years later, millions of men have learned the hard way that the feminists lied. Instead of replacing the old roles, in which men were the "head of the household" and primary breadwinner and women were the "helpmate" and primary caregiver, feminist policies have turned the Family Circus® into a Family Court circus, in which women keep the kids and a portion of men's pay, while men are liberated only from love:
"An iron triangle of lawyers, judges, and women's groups is finding it increasingly easy - and lucrative - to simply throw fathers out of their families with no show of wrongdoing whatever and seize control of their children and everything they have. Family courts have in effect declared to the mothers of America: If you file for divorce we can take everything your husband has and divide it among ourselves, with the bulk of it going to you. We can take his children, his home, his income, his savings, and his inheritance and reduce him to beggary. And if he raises any objection we can throw him in jail without trial." - Family Courts - What Every Man Should Know, Stephen Baskerville, archived at the Men's Defense Association
Consequently, far more men than women are refusing to marry. In the August 28, 2000 issue, TIME magazine reported that a record number of women were choosing to remain single. In my analysis, however, I showed that men are the ones rejecting marriage: "in 1998, while 20.5 percent of adult American women had never married, 26.9 percent of adult American men had never married." By 2000, according to Table No. 49 of the 2001 Statistical Abstract, little had changed.
The obvious question is, why? The factual though politically incorrect answer is that, from fear of accusations of sexual harassment or date rape, to being royally raped by the family court circus, men are fleeing the dating scene and marriage.
Why risk sexual harassment charges to ask out a coworker you like, then spend a day's pay on a date for a peck on the cheek and a "you're a nice guy, let's be friends" end to the evening, when you can go to a bar, spend 20 bucks on beer and dancing, get laid, go home and have a hassle free weekend? Why get married when the best you can hope for is that your wife won't file for divorce and vilify you in family court?
In 1970, the feminists promised a better world:
"The point is that Women's Liberation is not destroying the American family. It is trying to build a human compassionate alternative out of its ruins."
Thirty years later, ruination is the reality for millions of men:
"The astounding fact is that, with the exception of convicted criminals, no group today has fewer rights than fathers. Even accused criminals have the right to due process of law, to know the charges against them, to face their accusers, to a lawyer, and to a trial. A father can be deprived of his children, his home, his savings, his livelihood, his privacy, and his freedom without any of these constitutional protections. And not only a divorced father or a unmarried father: Any father at any time can find himself in court and in jail. Once a man has a child he forfeits his most important constitutional rights." - Family Courts - What Every Man Should Know, Stephen Baskerville, archived at the Men's Defense Association
And what of the feminists and their promise to liberate both women and men?
"The 21st century will be the time for women in this country to take the lead at all levels: community, state, national, and international." - Marie C. Wilson, President Ms. Foundation for Women, Fall 1999
This betrayal, not equal rights for women, is to blame for the backlash against women. There is only one solution, one means to prevent a backlash, and that is for women and men to join together in a unified Equalitarian movement that focuses not on gender, race, wealth or any distinguishing characteristic, but on the one thing that links us all: our humanity.
- Documents from the Women's Liberation Movement, Special Collections Library, Duke University
Posted April 8, 2002
Clarence Page - The mourning after? March 24, 2002 -
My conservative Republican mother didn't believe me when I told her a Bush presidency would pose a threat to women's reproductive freedom. When Bush moved to cut off foreign aid to groups that perform or promote abortions, she was disappointed. I didn't rub it in. But now a bill sponsored by Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Rep. Louise M. Slaughter (D-N.Y.) to educate the public about emergency contraception may, itself, be aborted:
"Despite the obvious virtues of having open debate and a well-informed public on such weighty matters, Murray and Slaughter's bill was whisked off to the legislative limbo known as 'committee' faster than you could say 'politically incorrect.' There it may languish into oblivion, unless some public outcry brings it out."
Moral debates about abortion aside, I don't like the idea of using tax money to bail out promiscuous women. Most people probably don't. Among other things, women's liberation was about women taking responsibility for their own lives. Feminists who demand money from the government for women who behave irresponsibly are a slap in the face to every woman who dedicated her life to the cause. But in this case, the real issue is taking measures to reduce the number of abortions:
"The public should cry out--and not just women. Nearly half of this country's 2.7 million unintended pregnancies per year result from contraceptive failure, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. With 1.4 million abortions every year, we ought to have some room to discuss a scientific breakthrough that could cut those numbers in half."
That argument won't wash with those who believe life begins at conception. But at the risk of confirming Patricia Schoeder's assertion about men, I don't get it. Most pro-life groups are comprised of devoutly religious people who believe the flesh is the vessel, not the person. Yet, their opposition to abortion begins at the moment of conception, as if a few cells of meat already harbor the person, their soul, the spiritual essence of who they are. If, as I believe, they are wrong, then, no matter what other legitimate objections there may be against the use of RU-486, murder isn't one of them.
The metaphysical merits of morning after contraception may mean nothing to pro-life organizations, but they should:
"Some anti-abortion groups, including the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, have opposed morning-after pills because of the possibility that a fertilized egg might be destroyed. Yet even some abortion opponents agree that the possibility that a fertilized egg is destroyed pales next to the certainty that millions of abortions could be avoided by avoiding the pregnancy in the first place."
Certainly, it's not an ideal solution, but terminating a pregnancy within the first week or so is better than aborting a fetus 2 or 3 months later.
- Chicago Tribine.
Posted April 8, 2002
A chat room of one's own? April 2, 2002 -
Feminist grumbling over lack of manners notwithstanding, there's a boy hiding in every man who, given the chance, will sometimes be boisterous, jocular and rowdy. Which, according to global coordinator and host, Jenn Vesperman, is why Deb Richardson founded LinuxChix:
"Deb started it partly because she was sick of the teenage boy, locker-room mentality of a lot of Linux groups. She knew that it was chasing her away from Linux groups, particularly online, and felt that she couldn't possibly be the only one. She also felt that, particularly for women who aren't inherently geeky, there wasn't enough motivation to get past the locker-room mentality and actually find the core of really good people that she knew was there."
Rather than whine to the government or march in the streets to demand that men change to accommodate them, the women of LinuxChix has demonstrated what liberated women do: create their own space where they can have a chat room of their own.
- Sydney Morning Herald.
Posted April 8, 2002
The evil male hierarchy made me do it! March 25, 2002 -
Hierarchy. According to feminists, it's the means by which the patriarchal system dominates, an artificial construct to create barriers and hold people down. As Gloria Steinem described it in 1993, it doesn't work:
"Hierarchy is based on patriarchy, patriarchy doesn't work anywhere anymore." - Gloria Steinem, Scholars, Witches And Other Freedom Fighters, March 1993
Never mind that the National Organization for Women is run by a hierarchy, or that hierarchies remain the most efficient and effective means to get things done, it's a creation of the patriarchy and, therefore, it's bad. Worse, it's responsible for everything from Hitler and 9-11 to pedophilic priests:
"To create a hierarchy of authority and sanctity and then suppress sexuality as a natural form of expression and subject these men to total control, well, it's almost natural that some of them will then seek control over people lower down in the power structure."
For Steinem to describe male sexuality as "a natural form of expression" is a bit ironic, given her followers' enduring condemnation of men's interest in women, but her criticism of hierarchy is no surprise despite that virtually every feminist group is organized around an often strictly enforced hierarchy of authority.
- NewsMax.
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