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| BOOK OF ZED / The Nightmare of Feminism!! |
The Nightmare of Feminism
In the mid-1960s a political movement surged in the United States amidst widespread
conditions of political unrest and disillusionment with society as it was. This movement was
called Feminism. While it purported to seek equality for yet one more underclass in the same
manner that the Civil Rights movement of Martin Luther King, Jr. sought equal rights for
African Americans and the American Indian Movement, led by Leonard Peltier, Dennis
Banks, Russell Means and others, sought to restore the lost rights and property of Native
Americans, this new alleged underclass was purported to cut across all social and economic
strata.
At first it was difficult to take seriously these graduates of Ivy League schools who compared
their suffering the boredom of housework with the Cherokee Nation's trail of tears and the
reign of terror which the KKK successfully waged against black Americans in the south.
Yet there did seem to be validity some of the points they made. Media portrayals of women
seldom showed them as anything but weak, dependent, and not-too-smart. Real barriers to
women seeking careers and inequality certainly existed throughout society, so some of us
listened as they made their case.
Their case, however, was not a compelling one. Much was made of the historical
"oppression" of women in an attempt to apply the same constructivist, guilt by birth, principle
that the more extreme black power advocates had sought to use to make people living today
guilty of acts committed years before they were born. It didn't work.
Most people with an IQ high enough to keep them out of an institution know that you cannot
change history and that you must focus on the present in order to be able to change the future.
What really sunk their arguments, though, was that what they categorized as oppression
appeared from the outside as privilege.
The social contract implicit in marriage and the gender roles of the male as protector/provider
and the female as nurturer/caretaker already seemed a bit biased toward women in the
minds of many men and particularly in the minds of women who were mated to financially
successful men.
These women were actually more resistant to the movement than most men, fully realizing the
privileged nature of their own positions and that increased competition for the jobs their
husbands held would be to their own distinct disadvantage.
However, liberalism, a deep dissatisfaction with society, and a widespread "we can change
the world" "we can make it better" mentality among the baby boomers led to the belief that
whatever valid points the feminists did make needed to be addressed.
College age men particularly were not fond of a system that was sending thousands of them
to Vietnam to become murderers or to be murdered in a war no one could explain or justify
except to throw up the bogeyman of "Communism." "Don't trust anyone over 30" became the
11th commandment to the boomers and it was not difficult to convince them that the entire
system created by their parents' generation was corrupt and needed to be replaced.
The materialistic obsession of the post-war era created an emotional scarcity which the
boomers deeply resented. Having grown up with fathers who were most of the time physically
absent working in some corporate job, and who were emotionally absent even when they
were physically present, made many men of that era very receptive to the idea that existing
gender roles were seriously screwed up and needed changing.
Many were glad that women were taking the lead and looked forward to the day when all
burdens and privileges were shared equally.
Many joined or enthusiastically supported the movement. Others adopted a "wait and see"
attitude because there was a disturbing undercurrent to much of the rhetoric. From the
beginning there was a pervasive hostility toward men and maleness, not just toward the rigid
gender roles.
The most vocal of the movement's leaders did not acknowledge that both genders were
trapped by their socialization and that both genders had contributed to building that trap, but
rather took the stance that it was something men had done to women.
So called "consciousness raising" sessions were often nothing more than man bashing and
women often came out of them broadcasting animosity toward men.
One woman I knew spoke with great pride about the "very satisfying man hating sessions"
that she was part of.
Men found this deeply disturbing because they didn't hate women and were bewildered by the
fact that women seemed to derive such satisfaction from hating them.
Men, in fact, were generally anxious to build a cooperative effort to change things, but very
quickly learned that the major change that feminism seemed out to accomplish was not a
balance of power; instead seeking only to gain power for women in spheres where men were
perceived to have it while maintaining an absolute grip on the power that women already had.
There was a distinct tone of "I'm gonna get you, suckka." Needless to say, most men were not
anxious to participate in their own destruction so they were very selective in the portions of the
movement they supported.
Anything which seemed directed into making men into the underclass that women declared
themselves to be was not supported.
Viewed from a historical perspective, what seemed at the time to be simply a tremendous
tactical error on the part of the early proponents turns out to be an ideological flaw that is so
core to the movement that its failure was inevitable.
Men were far more receptive to the idea of true equality, more freedom of choice, and
freedom from rigid gender roles than most women.
They were perfectly willing to partner with women in creating the new conditions which would
support long-term social change.
However, all the energy of the movement seemed to be in the direction of creating more
restrictions and rigidity rather than less.
The validity of men's voice and of men themselves was never acknowledged.
It quickly became apparent that the agenda of the movement was not to elevate women, but
to tear down men.
Slogans such as "A woman only has to work half as hard as a man to be twice as good"
(translation: men are so stupid and incompetent that even a half-assed effort is superior to
their best efforts) and "A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle" (translation:
men are completely irrelevant to women and have no place in their world) began to appear on
T-shirts, coffee mugs, posters; everywhere you looked.
Men were justifiably offended by such put-downs and trivialization of the challenges they
faced. It made apparent that the entire movement was based on a colossal lie. Women
weren't out to be men's equals; they were already convinced they were superior. So what
were they after?
The answer came in the form of the Equal Rights Amendment. On the face of it, the fact that
the amendment encountered such resistance and eventually failed seems incomprehensible.
Such a common-sense reiteration of the growing body of Civil Rights legislation was
superfluous, but hardly an idea which one would expect to engender such opposition,
particularly with the momentum of civil rights in general.
No, there had to be more to it than the fact that there were more people who didn't believe in
equality than did believe in it. If this were true, the initial 1963 legislation which already
banned discrimination on the basis of gender along with race, national origin, etc. would not
have been passed.
What made people oppose it was the fact that it was superfluous. Since it added nothing to
the legal framework, there must be more to it than met the eye. What most people saw in the
efforts to get it passed was nothing but strong-arm tactics being used to shove down
everyone's throats a hatred and fallacy based ideology.
Thinking men and women everywhere simply looked at who was supporting it and how they
were supporting it and "just said no." The movement was defeated by the very methods used
to try to get it passed.
At this point in time, feminism was still completely elitist. Working class women whose hourly
wage earning husbands did not bring in enough to cover the bills often worked in the same
factories as their husbands. The notion that they would be "oppressed" by having a husband
successful enough to make it unnecessary for them to be required to make a financial
contribution to the expenses of living was laughable.
Middle class women who did not attend college and were interested in being a wife and
mother did not find the idea of being supported in that pursuit particularly oppressive either.
Even college graduates who had grown up before the man-hating and bashing propaganda
took over the public discourse found husbands who were not threatened by their desire to
have a career, and the two-professional family became increasingly common from the
mid-70s on.
Most women found, as one current book puts it in its title, that "Feminism is not the story of my
life." Women in the lower socio-economic strata easily saw through the claims of oppression
when they looked at the women claiming to be oppressed and compared their lives to the
lives of men around them. "God willing we should be so oppressed" thought many of them.
The mostly college educated, affluent, and privileged leaders of the movement did not listen
to these women and align the movement with their concerns, but persisted in pursuing
ideological purities which were not just irrelevant but often destructive to these women's lives.
The true agenda of the movement can be seen in a statement by one of its godmothers,
Simone de Beauvoir, author of "The Second Sex," one of the bibles of the movement.
Betty Friedan, author of "The Feminine Mystique," which is generally credited with having
launched this so called "second wave" of feminism, said to Ms. Beauvoir that she believed
that women who wanted to stay at home and raise their children should have the freedom to
do that. Ms. Beauvoir replied:
"No, we don't believe that any woman should have this choice. No woman should be
authorized to stay at home to raise her children. Society should be totally different. Women
should not have that choice, precisely because if there is such a choice, too many women will
make it."
Continue...
In the mid-1960s a political movement surged in the United States amidst widespread
conditions of political unrest and disillusionment with society as it was. This movement was
called Feminism. While it purported to seek equality for yet one more underclass in the same
manner that the Civil Rights movement of Martin Luther King, Jr. sought equal rights for
African Americans and the American Indian Movement, led by Leonard Peltier, Dennis
Banks, Russell Means and others, sought to restore the lost rights and property of Native
Americans, this new alleged underclass was purported to cut across all social and economic
strata.
At first it was difficult to take seriously these graduates of Ivy League schools who compared
their suffering the boredom of housework with the Cherokee Nation's trail of tears and the
reign of terror which the KKK successfully waged against black Americans in the south.
Yet there did seem to be validity some of the points they made. Media portrayals of women
seldom showed them as anything but weak, dependent, and not-too-smart. Real barriers to
women seeking careers and inequality certainly existed throughout society, so some of us
listened as they made their case.
Their case, however, was not a compelling one. Much was made of the historical
"oppression" of women in an attempt to apply the same constructivist, guilt by birth, principle
that the more extreme black power advocates had sought to use to make people living today
guilty of acts committed years before they were born. It didn't work.
Most people with an IQ high enough to keep them out of an institution know that you cannot
change history and that you must focus on the present in order to be able to change the future.
What really sunk their arguments, though, was that what they categorized as oppression
appeared from the outside as privilege.
The social contract implicit in marriage and the gender roles of the male as protector/provider
and the female as nurturer/caretaker already seemed a bit biased toward women in the
minds of many men and particularly in the minds of women who were mated to financially
successful men.
These women were actually more resistant to the movement than most men, fully realizing the
privileged nature of their own positions and that increased competition for the jobs their
husbands held would be to their own distinct disadvantage.
However, liberalism, a deep dissatisfaction with society, and a widespread "we can change
the world" "we can make it better" mentality among the baby boomers led to the belief that
whatever valid points the feminists did make needed to be addressed.
College age men particularly were not fond of a system that was sending thousands of them
to Vietnam to become murderers or to be murdered in a war no one could explain or justify
except to throw up the bogeyman of "Communism." "Don't trust anyone over 30" became the
11th commandment to the boomers and it was not difficult to convince them that the entire
system created by their parents' generation was corrupt and needed to be replaced.
The materialistic obsession of the post-war era created an emotional scarcity which the
boomers deeply resented. Having grown up with fathers who were most of the time physically
absent working in some corporate job, and who were emotionally absent even when they
were physically present, made many men of that era very receptive to the idea that existing
gender roles were seriously screwed up and needed changing.
Many were glad that women were taking the lead and looked forward to the day when all
burdens and privileges were shared equally.
Many joined or enthusiastically supported the movement. Others adopted a "wait and see"
attitude because there was a disturbing undercurrent to much of the rhetoric. From the
beginning there was a pervasive hostility toward men and maleness, not just toward the rigid
gender roles.
The most vocal of the movement's leaders did not acknowledge that both genders were
trapped by their socialization and that both genders had contributed to building that trap, but
rather took the stance that it was something men had done to women.
So called "consciousness raising" sessions were often nothing more than man bashing and
women often came out of them broadcasting animosity toward men.
One woman I knew spoke with great pride about the "very satisfying man hating sessions"
that she was part of.
Men found this deeply disturbing because they didn't hate women and were bewildered by the
fact that women seemed to derive such satisfaction from hating them.
Men, in fact, were generally anxious to build a cooperative effort to change things, but very
quickly learned that the major change that feminism seemed out to accomplish was not a
balance of power; instead seeking only to gain power for women in spheres where men were
perceived to have it while maintaining an absolute grip on the power that women already had.
There was a distinct tone of "I'm gonna get you, suckka." Needless to say, most men were not
anxious to participate in their own destruction so they were very selective in the portions of the
movement they supported.
Anything which seemed directed into making men into the underclass that women declared
themselves to be was not supported.
Viewed from a historical perspective, what seemed at the time to be simply a tremendous
tactical error on the part of the early proponents turns out to be an ideological flaw that is so
core to the movement that its failure was inevitable.
Men were far more receptive to the idea of true equality, more freedom of choice, and
freedom from rigid gender roles than most women.
They were perfectly willing to partner with women in creating the new conditions which would
support long-term social change.
However, all the energy of the movement seemed to be in the direction of creating more
restrictions and rigidity rather than less.
The validity of men's voice and of men themselves was never acknowledged.
It quickly became apparent that the agenda of the movement was not to elevate women, but
to tear down men.
Slogans such as "A woman only has to work half as hard as a man to be twice as good"
(translation: men are so stupid and incompetent that even a half-assed effort is superior to
their best efforts) and "A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle" (translation:
men are completely irrelevant to women and have no place in their world) began to appear on
T-shirts, coffee mugs, posters; everywhere you looked.
Men were justifiably offended by such put-downs and trivialization of the challenges they
faced. It made apparent that the entire movement was based on a colossal lie. Women
weren't out to be men's equals; they were already convinced they were superior. So what
were they after?
The answer came in the form of the Equal Rights Amendment. On the face of it, the fact that
the amendment encountered such resistance and eventually failed seems incomprehensible.
Such a common-sense reiteration of the growing body of Civil Rights legislation was
superfluous, but hardly an idea which one would expect to engender such opposition,
particularly with the momentum of civil rights in general.
No, there had to be more to it than the fact that there were more people who didn't believe in
equality than did believe in it. If this were true, the initial 1963 legislation which already
banned discrimination on the basis of gender along with race, national origin, etc. would not
have been passed.
What made people oppose it was the fact that it was superfluous. Since it added nothing to
the legal framework, there must be more to it than met the eye. What most people saw in the
efforts to get it passed was nothing but strong-arm tactics being used to shove down
everyone's throats a hatred and fallacy based ideology.
Thinking men and women everywhere simply looked at who was supporting it and how they
were supporting it and "just said no." The movement was defeated by the very methods used
to try to get it passed.
At this point in time, feminism was still completely elitist. Working class women whose hourly
wage earning husbands did not bring in enough to cover the bills often worked in the same
factories as their husbands. The notion that they would be "oppressed" by having a husband
successful enough to make it unnecessary for them to be required to make a financial
contribution to the expenses of living was laughable.
Middle class women who did not attend college and were interested in being a wife and
mother did not find the idea of being supported in that pursuit particularly oppressive either.
Even college graduates who had grown up before the man-hating and bashing propaganda
took over the public discourse found husbands who were not threatened by their desire to
have a career, and the two-professional family became increasingly common from the
mid-70s on.
Most women found, as one current book puts it in its title, that "Feminism is not the story of my
life." Women in the lower socio-economic strata easily saw through the claims of oppression
when they looked at the women claiming to be oppressed and compared their lives to the
lives of men around them. "God willing we should be so oppressed" thought many of them.
The mostly college educated, affluent, and privileged leaders of the movement did not listen
to these women and align the movement with their concerns, but persisted in pursuing
ideological purities which were not just irrelevant but often destructive to these women's lives.
The true agenda of the movement can be seen in a statement by one of its godmothers,
Simone de Beauvoir, author of "The Second Sex," one of the bibles of the movement.
Betty Friedan, author of "The Feminine Mystique," which is generally credited with having
launched this so called "second wave" of feminism, said to Ms. Beauvoir that she believed
that women who wanted to stay at home and raise their children should have the freedom to
do that. Ms. Beauvoir replied:
"No, we don't believe that any woman should have this choice. No woman should be
authorized to stay at home to raise her children. Society should be totally different. Women
should not have that choice, precisely because if there is such a choice, too many women will
make it."
Continue...
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| BOOK OF ZED.. |
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