Gender Galtery?

Dr. Helen Smith has posted a curious inquiry at PJ Media today:

I have spent the week talking with experts and others about how men can fight back against the backlash and misandry that is so rampant in our culture and many have given me good suggestions for my book. However, one way of fighting back is “going Galt,” that is–going on strike–against the system and individuals who are causing the problem....

My question to male readers is, what are your suggestions on how to “Go Galt” as a man in a female-centered society? Do you think this route is a viable one to making a change in society or is it just good for a man on an individual level, or is it a poor way to fight back in your opinion?

As Dr. Helen notes immediately, there are many ways of refusing women what they claim as their due from men: refusing to marry, working at subsistence occupations, and so on. But there are more aspects to the matter than merely the economic.

The essence of "going Galt" in any context is to challenge its ultimate implications by putting them into practice. That is: think through the implications of The System, from its fundamental premises and hypotheses all the way to their furthest stops, and then conduct yourself exactly according to their demands. Consider: Economically, in a System that excoriates creators, producers, and capitalists, it means going almost completely limp: making just enough money to sustain your life, but creating nothing from which others can derive a profit or make further advances. Many men have already chosen this course.

In terms of gender relations, what are "the system's" premises and hypotheses, and what implications follow from it? Well, one thread that comes to mind at once runs as follows:

1. Premise: Men have "oppressed" women and therefore, women are owed some form of retribution.
2. Premise: Women are men's equals, not merely before the law, but in every imaginable way.
3. Hypothesis: If women were to do all the traditionally male jobs, they would be done just as well as men have done them.
4. Implication: Let women do those jobs without male colleagues or male assistance.

Okay, where shall we start?

• Police
• Military
• Firefighting
• Commercial fishing
• Subsurface work (e.g., mining, sewer work)
• Jobs involving high risk of exposure to hazardous substances
• Miscellaneous emergency services (e.g., paramedical, mountain and water rescue)

That list might not be exhaustive, but those are the major "dirty chancies" that men have dominated for centuries. Some women have entered those fields, but very few in proportion to the ongoing preponderance of men. If men were to "go Galt" in their gender relations, we would swiftly find out how well those jobs would be done with only women in them.

It won't happen, of course. At least, not in America. With some exceptions, American men are still men: self-respectful, self-reliant, willing to prove themselves against challenges and hardships, and (brace yourselves, ladies) protective of women. The American male psyche will not be swiftly rewired. Neither will that of the American woman. Indeed, the typical American woman has become so fragile a hothouse flower that she can't bring herself to lower a toilet seat, change a cat box, or take the garbage out to the curb. Working eight hours a day, five days a week in a fluorescent-lit, air-conditioned office overpopulated by grubby, disgusting men already taxes her to the edge of sanity.

But one of the implications of that observation is that women's carping about their imagined lowly status in American society will evoke a steady increase in men's resentment of their objectively lowly status. Resentment, when it reaches a certain level, will occasion outbreaks of resistance and retaliation, which will span a wide spectrum. As the major media are aligned with the notion that women currently get the short end of the stick, they'll use those incidents to fan the flames, and things will get worse.

Hm, it seems I've predicted a real "war of the sexes," to take the place of the one women imagine to exist in the present day. I doubt either men or women will like it much.