[As I’m feeling a bit cranky this morning, I thought I might revive one of my crankier pieces from the old Palace of Reason. The one I’ve chosen first appeared there on July 28, 2004. -- FWP]
This column is likely to piss a lot of people off. I wrote it while pretty well pissed off myself. Therefore, so as not to offend unduly, I'll issue an Early Warning:
- You are a militant feminist;
- You are an abortion-rights fanatic;
- You are enraged by the suggestion that there are significant differences between men and women;
- You think differences in "representation" in a particular field are, of themselves, evidence of discrimination or oppression;
- Your political priorities revolve around sex.
If you possess one or more of the above characteristics but read this column anyway, don't waste your time writing to upbraid me about it, as I'll simply ignore you.
Today at Fox News Online, is an article about the political desires of feminists and women generally. It's an interesting look into the sort of wishful thinking that demands cats that bark, Haagen-Dazs®-quality ice cream that contains no calories, freedom of speech that doesn't extend to one's opponents, an infinitely generous welfare state that doesn't weaken the work ethic, wars that don't kill anyone or break anything -- in short, a perfect right to do and have whatever one can imagine without having to endure any nasty consequences.
The usual liars and idiots are out in force at the Democratic National Convention. For example, Senator Blanche Lincoln (D, AK) has accused the Bush Administration of setting back "women's reproductive rights" 30 years. Why? Because President Bush reinstated President Reagan's ban on United States Treasury funding to international "aid" organizations that promote abortion in other countries.
Hm? Does a "right" to do something include the "right" to have someone else pay for it? Doesn't that sound just the least little bit contrary to our understanding of responsibilities, property rights, and all-around justice? And when did the federal government of these United States become responsible for the "reproductive rights," however conceived, of women other than Americans?
If Senator Lincoln is sincere, she's an idiot; if she knows better, she's lying to advance her political agenda. Speaking only for myself, I'd prefer that neither idiots nor liars be represented among America's legislators.
From the same Fox News article:
"I don't think the feminist movement is over, particularly while [President] Bush is in office," said Becca Gerner, who with co-volunteer Judy Grant was handing out stickers and signs for NARAL: Pro-Choice America that read "Pro Kerry. Pro Edwards. Pro Choice.""He's clearly not interested in women's issues," she added about Bush.
Oh? Which "women's issues" do you mean, Miss Gerner? The Taliban's executions of women who left their homes without male accompaniment or incompletely covered up? Odai and Qusai Hussein's rape rooms and nightly street-shopping for involuntary concubines? The prevalence of "honor killings" in Islamic countries and Palestinian terrorists' coercion of "dishonored" women into becoming suicide bombers? The use of rape as a weapon of war by the Sudanese militias?
Where does would-be-president John Kerry stand on these things? Would he act to oppose them, regardless of who stands in his way? Or would he insist on a United Nations endorsement before sending anything more than a strongly worded note?
But it's all froth anyway. Only one "women's issue" matters to the National Abortion Rights Action League, whose cachet has become so offensive to most Americans that it no longer spells out its real name. That issue is abortion on demand for all women everywhere, regardless of age, regardless of the stage of gestation or the state of the developing baby, regardless of the father's wishes, and at a taxpayer-defrayed cost. To claim the mantle of defender of women's rights, while supporting a presidential candidate who'd defer to other countries about mass rape and genocide and a vice-presidential running mate who made his fortune suing obstetricians out of business, is some sort of ultimate in deceitfulness for a cause, no matter what one might think of its justice.
If we go strictly by percentages, women are under-represented in politics. The percentages haven't changed dramatically in a long time. Given the frequent, strident claims that "women's issues" are slighted by male legislators and executives, it's worth asking: Why aren't there more women in political office?
This is a case of A Fact That Dare Not Speak Its Name. There are so few women in high office because:
- Very few women contend for elective office in the first place;
- Those that do offer themselves to the electorate tend to be shrill, monomaniacal, and generally unappealing.
Why don't more women present themselves as candidates for elective positions? Because women's drives and priorities differ from those of men. They're biologically predisposed toward pursuits that involve less aggression and less risk. This isn't something to be ashamed of. It's the result of eons of natural selection, a requirement for the survival of our race.
Women who do contend for elective office are frequently single-issue harridans. Their entire campaign focus is on one issue, usually either abortion rights or gun prohibition. Even if we discount the natural tendency of the single-issue fanatic to be boring and irritating, the single-issue harridan goes beyond the male norm by claiming moral superiority over her opponents, and quite frequently by coloring them as agents of evil simply because they disagree with her policy preferences. This is unpalatable to the majority of American voters of both sexes.
If women's representation percentage in high office is to improve, their politics must cease to revolve around their gonads.
There's a great irony here: it's men who are forever being accused of "thinking with the little head." Yet what other verdict could we pronounce upon the "women's rights" activists and groups when they drone monotonously and offensively on about the "right to choose" -- a "right" asserted at the price of the life of a developing baby, whose father is completely disenfranchised from the decision, and which is frequently exercised at the expense of the taxpayer?
Even if we discount their disregard for the plight of women in Islamic theocracies and other Third World hellholes, if "women's rights" groups were more involved with:
- Getting women access to guns and other implements of self-defense;
- Lowering income taxes, so that fewer couples would need two incomes and fewer children would be relegated to the physical hazards and emotional callousness of paid day care;
- Ending the privilege of Child Welfare Services departments to break up a family on an anonymous hint of abuse by a hostile neighbor;
- Promoting strict educational standards, objective grading, and performance-based rewards for "educators" in "public" schools;
- Lowering property taxes and campaigning for school choice mechanisms that would allow mothers to move their children out of consistently dangerous or low-performing "public" schools;
...they'd become much more credible. They'd also become Republicans.
In her rejected column for USA Today from the Democratic National Convention, Ann Coulter notes that the "pretty girls" -- the women who have more to offer than strident slogans and a shrill demand for "the right to choose" regardless of all other considerations -- are overwhelmingly more often conservatives, who recoil in horror from the "women's rights" types. Even when they sympathize with some part of the activists' agenda, they'd rather be found dead in a ditch than be identified with an activist group, because they don't want to be associated with that degree of callousness, incivility, and general unattractiveness.
I would not be surprised if, in some not-too-distant year, "women's rights" activists were to demand political preferences through gerrymandering, as has been practiced to award "safe" legislative districts to black politicians. Given the prevalent characteristics of the class, it could be the only way they'll ever get their numbers up.
As matters stand, "women's rights" activists are on the verge of becoming irrelevant...and they did it to themselves.
Links seem bad, pls check
ReplyDeleteHave you ever read Daniel Amneus' _The Garbage Generation_? It's a full-throated defense of Patriarchy and general excoriation of Feminism (note: not of women, per se).
ReplyDeleteI haven't finished it, but thus far I'm enjoying it and find it very illuminating.
It's sad, the degree to which the feminists just cannot break out of their prior thinking. Some of these former girls were seduced (an accurate term, given the non-logical, emotional nature of their initial alliance) by the thinking:
ReplyDelete- I can be sexually active, with no fear of pregnancy
- I will have men falling at my feet, so why bother with marriage?
- I will be able to have a career, just like a man
Then, reality hit, as they grew up:
- If they did get pregnant, their options were unappealing - abortion, or unwed motherhood
- The sexual activity often led to STDs - some of them lifelong, and - with AIDS - life-threatening
- The numbers of men around dried up, as the women aged, and there was greater competition for male company without strings
- When they were ready for marriage, there were few men available
- IF they got married, they were often too old to successfully get pregnant
- Yes, they worked similar jobs, but seldom as well paid (there is this unfair requirement for many positions - math skills)
- They hadn't realized that those careers were tied to VERY long hours, lots of office politics, and only a few slots at the top
- IF they had managed to birth a child, they had to return to work ASAP, leaving that angel in the hands of someone with little education and often limited English language skills. Or, their mother or mother-in-law, who would feel free to handle feeding, discipline and training as they pleased.
So, as a consequence, they are PI$$ed! At men, since it's ALL their fault.