A Word on Feminism

 

Betty Friedan

Having lived abroad for some years, I have perhaps some distance, some objectivity. I can say that feminism has ruined North American women. 

It has set up any relationship for them as a struggle for power—“the personal is political.” No room for mutual support; no room for affection. Men are the ancestral enemy. They must be made to submit. They must submit to the woman in all situations.

This is seen as well in the “Karen” phenomenon. This is an assumption of power: each woman considers herself the ultimate authority on everything, and everyone else must defer to her.

This certainly does not work for men. A relationship with a woman means surrendering his freedom entirely to her leadership—and freedom is far more important for men than for women. And what does he get in return? A mother for his children? She’s not interested. Pregnancy and childrearing are oppressive—“barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen.” Therefore children are resented. She will abandon them to strangers for the sake of her career, if she does not abort them.

So, he loses freedom, gets no affection or respect, does not get a stable home life, and she may leave him at any time, and take the house and kids. He has invited an enemy into his life, into his home, into his bedroom.

But interestingly, this does not work for women either. Surveys suggest women are less happy than they used to be in pre-feminine societies. Women do not naturally crave independence and leadership—these are male values. They naturally crave security, affection, and human contact: the things feminism has turned them away from. 

This itself illustrates why women should not lead in the home: they lack a natural sense of direction, literally, figuratively, and in all spheres. They are hard-wired instead to be flexible, and to follow the leader. Feminism has become the leader, and they are following it, against their better interests, right off a cliff. And, as they have assumed leadership in the family, they are dragging men, children, and society as a whole off that cliff with them.

Man Hate Online

Remember, it's propaganda. It was always propaganda.

My current X stream is full of women complaining about how men are not holding up their end in relationships. Their end apparently means to provide.

And what is the woman’s side of the bargain? It seems for many it is providing sex. Letting the man have sex with them is their end of the bargain. And not even that—they have no obligation to have sex with their husband even within marriage. It still depends on whether they feel like it.

This is a lousy bargain for men. As far as we can tell, women enjoy sex about as much as men do. So why should he pay, and not she, for a mutual pleasure?

Some women will say that women deserve support because they give the man children. But it seems to the untrained eye that children are usually enjoyed more by the mother than the father. She gets more time with them. He has to be off working. You could as easily argue that children are a gift the husband gives to the wife.

You may say children are a chore. I say bollocks. No work is so meaningful or rewarding. And women are born with a strong maternal instinct that makes them desire children and their company. Men’s paternal instinct is less strong.

Some women online say that men should give them money because of the cost of cosmetics—it costs money to make themselves so beautiful for their husband or date. So they have a right to be reimbursed. 

However, making yourself up is not for any one man—it attracts the eyes of men in general. And it shows off to other women. That is more for yourself, then, not for the man across the table. A man is likely to prefer his woman wear less makeup. It suggests she is on the market. In fact, surveys show this—men would prefer women to make up less.

The one thing women never offer as their side of the marital bargain is to do the cooking, cleaning, or housework. No--that would be unreasonable. That should be split half and half, and there is much complaining about men not doing their share.

This actually puts an extra burden on men in any relationship. The problem is, men are usually content with a relaxed, rather messy environment. Women tend to be fussier about their surroundings. So the house is inevitably kept to the woman’s liking, once a woman is present, and the man is expected to do her bidding. An unequal relationship.

The other thing these cyberfeminists never suggest is splitting the bills fifty-fifty. No, men are still supposed to provide. It’s just that women have no responsibilities, only rights.

Given this common sense of privilege among women, relationships with women are no longer a viable option for men. And they hate men on top of it. 

Why Women Can't Find Any Real Men Any More

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The Face that Launched a Thousand Divorces

Power and the Single Girl

Lady MacBeth, by John Singer Sargent

Helen Andrews has suggested that allowing women to dominate in any field or industry is catastrophic, for they will turn any institution “woke.” My interpretation is that they will lose sight of the mission. Hence journalism no longer reliably reports the news, the schools no longer teach, advertisements no longer sell the product, Hollywood no longer entertains, and HR departments no longer hire for merit.

Arguing against this are some obvious historical examples women who have risen to political leadership. Their terms have often been considered by general opinion successful. Moreover, they are conspicuous not for losing their sense of direction, but for standing firm on their principles, sometimes when men around them wilted. One could cite Margaret Thatcher, Giorgia Meloni, Golda Meir, Queen Elizabeth I, Catherine the Great of Russia, Joan of Arc, Indira Gandhi. Maybe Angela Merkel.

However, note that those who stand out as successful have emerged in male-dominated movements and male-dominated times. Margaret Thatcher emerged in the Conservative Party, not Labour. Giorgia Meloni leads the right-wing “Brothers of Italy”—note the name. Golda Meir emerged in a country at war. 

Compare women who have risen mostly for being women. They have been less impressive: Kamala Harris, Kim Campbell, Alexa MacDonough, Julie Payette, others we have forgotten.

Those who rose in “patriarchal” contexts are marked by this as exceptional, not average, women. Exceptional men who emerge from non-traditional backgrounds are also often unusually successful, probably for the same reason: they have demonstrated initiative and a special drive. A Rene Levesque, Benjamin Disraeli, or Winston Churchill emerging from journalism, a Ralph Klein from radio, a Mike Harris from golf, a Ronald Reagan from acting, a Vladimir Zelenskyy from comedy; Donald Trump from real estate and TV. They have demonstrated character.

Moreover: a Chinese student argues that, even if women can be successful in leadership. the professions, or in business, it is still gravely wrong. In doing so, they are acting like men. Just as there is something discreditable about a man acting “gay,” acting in an extravagantly feminine way, there is something discreditable about a woman acting “butch.” It is reasonable, if regrettable, for a man to order his army off to war. It is deeply improper, a betrayal of her nature and rightful role if a woman does the same. Or fires someone, for that matter, or orders someone around.

I think of Shakespeare’s Lady MacBeth:

“... Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
Of direst cruelty. Make thick my blood.
Stop up th’ access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
Th’ effect and it. Come to my woman’s breasts
And take my milk for gall, you murd’ring ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature’s mischief.”

If she does so, she scars her soul, deeply. Lady MacBeth goes mad, after all, and kills herself.

Should Women Vote?

 

The pendulum is swinging with remarkable speed. Now I see some talk of repealing the 19th amendment in the US—that is, the constitutional amendment requiring that states give women the right to vote.

Of course, there are reasons for doing this. The basic principle, so often forgotten, is that our ancestors were not idiots. They had reasons for what they did, and so must have had reasons for restricting the right to vote to men for a hundred years or so. Do we understand their reasons? If not, Chesterton’s rule should have applied: never pull down a fence because you do not know why it is there. You must know why it is there before you pull it down.

Begin with the recent Internet discovery, by informal census, that men on average think of the Romen Empire every day; and this astonishes women, who never do. This shows plainly a basic difference between the male and female mind. Men think in more abstract terms, being concerned for people and things not immediately present—about society as a whole, mankind as  whole, about the distant past and distant future, not just what is immediate to their own lives. For women, in contrast, to cite the proud feminist slogan, “the personal is political.” They are by and large concerned with their own lives and their circle of family and acquaintances. Why would they ever think of the Roman Empire?

In other words, men are more concerned with the health of the community and the greatest good for the greatest number. Women are more likely to distort public priorities to serve special interests. On balance, this is bad for everyone.

It is also in everyone’s interest to accentuate different sex roles. This encourages pairing off, and so is a way to approach the current crisis of depopulation. 

Voting has often been tied to serving in war: by sacrificing their youth and risking their lives for the country, many a group have established their right to participate in government. Most recently, during the Vietnam War, this was the argument for lowering the voting age to 18: if old enough to serve, old enough to vote.

But on this basis, women have not established a right to vote. Nor would we want to ask this of them—women are too valuable to a society as childbearers. It is suicidal to throw them into the front lines. Men fight for the women back home.

All this might not have mattered when women tended to vote the same way as men. However, in recent years, voting tendencies between the sexes have increasingly diverged, raising concern.

Of course, it is probably practically impossible now to pull back the franchise from women—they would have to consent to allow it to happen. We can only hope we have not made a civilization-ending mistake.

The Duty to be Cheerful

A new study has found that depression is contagious. As of course it is; nobody needed a study to know that.

This being true, it is our moral duty to those around us, and especially our intimate partners and our children, to try to keep a stiff upper lip, even if we do not really feel it.

This is perhaps the gravest failing in a wife and mother: to be always complaining. This is the stereotype of the nagging wife, or of the “Jewish mother.” They become a terrible burden on those around them.

It is equally important for the husband and father to stay stoic and not be forever complaining. But men are raised to be stoic, and shunned in society if they whine. Women are indulged. The legend of the Princess and the Pea tells the story. 

Indeed, feminism has legitimized and institutionalized constant female complaining. 

Man the Creator

 Julia James Davis argues that men are better creative artists than women; and her argument makes sense. I just dare not make it as a man. Moreover, it seems objectively true. Most great artists are men.

As she points out, this is no more remarkable than that most great athletes are men. The male body is different from the female body; the male mind is different from the female mind. 

Men are creative; women are receptive. 

Art must express truth to be great. Female artists generally lack a sense of truth, and express only prettiness. Their art tends to be decorative.

Why Rylie Is Unattractive

 

There is a lot of chatter online about Rylie, a girl whom no men were interested in on a reality-TV Mormon dating show. Women are all shocked and offended that no man was interested in her. Men are all in agreement that she was showing all sorts of red flags.

The clip is apparently from at least five years ago. That the discussion comes up now is a sign of current female alarm at men checking out of the courtship and dating scene: MGTOW. 

The fact that female commentators cannot see why Rylie is unattractive shows how alienated the sexes are.

It is not that Rylie is physically unattractive. The sexes are separated by a curtain on the show—they are choosing based on her short self-introduction, not on looks.

The first red flag is that Ryan volunteers to go first. She wants to take the lead. That is unfeminine. She will expect a husband to take the back sea.

The second red flag is that she talks only about herself and her interests. She sounds self-centred and unempathic. 

The third red flag is that her future plans seem to rule out settling down. She is interested in adventure and looking forward to a trip to Australia. The point of courtship is to start a family, not a fling. Especially for a religious guy.

The fourth red flag is that she has expensive hobbies: travel across the globe, scuba diving, sky diving, hosting parties. Is she expecting her husband or boyfriend to fund this?

The fifth red flag is that she likes to party—a party girl. She likes to meet new people. A man marries to have a home and a woman who is always there.

The sixth red flag is that she makes demands right up front: “someone I can trust in and is going to be there for me”; without saying anything about what she offers in return. It is all take and no give. 

The seventh red flag is that she speaks with the feminist lilt: a rising intonation at the end of many sentences. This is a signal that one is not finished speaking: women who use it use it to dominate the conversation and not allow others to speak.

Remarkably, the women commentators see nothing wrong with her pitch or her attitude, and blame the men for not wanting to put their necks in her noose.

And none of them note that one of the men on the reality show was also rejected by all the women. None of them feel sorry for him, or feel he was treated badly. Showing an utter lack of empathy for men.

It all shows why so many men in the developed world are giving up on women. And why nobody is having children any more.

When a Man Loves a Woman

 

“A Complete Unknown,” the Dylan biopic, has reinforced my belief that men love at a deeper level than women do. Men love in technicolour. Women love in black and white, on a flickering cathode tube. 

A man will, in principle and often enough in practice, lose everything for a women. He will give her everything he has. He will die for a woman. 

For women, on the other hand, a relationship is transactional. What is she getting out of it? Can she do better elsewhere?

Ann Landers’ test when a letter writer asked whether they should leave their marriage was: “Are you better off with him or without him?” 

In other words, never mind him, or the kids, what’s in it for you?

This was even pre-feminism. Or at least, Landers was not considered a feminist.

This is shown also by the fact that 70% of divorces are initiated by women. Men will stick it out, for richer or poorer, in sickness or in health. The reason women usually give for leaving is that they felt unfulfilled; that they felt the relationship was holding them back in some way.

Ask Betty Freidan.

The feminist movement said out loud that for a woman a man is only a means to an end, like a bicycle. Does a fish need one? Do you need one? What’s love got to do with it?

Since the increased home automation of the 1950s, if men applied the same test, the answer would have always been no. But for men it is not transactional. They fall in love.

For men, it is about love. For women, it is about being loved. Or as someone once said to me, for women it is just business.

If if you are a man’s first love, or their special love, you are forever the world to them. It is not whether you are the prettiest they ever met. You are all women. You are really the only woman.

I note that male poets and artists invariably have a muse—some idolized women they are creating for. Beatrice, Maryanne Ihlen, Suze Rotolo, Maude Gonne, Lucy, Annabelle Lee, the dark-haired lady of the sonnets … someone. I discover on asking that female poets and artists never do. They write for themselves.

It is a tragedy that women and men are different in this way.

The matter used to be balanced by making divorce difficult, and more difficult for the woman. And by the social expectation that the woman, in exchange for the love and support the man was giving, would show gratitude, respect, and at least public deference.

Sadly, that has been lost, and many lives lost and destroyed as a result.

Good News for Stray Cats

 

It all began, not with the pill, but with the development of mod cons after the Second World War: washing machines, driers, refrigerators, dishwashers, vacuum cleaners. The automation of the household.

At this point women lost their traditional role. Before about the fifties, a woman’s work was a full-time job. A man could not get by alone. If he was not married, and not with his parents, he lived in a boarding house. 

Hugh Hefner capitalized on this change. A man could now manage his own “bachelor pad” and be a playboy. There was no need to marry. Women were just for sex.

At the same time, with automation, women were bored; there was not enough to fill their days. This was what Betty Friedan capitalized on: how boring life was in the suburbs. It is her actual complaint in The Feminine Mystique. 

First they experimented with just making themselves busy by having a lot of children—the Baby Boom. Not good—work had not changed for men. The added financial burden with nothing in it for them drove men further into the Playboy Philosophy. 

So, with Freidan's feminism, women used their free time instead for political agitation. And they demanded careers outside the home to fill their days. 

So why marry? 

The most common and obvious remaining reason, if the marriage .was not for love, was to guarantee regular sex Not a great incentive. 

At this point, women had an advantage over men. Men generally want sex more than women do. It’s genetically programmed. 

Exploiting this advantage, and their free time, feminism was able to run roughshod over men for a generation or two. 

But now that has changed--with the ready availability of porn on the Internet. Men no longer really need women for sex. No doubt live sex is still better, but throw in the draconian laws feminists have imposed making marriage, sex, or any contact with women risky for men.

Women have overplayed their hand.

Young men are beginning to ask, what does a woman bring to the table, making a relationship with them worth the risk?

If the relationship is transactional, it is hard to see an answer. 

For children? Yes, but women are programmed by nature to want children more than men do. They can physically have children with just a one-night stand, but it is hard to raise children on your own.

A man is also still valuable to a woman for protection, and for heavy lifting around the house. Women are simply not as physically strong as men. 

But what does a real woman bring to make a man’s life better anymore? What can she do that he can’t do for himself? What does she bring that is worth the expense and the risk?

Suddenly men have all the chips in this game.

Women do not seem to realize this yet. They have been raised to view themselves as immensely valuable. Just for existing.

The result will be a rapid increase in the number of angry cat ladies, who will wonder what happened.

Family Politics

 

Older readers may get the reference,.

An old saying has it that a happy family is the responsibility of the wife. There is perhaps wisdom in this. We know, that in North America, for example, women are far more likely than men to initiate a divorce. 

This also seems to be the wisdom of the ages as reflected in myth. It is Eve, after all, who upsets the happy family situation in Eden. It is Delilah. It is Pandora in Greek myth who opens the box. Or Psyche who turns on the light. 

This is also the common wisdom of fairy tales. The problem usually comes with the introduction to the family of a wicked mother, or stepmother—not a father or stepfather. Rapunzel, Cinderella, Snow White, Hansel and Gretel.

Women intrinsically have greater power in the family, because they are the ones in control of the premises: they are, in the traditional arrangement, always there. The father and husband is more in the role of a guest. They are also in more constant and intimate contact with the children. The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. If they want to use this power, they can easily alienate the children from their partner.

It is also, broadly, feminism, the women’s movement, that is responsible for the current collapse of the North American family.

It follows, if there is a dysfunctional family, “cherchez la femme.” Most often it is because a mother plays favourites. Granted, there are cases of abusive husbands. But logic and the wisdom of the ages suggests that it is more often the wife and mother, even if this is covert, behind the scenes. Every Narcissus needs his Echo. Men are like dogs. They tend naturally to adore women and seek to make them happy.

The Matriarchy

 

A Chinese student of mine has, for homework, written an essay advocating classes segregated by sex. He rightly points out that the research is overwhelming—both boys and girls learn faster when segregated. 

However, he illogically assumes we never knew this until recently, and that previous sexual segregation in the schools was based on discrimination against women.

Feminist dogma now apparently dominates the world—even China. And it is impossible to disprove, because it is presupposed a priori regardless of evidence.

In earliest times, my student begins, women were given no formal education, because of their low social status.

However, the European ruling classes were also, traditionally, given no formal education. Often they could not read or write. The same was true in India or China. I believe the present King Charles was actually the first member of the British Royal Family to attend university.

This was a job for clerks. An aristocrat, not needing to work for a living, was above such tedious labours.

So the fact that women were traditionally given no formal education might as well be cited as evidence of higher social status. They did not have to work, but could expect to be provided for.

My student then asserts that women were later educated separately from men because they were being discriminated against. This sounded plausible in the early days of feminism because of the US Supreme Court’s rejection of school segregation on racial grounds. “Separate but equal.” But does it apply in the case of the sexes?

It overlooks two other possible explanations. 

Firstly, the moral argument, that having boys and girls mix casually and daily past puberty and before marriage might lead to teenage pregnancy, sexual harassment, emotional upsets, sexual favours, sexual blackmail, and the entire #metoo morass that we currently have to deal with.

Secondly, the obvious one emerging again from current research, that both men and women learn faster when taught apart. The feminist case must assume that our ancestors were profoundly stupid. That is itself a form of prejudice. 

All traditional Chinese philosophy, back to the Classics, endorsed and was based on the idea of the bagua, the harmonious balance of yin and yang forces, being the key to the universe. And yang represented masculine, and yin feminine—they were meant to be in perfect balance.

He’d forgotten all about that. Feminism puts blinders on. It forces historical amnesia.

The same concept is familiar in ancient Indian thought. Perhaps not in Western thought, but I would challenge anyone to find in the Bible any clear assertion that men are superior to women.

The fact that God is portrayed as masculine? But that also implies that the human soul is feminine—as it is in Greek thought.

And if men have indeed dominated women, always and everywhere until modern times, how did they possibly pull it off?

Amusingly, the original argument, back in the early Sixties, were that men were better at cooperating in groups. This is why there was a drive to end "old boys' clubs," to desegregate all-male organizations.

Ironically, feminism now asserts the opposite, that men are naturally competitive, and women naturally cooperative. Yet they do not see that this undermines their entire argument.

It has, perhaps, been replaced by a more crassly materialist idea, than men have been able to control women because men are naturally more physically powerful—at least when it does not come to performing on the job or in a sport. Or in the movies.

But this does not work either. Yes, men are more physically powerful. But women have everywhere and always been in charge of preparing food. Poisoning is easy enough. A man must trust his wife implicitly.

Feminism is obviously false; and yet it rules the world.

Because men are too accustomed to deferring to women, whatever they want.

Cold Distant Victorian Fathers

 

Cold and distant, perhaps, but not a patriarch

Friend Xerxes grudgingly allows that fathers are wrongly devalued in our current culture. Nevertheless, he is concerned about the greater danger of going back to “A cold, distant, Victorian father-knows-best who dispenses periodic packages of moral instruction.”

I wonder if that model of fathering ever existed, or whether it is purely an invention of modern feminism.

My suspicion is initially raised by the “Victorian” reference. Nobody now living is likely to have any experience of a Victorian father. I am in my late sixties; even my grandparents came of age in the Roaring 20’s, in open revolt against anything “Victorian.”

“Victorian” becomes just long enough ago to offer a conveniently blank slate, onto which we can project our prejudices.

But notice the name of that era. One woman, and her social opinions, set the tone then for the English-speaking world, and to a large extent for the world as a whole, for over 60 years. Victorian sentimentality, Victorian romanticism, Victorian aestheticism, could be argued to be distinctly feminine values. Strict rules of etiquette were promoted; again, most often a feminine concern. No room for a “patriarchy” there. The British Empire was literally a matriarchy.

Perhaps there was a patriarchy before 1837? Perhaps; or perhaps male and female roles were balanced for overall equality over the course of the millennia, and the long possession of the throne by a woman upset that balance.

Xerxes’s second example of oppressive patriarchy seems to be a TV show from the 1950s, which he mentions several times iin his original piece: “Father Knows Best.” The title might superficially suggest that, but it was somewhat ironic. The father in that show, played by Robert Young, was, in the words of Wikipedia, a “Caspar Milquetoast” character. Although sensible, even wise, he was generally not listened to by his children; certainly no disciplinarian. The wife and mother, again in the words of Wikipedia, was the “voice of reason.” 

So did this stern, powerful, “cold distant Victorian father-knows-best” ever exist as a social norm? Can you think of an example from literature—that is, in which such a character is cited with approval? I cannot. You might argue for the Biblical patriarchs, but that is not just very far back in time. While they exert great power over their family, it is questionable whether the Bible considers this power a good thing, or condemns it. Every Biblical patriarch, in their treatment of their own family, is portrayed as deeply flawed. 

I wonder too where Xerxes gets the idea that the father’s essential role in the family as spiritual guide and mentor, one which was indeed filled by the father in “Father Knows Best,” implies being “cold” or “distant.”

The obvious model of a spiritual guide and mentor for any Christian is Jesus Christ. Can one describe him in the Gospels as cold or distant? That seems the opposite of the entire point of the incarnation. Would you, for that matter, describe John the Baptist in such terms? St. Paul? St. Peter? Catholic saints in general? Not the descriptors I would use.

What about other religions. Krishna? Rumi? Shams-e Tabrizi? Socrates? The Baal Shem Tov?

What about literary figures? Obi-Wan Kenobi? Yoda? Gandalf? Cold and distant?

Where is that “cold, distant” image coming from—other than, perhaps, feminist anti-male prejudice?

Harassment in the Workplace

 

The original "liberated woman": the Cosmo Girl.

Xerxes, further left as always than Attila the Hun—who was on the left, not the right, in contemporary terms—laments sexual harassment in the workplace. 

He does not blame Mario Cuomo, exactly, for sexual harassment. That would not do. Instead, he lumps him in with Donald Trump and blames “imbalance of power” that puts too many men in authority over women.

Imbalance of power is, of course, inevitable: no organization can exist without organization, and that means levels of authority and chains of command. Imbalance of power between sexes is equally inevitable so long as both sexes are in the workplace.

Is the problem, then, men? Men are more likely to sexually harass than women. Xerxes seems to note this, but does not elaborate. 

This is the result of simple biology. In the state of nature, men’s ideal strategy for spreading their genes is to have sex with as many women as possible. Women’s ideal strategy for spreading their genes is to get one man to commit to them. For men, a sex act is a few minutes. For women at least nine months, probably at least a dozen years. So men are programmed by nature to initiate any sexual encounter: it is up to the woman to say no. Accordingly, men are going to be the ones accused of sexual harassment.

If this is unfair to women in the workplace, it is also unfair to men.

And, of course, the sex game works both ways: a superior can use their power to gain sexual favours. An unscrupulous underling, equally, can use their sexual favours to gain power.

One hopes that good men and good women are above all this, above mixing sex with power. But, aside from the obvious chances of mixed messages and honest misunderstandings, no sane person can simply count on everybody being good.

Can the problem be fixed by having only women in positions of authority? 

It is perfectly naïve to think, or disingenuous to claim, that women are more moral than men; their sexual urges are only expressed in different ways. A female boss is as likely to promote or favour an underling because she finds him attractive, or indeed because they are having a sexual relationship. She will just not initiate it; and will stick to her favourite over the longer term. And, of course, she may penalize other women who are more attractive. 

If we are going to have both men and women in the workplace, there is no way to avoid this problem. If we did not see it coming, when we advocated women in the workplace, we are idiots. In fact, we did foresee it. In the early sixties, when we spoke of “liberated women,” the fundamental premise was “liberated for casual sex.” Getting into the workplace was merely to enable this.

We got what we demanded, and now we pretend to be shocked, shocked!