Sex and the Deep State

The Sixties

A friend sends along this link from American Thinker. A lot of great insights here. Some stuff that had never occurred to me. 

“Our divorce regime is a unilateral divorce regime. Anyone who wants a divorce gets to have one: The State always takes sides with the party who wants the marriage the least. The State incentivizes disloyalty and infidelity between spouses.”

“The injustices of the unilateral divorce regime have been known for a long time. The Deep State could, at any time, enact divorce by mutual consent. Yet, they do not.”

“Delaying childbearing has become the cost of entering the professions. That means many of our most successful and visible and influential people have used contraception or abortion. They literally cannot imagine what their lives would be without it. Journalists, lawyers, foundation officers, business executives, and politicians all join hands to protect the Abortion Industry from skeptics like David Daleiden.”

I do disagree, though, with the basic premise, that the Sexual Revolution was imposed from above by elites in order to seize more power.

I think it came from all of us, and it was far simpler. The attraction was the promise of sex on demand and without consequences. Couldn’t be clearer, really: “free love!”

To make it work, you then had to kill the traditional sex roles and make men and women interchangeable; the traditional roles required that women and men worked in tandem in a family unit. You had to subvert the family generally. Family, commitment to one partner and to children, went directly counter to random access to sex. It became the enemy. 

You also had to go for unrestricted abortion, and then—hey, if murder is okay, where are the limits?

Instead of sin being condemned, now it was “conventional morality,” or any appeal to morality, that was condemned. The whole gay and trans thing has been an attempt to discredit conventional morality as “discriminatory.” So, for that matter, is the overall attack on “Western civilization,” as though it were a blight upon human history. The target is the Judeo-Christian moral tradition.

This rejection of morality was simply more dangerous when embraced by the elites. If morality is no longer a constraint, the elites are free to pursue pure self-interest. They can just go for power and possessions.

It is also in their self-interest, now, to destroy the family, and religious authority, and even thinking for oneself, as rival power centres.

And so here we are.

The Fashion News

Blue? Please. NOBODY wears blue to an inauguration.

Here’s a truly demented piece from the National Post. It is all about what various women were wearing when their husbands were addressing the press in the wake of some scandal.

A striking milestone in the history of trivial thought, surely setting feminism back a few centuries. Who cares about politics? It’s much more interesting to see what colour of dress his wife was wearing…

Its closing is a recommendation that women throw more “hissy fits.”

You go, girl.

Are Women Harassed More than Men on the Internet?

No.

A Brief History of Feminism

Slutwalk, NYC, 2011.

A friend has asked for a brief sketch of the history of feminism. Definitely a worthwhile topic.

The original idea of feminism was to get lots of sex. A “liberated woman,” or “women’s liberation,” originally meant women who did lots of casual bedsurfing. This meaning persists in, for example, feminist objections to Arab women wearing the hijab, or to "slut shaming." This, predictably, made ”feminism” really popular among many young men as well as young women. It was the bait that got feminism past the front door. Women were to get jobs outside the home primarily so they could have sex with whomever they pleased, instead of being “kept” by one partner. Free love and all that. Kids were to be dealt with by “the pill.” “The pill” would change everything.

Part of the justification for more sex for everyone came conveniently from the civil rights movement, happening at the same time. The argument was that abstaining from sex outside of marriage involved a “double standard”: it was socially acceptable for men to have lots of sex, but not for women. (It was, at least, at that moment, in the days of the “Playboy philosophy.”) Based on this, women could claim that they were “discriminated against,” just as the blacks were in the US South. Besides, wasn’t keeping the sexes apart “segregation,” just like keeping blacks and whites apart in the South? Wasn’t that what Brown vs. Board of Education was all about? Free love was a human right!

The analogy with the civil rights movement gave feminism a lot of undeserved prestige by association. It made it socially difficult to oppose it, even if one did not really see the similarity between poor Southern blacks and suburban housewives. Given that any different treatment of blacks and whites had been ruled by the US Supreme Court to be discrimination, feminists held that any different treatment of men and women was also proof of discrimination, and proof that women were oppressed. Holding doors open for women was oppression. Calling them “ladies” was oppression. Just as it became heresy to claim that there was any difference between blacks and whites other than their skin colour, it was heresy to claim that there was any difference between men and women other than the shape of their genitals. Men and women are not different: if they were raised and treated the same way, they would think and act the same.

This was patently ridiculous to anyone who has ever lived on a farm, let alone studied biology. But the claim persists, for example, in the annoying use of the term “gender.” “Gender” is properly a grammatical term. Applied to humans, it involves the assertion that any differences between man and women are purely arbitrary and socially constructed, as gender is in grammar.

A lot of men, and probably also a lot of women, failed to resist feminism at this point precisely because (on top of the promise of sex without responsibility) it was so obviously nuts. I remember back in the day asking a professor why on earth everyone was letting the feminists get away with such crazy, obviously false claims. His response was, “it’s a matter of giving them enough rope to hang themselves.” After all, women would pretty soon find out that being treated in the same way as men was not fun. Would they really be happy with unisex washrooms, no laws against rape, no laws requiring child support, no alimony? Would they be happy being drafted in wars to be shot? Did they really want the responsibility of breadwinning? Did they want to yield their seats on the bus? Did they want affirmative action in the prison population?

Surely not.

And, on the other hand, if they did, why on earth not let them have it?

Of course, they did not. By the early eighties, feminism, seeing the impending cliff clearly enough, had actually denied this foundational premise. “Difference feminism” was born. Now, men and women were indeed quite different. It was therefore quite proper to treat them differently--no, it was required. Women were “ladies” again. They had the right to a seat again. They had a right to maternity leave. The workplace had to be modified to suit them. Child support must be retained and reinforced. Instead of dropping laws against rape, we needed stronger laws against rape. We needed special laws against domestic violence, and so on and on. The essential premise now was that women and men were different, but in a specific way: women were, in all ways, better than men. Men are more violent than women; women are more sensible than men; women are more intelligent than men; women are more nurturing then men; men cause wars; men will not ask for help when they need it; and so forth. Equality was no longer any sort of goal: women's interests were the goal. If it seemed to be to women’s benefit, then equality with men was obligatory. If, on the other hand, equality was not to women’s benefit—in prison populations for example, or child custody—then equality was not to be considered.

Why did nobody blow the whistle at this point? Because by this point, feminism had become dominant, and had instituted a reign of “political correctness.” Nobody like my old professor now dared to challenge its assumptions, because to do so might easily mean the loss of a job or a career, or even prison time.

That is not quite where we are now. After some years of this, some brave women, who because they were women and claimed they were themselves "feminists" were relatively safe from persecution or prosecution, eventually came forward to point out that feminism no longer had any rational justification for its claims. Christina Hoff Sommers and Camille Paglia are two names worth mentioning. After some years of their writings, it is becoming less risky to speak out against feminism, and change may at last come.

It has all followed a course typical of totalitarian movements generally. Which is what it was, and is. "The personal is political," as the feminists used to say.

Notice that, in flipping to “difference feminism,” feminism lost the theoretical basis for claiming that there was discrimination against women in the first place. If men and women are indeed different, then the mere fact that they are treated differently, in our or any other culture, does not prove oppression. It may instead be a symbiotic relationship: women get their meal paid for, say; men get to choose the restaurant. Without this claim of sexual sameness, to make out a case for the oppression of women, you need to demonstrate that, when everything is taken together, men do better in life than women. That case has never been made. It is a pretty tough one to make, but on measures of claimed happiness or life expectancy, the two most obvious measures of “life success,” the truth is that women do consistently better than men--in most or all cultures.

Another matter on which feminism has completely reversed itself is the mechanism by which supposed “patriarchy” has come to be. This has always been a fundamental flaw in the feminist case: if men have been able to consistently dominate and oppress women more or less throughout history, in more or less all cultures, how on earth did they pull it off, given that there are always a roughly equal number of men and women? Of course, for feminists, one obvious answer, that this simply demonstrates that men are indeed superior to women, has to be ruled out of court. So what possibilities are left?

The original explanation feminism offered was that it was about “male bonding.” You may remember “male bonding.” Lionel Tiger and others argued that men had a historical advantage because they had learned to work together in groups; they were better organized. This is why feminism tried so hard to bust up any all-male organizations: the service clubs, the military, the priesthood, all-male schools, and so forth. Yet, in defiance of any concept of equality, at the same time, they founded a variety of women-only organizations.

"Female Muslims: the Tsar took your rights away." Soviet propaganda poster, 1920s.

But this explanation was rejected by the “difference feminists”: for good reason. In the end, if men and women were identical, it made no sense that men should always and everywhere be able to pull off better organization. Fifty percent of the time, the opposite should have occurred.

At the same  time, if men and women are different, the supposed phenomenon of "male bonding" would seem to necessarily mean that men were better at cooperating, at working together, than women. Among other things, that would be an argument for them to retain the executive jobs, wouldn’t it?

 This was unacceptable. Just the reverse must be true: according to “difference feminists,” men are too competitive, whereas women are much better at nurturing others and working in groups.

So how the devil, if they did, did men manage to dominate women throughout history? Theoretically, based on the original feminist theory, this greater tendency to cooperate should have meant that women have been dominating men throughout history.

The answer of difference feminism, to the extent that they have an answer, seems to be that men are more violent, aggressive, and greedy than women. Men have beaten women into submission.

Unfortunately, this still makes no sense. Why shouldn't women in their more efficient groups ever or anywhere have been able to restrain these violent men all working more or less alone? It speaks of incompetence, at best.

Such inherent contradictions are why, in the eighties, feminism moved fast to shut down all dissent. You don’t do that if you believe you have the stronger argument. The tone has become more and more shrill as feminists have become more and more aware that their position makes no sense.

Just Imagine the Sexes Reversed

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/09/02/statutory-rape-victim-child-support/14953965/

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/09/03/child-support-statutory-rape-justice-law-men-column/15044791/

Feminism: The Golden Years

It seems to me that this eventuality was blindingly obvious to anyone forty years ago, and is richly deserved. The tragedy is that so many men and children were dragged down with them:

I am a feminist, I really am (I’ve never let a man pay for anything), but feel the current generation of women in their 60s, the first to abandon the way of life of their mothers, which meant they pursued careers, married and had children late, had affairs then got divorced, all in the name of liberation, are now imprisoned in debt, alcohol abuse and loneliness, wishing they could die, and do it soon.

This Is What a Feminist Looks Like

From Return of Kings.

How the Family Court System Encourages Abuse

From Dr. Helen Smith.

Why the Vote Was Once Restricted to Men

It wasn't just arbitrary discrimination.

The Globe's editorializing rationalizations for why women are less interested than men in politics and current affairs are laughable. Why are men less interested in babies?

The sexes are different. Why does this even need to be pointed out? Has nobody here ever had a girlfriend, wife, sister, or mother?

Why They Hate Us

Spanish woman, 1922

If there was one thing we in the West could do to encourage peace with Islam, it would be to simply return to our own Christian traditions. This would automatically make us much more like Islam. We look instead like a bunch of godless infidels, because, well, that is what we have become.

But not that long ago—say, a hundred years ago—we were a lot more like Muslims. Women up until a little after that time would have covered their hair in public as a matter of course, and a well-bred woman would never have revealed a leg.

Italian woman, early 20th Century.

St. Paul:

“for a woman to pray or prophesy with her head uncovered shows disrespect for her head; it is exactly the same as if she had her hair shaved off. Indeed, if a woman does go without a veil, she should have her hair cut off too; but if it is a shameful thing for a woman to have her hair cut off or shaved off, then she should wear a veil.”

When Europeans dealt with the rest of the world, they saw such modest dress in women as the ultimate mark of civilization. As it is. And I suspect most men would actually prefer it if most women dressed that way. It is so much more feminine.

A hundred years ago, any sex outside marriage would have been a crime. No respectable woman would be found alone with a man to whom she was not married. Catholics, like Muslims, fasted regularly, and, also like Muslims, prayed at several set times a day—the liturgy of the hours. Church bells used to ring the times, just like the Muslim call to prayer. When do you hear church bells ringing any more? In those days, there would have been much less trouble integrating Muslims into Western society; they would have fit right in.

How a lady dresses: Queen Victoria, 1880s.

As it is now, though, when Muslims recoil at Western culture, they recoil for most of the same reasons serious Christians do. If we respected these traditions of our own, it might be easy to negotiate the remaining differences. And, in any case, we would have the moral standing to do so. One cannot honourably negotiate with the devil.

"Not all Rape is Rape"

Also forwarded from Instapundit: the truth about rape.

Domestic Violence

Not news, but another reference regarding the truth about domestic violence. The current legal structure actually enables and encourages it.

Feminism's Kampf

US Army T-shirt design meant to discourage domestic violence.

This study shares the standard flaw in such studies—of asking only one of two sexes about a matter involving both. And of course, it is always the women, not the men, who are asked. This is obviously discriminatory, and obviously distorts the data.

Nevertheless, it shows that domestic violence is twice as likely to be reported by women in two-income households as in households in which only the man works.

No further analysis is needed to say that feminism is directly reponsible for a sharp increase in domestic violence.

This is an example of the problem, previously mentioned on this blog, of conflict caused by a lack of clear job descriptions in a marriage. It's inevitable.

But I think an additional consideration is also present. Women who work outside the home will be women with feminist values, women who have personally embraced the feminist agenda. Part of the feminist thesis is that marriage is purely a power relationship, in which the two sexes are mortal enemies. Rather as Hitler described interstate relations.

You convince people they are in a war, and they are going to act as though they are in a war.

The wonder is that anyone should wonder.

Dr. Helen » Female Teachers give Boys Lower Marks

Dr. Helen » Female Teachers give Boys Lower Marks:



This study hints at a larger point. Male teachers mark students on the basis of their performance; female teachers mark students on whether they like them or not. Constitutionally, women have been shaped by God or blind evolution to be fiercely partisan protectors of their young. They remain fiercely partisan by nature. This makes them ill-equipped to make objective, fair minded judgments. If they decide they like you, you can do no wrong. If they decide they do not like you, you can do no right.

This of course is the obvious explanation why women have not traditionally, in any known human society up to the present, been put in positions of authority over others.

Even feminists—especially feminists—now admit that men and women are not interchangeable but for the dangly bits. Women are better at some things, and men are better at some things.

Women are better at looking after children, because of their fiercely partisan instincts. This would also make them good nurses, for example, or, say, receptionists. They will protect their charge, even beyond what is reasonable. Men are better at leadership roles, because of their lack of partisan instincts. They will be fair, and, if necessary, judicious with scarce resources.

Beginning, then, actually, with leadership of the family. It follows immediately from this that the man is the natural choice in that role. Not to mention roles like judge, teacher, manager, police officer, and so forth. Individual women may excel here, but as a group, it is only to be expected that men will usually be better choices. If we have rough equality, let alone feminine dominance of such fields, we have a serious distortion, and probably a serious problem.

You may think it is demeaning to women to say they are best suited to the role of motherhood and looking after the children.

No; rather, to think that is demeaning to children. That is like saying only the present matters, not the future.

Study Shows Couples Who Share Chores More Likely to Divorce

"The Triumph of Women's Rights" - 1869

This ought to be plain and simple common sense: good fences make good bedfellows.

Just as clear lines of authority and job descriptions are essential for a company to run smoothly, the division of labour is essential for an economy to run smoothly, and a separation of powers is essential for a government to run well, so having clear and distinct spheres of authority, aka “sex roles,” is essential for a marriage.

I mean, obviously: if both are responsible for everything, everything becomes a subject of potential disagreement, irritation, conflict. Neither has any private space or opportunity to be themselves. It also becomes possible for one member of the relationship to completely subjugate the other, if so inclined—or to try to.

"Man as He Expects to Be" - 1869

It’s a perfect plan for breaking up a marriage.

Yet the elimination of traditional sex roles has always been the essential idea behind feminism. And then the divorce rate skyrocketed, and everyone took great pains not to blame it on feminism. At last, fifty years later, some study has, to its reputed surprise, rediscovered what we all knew all along. There is a reason for traditional sex roles.

And it is not the man, note, who is going to divorce because the woman works outside the home or because he has to wash the dishes. In these circumstances, it is far more often the woman who initiates the divorce.

Feminism, on balance, has done more harm to more people than either Fascism or Communism ever did.

A Feminist Writes

Dressing like Mary.

Dear Abbot:

You are so wrong to defend the treatment of women in Saudi Arabia. You are wrong to defend the abaya as simply modest dress. Where do I start? I am 55 years old. I was raised Catholic. No I don't ever remember ever being told to 'dress like Mary'. I remember having a kleenex pinned to my head by nuns in 'habits' before a school outing to mass. Was that done to make a child of six or seven less sexually appealing? Anyway the 'winds of change' swept through the church in the sixties and seventies and even the 'Brides of Christ' no longer cover their hair. Here's the thing. I have no problem with a woman choosing to wear a scarf around her head. What I have a problem with is lack of choice for women or men for that matter. There is something wrong with a system that uses physical punishment to enforce a dress code. And it's not only about dress. For instance women are not allowed out without a male relative escorting them. Do you realize how constricting that would be? And the power that gives to the man? I never said that women could not be held responsible for their own choices. Social pressure is something that both sexes are subject to wherever one lives. It comes with being part of a community. And women in the west are indeed in positions of great power and responsibility now and doing quite well with it thank you very much! I'm not sure of what point you were trying to make about prisons and not sure of the statistics but if there are less women in prison I submit that is because they don't commit as many crimes as men. As for women never being blamed for anything and not accepting risks and responsibilities toward society? I'm not exactly sure what your talking about there. In the west women are allowed to participate and contribute to society and we not only 'expect all the rights and privileges', we have them. That's why I'm proudly a feminist. My generation broke through some pretty sturdy glass ceilings and made things better for the next generation. By the way as soon as women were allowed to join the armed forces they did. It's not that we weren't 'called on' to fight and die for our country...we weren't allowed to. I most definitely do not see women as 'precious fragile icons' and not sure how you surmised that. And I don't think it is really about sex or equality but CONTROL."

Baby Boomer Feminist

The Catholic Mantilla

Dear BBF:

Where do I start?

Let's just take it in order.

If you did not pay attention in Catechism class, that is of no relevance to anyone else.

Of course, as you note, covering the hair of young girls is not something they need at that age. It is part of their education, all of which is intended to be useful to them when they grow up, not right away. This is actually what education means. Some get it, some don't.

Your argument that this is no longer done is irrelevant—I pointed that out myself, and you cannot argue that, just because a thing is so, it must be right, and at the same time demand that current Muslim practices be changed. By your very logic, if they are so, they must be right.

If you are now in favour of choice for women, you must withdraw your original objection to Islam: the argument for the abaya I posted was from a Muslim woman, and you were refusing to allow her that choice. This, at least, is progress. I hope soon you will also be prepared to accept choice for men.

Yes, women have the right to be soldiers, if they decide they want to. Men, by contrast, have the duty to be soldiers, not the choice. They do not, unlike women, have the right to stay home if they prefer. Consider combat deaths. American men killed in Vietnam: around 50,000. American women killed in Vietnam: 6. Interestingly, the women have their own separate monument in the capital; the men don't. Your point will be valid if and when conscription for combat automatically applies to both men and women. 

The Separate Memorial for American Women Who Died in Vietnam, Washington. D.C.

It is actually the same with regard to working outside the home: women have the right to work outside the home, if they decide they want to. Men have the duty to work outside the home, not the choice—though their wives might give it to them. Women, in sum, have rights and no responsibilities; men have responsibilities, and no rights. This is not equality; this is a heightened inequality, in comparison with almost any other human society in history.

As to the statistics on male and female incarceration, which is to say, punishment for crime, the stats are easy to look up on the Internet, if you cared to. Currently in the US, about 7:1. That's a much higher proportion of females than it used to be, apparently for one reason: zero tolerance on drugs. This means judges and prosecutors can no longer give women a bye, at least on those crimes.

You want to argue this is because men actually commit more crimes; let's let you do that, because feminism is in the wrong either way. Then you also have to accept the argument that the disproportion of men in senior executive positions (before governments forced women's promotions) could have been because men are more responsible and more committed to their jobs. You cannot have it both ways--affirmative action when it favours women, and not otherwise—and in the same breath claim to want “equality.” Your position is, instead, all rights and no responsibilities for women; all responsibilities and no rights for men.

Women are allowed out without a male relative in Saudi Arabia; perhaps you were thinking of somewhere else? Possibly Afghanistan under the Taliban? Manhattan before Giuliani? The Wild West? In each of these cases, it may simply be a practical necessity, if one values women's safety over that of men. But stop and think for a minute: if this is constricting for the woman, isn't it at least as constricting for the man, who must drop whatever he wanted to do in order to accompany her? Why see this as something done to women, and not as something done to men? Are you really only concerned with the welfare of women, and whatever is done to men is okay?

And if so, why disguise it all by pretending to want equality? Why not at least be honest about it?

Abbot

The Oppression of Women in Islam

It is a fascinating truth that people don't tend to get things just a little wrong; more often, when they are wrong, they believe close to the perfect opposite of the truth.

One example is the common claim that Muslim women are oppressed by wearing the abaya and chador.

Abaya

In the Arab world, black is the colour of kingship, as purple would be in Northern Europe. Only one man, the king, is permitted to wear black. Black; like every abaya.

Holy Kaaba, Mecca

What else is clothed entirely in black? Ever seen a picture of the Kaaba? As in, the holiest shrine in Islam, the purported centre of the universe.

King Saud

King Faisal

King Abdullah

So, right, Arab culture devalues and oppresses women. Just as it devalues and oppresses the king and God himself.

Arab women also have the right to cover their faces. Men may not; for a man, to do so would be a crime. Now, in Arab/Muslim culture, who else is ritually shown with their face covered or hidden? God, and the prophets.

Not exactly slumming it here, girls, are we?