Thursday, July 29, 2010
Philalethes #16 - Who Stole Feminism? Nobody!
Apparently Ms. Sommers (and a few like her) is smart enough to see that feminism’s success has not brought the matriarchal paradise we were led to expect, and honest enough to be uncomfortable about it; but she’s not ready — not yet, anyway — to admit to herself that this has been no accident. I can sympathise; the truth can be hard. But in the end, either we make the truth our first priority, or we do not. Any “philosophy professor” (according to her book’s flyleaf) should be clear on this point.
As it happens, I have her other book, Who Stole Feminism?, which I picked up when I was working at a newspaper. Haven’t read it, only skimmed, but from the title alone it is clear that the author still “doesn’t get it.” Not surprising — she’s hardly alone, and at least she’s making an effort. But exactly what is she trying to do? Is she really seeking the truth, or (perhaps unconsciously, as women will) hoping that a half-truth will confuse the issue enough to prevent the real truth from coming out?
The truth is, nobody “stole” feminism: it was never anything other than what it is now. The only thing that’s changed is that feminism’s overwhelming success has revealed its true nature to an extent seldom before seen. Indeed, never before has the entire male population of a major civilization been infant-circumcised: savagely tortured, mutilated and crippled, sexually and emotionally, by their own mothers. Truly, feminism is the “Society for Cutting Up Men.”
It is in the very nature of the female mind to want to “have her cake and eat it too.” (Remember “We want it ALL!“?) Ms. Sommers wants to keep the “good parts” of feminism while reforming the rest. It won’t work. There can be no such thing as “feminism lite.” The female appetite — for power, for possession, for solipsistic self-gratification (it is no accident that one of the most successful “women’s magazines” is titled simply SELF) — is in its very nature unlimited; either it is restrained, and we have (some measure of) civilization, or it is not, and we have chaos. Look around.
Imperfect as it was — and everything in this world is imperfect, can never be otherwise — the American Republic created by those awful “dead white males,” George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison and the rest, provided the freest, most prosperous and comfortable life that any women have ever enjoyed in human history. I can remember, as a child growing up in the 1950s, we used to leave our family house’s door unlocked! Can you imagine anyone anywhere in America doing so today? Like it or not, in the bad old days of the “patriarchy,” most women were able to “walk down the street unmolested.”
That the America of the 1950s could have used a lot of improvement is certainly true. Unfortunately, however, instead of building on what we had then, women have used their newfound power — now that American men have been reduced to whimpering slaves — to destroy it. This was no accident, though neither was it exactly intentional. But because female power is fundamentally and overwhelmingly unconscious by nature, its unrestrained, unmodulated exercise could not have produced any other outcome.
The flyleaf of Who Stole Feminism? Says, “A group of zealots, claiming to speak for all women, are promoting a dangerous new agenda that threatens our most cherished ideals and sets women against men in all spheres of life.” This is well stated, but not entirely accurate. The agenda is by no means “new”; the “battle of the sexes” is as old as humanity. The modern “feminist movement,” merely its latest, most successful incarnation, is generally considered to have begun at the 1848 “Seneca Falls Convention,” whose "Declaration of Sentiments" stated:
“The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her.“
Does this not “claim to speak for all women,” and “set women against men in all spheres of life”? Exactly who, then, is the “group of zealots?” That this “Declaration of Sentiments” was a clever pastiche of the Declaration of Independence was not an accident: from the beginning feminism has always been a war against men, based on an absolute denial of the two sexes’ fundamental unity, whose ultimate object must be an absolute severing of the mutual ties of interdependence between them, in the Utopian hope that women will be better off in a world not “ruled” by men, wherein men are at least reduced to docile slaves of Woman’s will, at most (the logical conclusion) eradicated entirely. Make no mistake: both of these outcomes are possible; the first, indeed, has largely been realized. But is this really best for women?
And by the way, if, as the Who Stole Feminism? Blurb seems to imply, it is not a good idea to “set women against men in all spheres of life,” is it still good to do it in some spheres? If so, which ones? Who decides? (My guess is Ms. Sommers would nominate herself, and others like her, to wield that authority.) This is the problem with “feminism lite”: once you start such a war, how can it be contained in only “approved” arenas? When the female fights, Marquis of Queensbury Rules (the “male code” that women find so laughable) do not apply.
Nor is it an accident that the “founding document” of feminism is based on “sentiment” — not, be it noted, on reason. Actually, the entire history of humanity can be reduced to one struggle, between passion and reason: by which shall we rule our lives? Homo “sapiens” and Pan Troglodytes — the common chimpanzee — are 98+% genetically identical. The chimpanzee’s life is ruled by passion; human life, insofar as it may differ from that of the chimpanzee, must be ruled by reason.
The real truth, to paraphrase from the feminist declaration above, is this: “The history of humankind is a history of constant struggle with our own animal — i.e. chimpanzee — nature, having in direct object the establishment of some form of life not entirely ruled by blind, unconscious Mother Nature.” The sole reason for the historical “domination” of males in human culture is that males — because they are not so totally ruled by Nature’s imperatives as are females — are, on average, slightly more able to restrain the rule of passion in their own minds and lives, and thus slightly more able to devote time and energy to the development of reason, which alone makes possible the invention of what little we have that distinguishes human life from chimpanzee life. Including, inter alia, the “philosophy” whereof Ms. Sommers is a “professor” — and the very ideas of human individual worth, dignity and freedom which the feminists use to advance their appeals for evermore special privileges.
The real truth — the Big Secret — is that it is Woman who truly rules the world (this world, anyway), and that any idea of “equality” between the sexes is utterly nonsensical. How can the creature be considered “equal” to his Creator? But the irreducible paradox of life in this world is that in creating man, Woman has externalized that part of herself which offers her the most hope of escaping from the endless wheel of suffering that is worldly existence. Thus the instinctive pride a woman feels on giving birth to a son. Note that the universal image of Madonna and Child is of a mother and her son — not her daughter. If the latter, it would be meaningless, merely another turn of the wheel, nothing new, nothing different. The mother-son relationship is the beginning of everything that matters in our world; its relative health or pathology is the measure of the possibility of human progress.
This is the real reason for the “dominance” of men in human history: to serve women’s needs, both proximate (the invention of the washing machine, etc., etc.) and ultimate (the seeking and finding, through reason, of the means of liberation from the endless suffering of earthly life taught by men like the Buddha). As one honest woman, gadfly Camille Paglia, put it: “If the development of civilization had been left up to women, we’d still be living in grass huts.” (Note again: the feminist “Declaration of Sentiments” was adapted from a document created by men.) This is not a value judgement; it is simply an observation of reality.
It is worth noting that the feminist “Declaration of Sentiments” appeared concurrently with the Communist Manifesto (1848). Both are products of the same kind of thinking: superficial, short-sighted, earthbound, materialistic, utopian (from the Greek: ou-topos, “no place”) efforts to create an “earthly paradise” by forcibly moving the furniture around, without any effort to understand, much less address, the real causes of our suffering. It is not an accident that the century wherein women first began exercising overt political power (as distinct from the covert, total power they have always had and can never lose) also saw the greatest manifestations of collectivist mass hysteria (need we explore the etymology of this word?) — And mass suffering — in human history. Again, not an accident that the first and so-far only worldwide feminist convention was hosted in Beijing; feminism and communism are spiritual sisters. (I was not surprised to learn recently that Simone de Beauvoir, author of the feminist bible The Second Sex, was an ardent Maoist, who applauded the “Cultural Revolution.”)
If Ms. Sommers really is a “philosophy professor,” I would expect her to seek to understand a phenomenon by examining its essential principle, rather than wasting time on myriad superficial manifestations. The essence of feminism is inherent in its very name: it is concerned exclusively with women (Latin: femina), not with humanity as a whole. Feminism necessarily sees the sexes as at war — and why start a war if you don’t mean to win? Let us be clear: if it is to be war, then women cannot lose. Ultimately, in the game of life in this world, men may hold some of the cards, but women own the deck. But does one hand truly “win” by cutting off the other?
Now, it may be true that women could exist without men, while men certainly could not exist without women (“equality”?) — But what kind of existence would that be? In fact, a considerable number of species have taken this evolutionary path: they’ve simply stopped producing males, and now consist entirely of females. But they’ve also ceased to evolve; secure in their ecological niches, they’re dead ends.
An ex-lesbian once told me she gave it up because the exclusive company of women bored her out of her head. I’m a little slow; only later did I realize she was, rather clumsily, attempting to attract my interest. She went on to tell me how proud she was of her little son (conceived by anonymous artificial insemination), for staunchly maintaining among his preschool peers that fathers were unnecessary. What exactly was she trying to tell me, I wondered? What do women want, anyway? (Pace, Dr. Freud.) Sorry, not my type.
What do women want? Look around: what you see is what women want, because it is what they have made by their (mostly unconscious) use of their creative power. If the women of a culture want their men to be strong, physically, morally, intellectually, they will have strong men. Present-day American women want their men weak, indecisive, “sensitive,” easily controlled and manipulated, and that is what they have. So it has always been, in every dying civilization. If they want it different, they can have it different, but merely hating men for being what they have made us will not make any difference. It is, indeed, exactly how we have gotten to where we are now.
Yes, indeed, men are terribly imperfect. But, after all, where do men come from? I offer this bargain to any woman: when women are perfect, men will be perfect also. In fact, this is an ironclad prediction. Until then, however, we’ll just have to make do with what we have. That both sexes would be wise to tender more respect to the other is certainly true; but like everything else, this must begin with women. Very few women I know have any real respect for men — their own sons, every one of us. They treat us like the lapdogs whose ears and tails they crop to suit their sick fashion whims. They regard us with contempt while enjoying all the comforts of the civilization we created for them — from flush toilets to computers. Why value what you can always make more of — what, indeed, you have already produced to excess? Front men, fall guys, whipping boys and endless cannon fodder.
True, males exist to serve females’ needs; but we are also human beings. And even if we were not, the Golden Rule still applies; even an all-female Congress cannot “repeal” this Law. Now and forever, you get what you give.
.
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As it happens, I have her other book, Who Stole Feminism?, which I picked up when I was working at a newspaper. Haven’t read it, only skimmed, but from the title alone it is clear that the author still “doesn’t get it.” Not surprising — she’s hardly alone, and at least she’s making an effort. But exactly what is she trying to do? Is she really seeking the truth, or (perhaps unconsciously, as women will) hoping that a half-truth will confuse the issue enough to prevent the real truth from coming out?
The truth is, nobody “stole” feminism: it was never anything other than what it is now. The only thing that’s changed is that feminism’s overwhelming success has revealed its true nature to an extent seldom before seen. Indeed, never before has the entire male population of a major civilization been infant-circumcised: savagely tortured, mutilated and crippled, sexually and emotionally, by their own mothers. Truly, feminism is the “Society for Cutting Up Men.”
It is in the very nature of the female mind to want to “have her cake and eat it too.” (Remember “We want it ALL!“?) Ms. Sommers wants to keep the “good parts” of feminism while reforming the rest. It won’t work. There can be no such thing as “feminism lite.” The female appetite — for power, for possession, for solipsistic self-gratification (it is no accident that one of the most successful “women’s magazines” is titled simply SELF) — is in its very nature unlimited; either it is restrained, and we have (some measure of) civilization, or it is not, and we have chaos. Look around.
Imperfect as it was — and everything in this world is imperfect, can never be otherwise — the American Republic created by those awful “dead white males,” George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison and the rest, provided the freest, most prosperous and comfortable life that any women have ever enjoyed in human history. I can remember, as a child growing up in the 1950s, we used to leave our family house’s door unlocked! Can you imagine anyone anywhere in America doing so today? Like it or not, in the bad old days of the “patriarchy,” most women were able to “walk down the street unmolested.”
That the America of the 1950s could have used a lot of improvement is certainly true. Unfortunately, however, instead of building on what we had then, women have used their newfound power — now that American men have been reduced to whimpering slaves — to destroy it. This was no accident, though neither was it exactly intentional. But because female power is fundamentally and overwhelmingly unconscious by nature, its unrestrained, unmodulated exercise could not have produced any other outcome.
The flyleaf of Who Stole Feminism? Says, “A group of zealots, claiming to speak for all women, are promoting a dangerous new agenda that threatens our most cherished ideals and sets women against men in all spheres of life.” This is well stated, but not entirely accurate. The agenda is by no means “new”; the “battle of the sexes” is as old as humanity. The modern “feminist movement,” merely its latest, most successful incarnation, is generally considered to have begun at the 1848 “Seneca Falls Convention,” whose "Declaration of Sentiments" stated:
“The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her.“
Does this not “claim to speak for all women,” and “set women against men in all spheres of life”? Exactly who, then, is the “group of zealots?” That this “Declaration of Sentiments” was a clever pastiche of the Declaration of Independence was not an accident: from the beginning feminism has always been a war against men, based on an absolute denial of the two sexes’ fundamental unity, whose ultimate object must be an absolute severing of the mutual ties of interdependence between them, in the Utopian hope that women will be better off in a world not “ruled” by men, wherein men are at least reduced to docile slaves of Woman’s will, at most (the logical conclusion) eradicated entirely. Make no mistake: both of these outcomes are possible; the first, indeed, has largely been realized. But is this really best for women?
And by the way, if, as the Who Stole Feminism? Blurb seems to imply, it is not a good idea to “set women against men in all spheres of life,” is it still good to do it in some spheres? If so, which ones? Who decides? (My guess is Ms. Sommers would nominate herself, and others like her, to wield that authority.) This is the problem with “feminism lite”: once you start such a war, how can it be contained in only “approved” arenas? When the female fights, Marquis of Queensbury Rules (the “male code” that women find so laughable) do not apply.
Nor is it an accident that the “founding document” of feminism is based on “sentiment” — not, be it noted, on reason. Actually, the entire history of humanity can be reduced to one struggle, between passion and reason: by which shall we rule our lives? Homo “sapiens” and Pan Troglodytes — the common chimpanzee — are 98+% genetically identical. The chimpanzee’s life is ruled by passion; human life, insofar as it may differ from that of the chimpanzee, must be ruled by reason.
The real truth, to paraphrase from the feminist declaration above, is this: “The history of humankind is a history of constant struggle with our own animal — i.e. chimpanzee — nature, having in direct object the establishment of some form of life not entirely ruled by blind, unconscious Mother Nature.” The sole reason for the historical “domination” of males in human culture is that males — because they are not so totally ruled by Nature’s imperatives as are females — are, on average, slightly more able to restrain the rule of passion in their own minds and lives, and thus slightly more able to devote time and energy to the development of reason, which alone makes possible the invention of what little we have that distinguishes human life from chimpanzee life. Including, inter alia, the “philosophy” whereof Ms. Sommers is a “professor” — and the very ideas of human individual worth, dignity and freedom which the feminists use to advance their appeals for evermore special privileges.
The real truth — the Big Secret — is that it is Woman who truly rules the world (this world, anyway), and that any idea of “equality” between the sexes is utterly nonsensical. How can the creature be considered “equal” to his Creator? But the irreducible paradox of life in this world is that in creating man, Woman has externalized that part of herself which offers her the most hope of escaping from the endless wheel of suffering that is worldly existence. Thus the instinctive pride a woman feels on giving birth to a son. Note that the universal image of Madonna and Child is of a mother and her son — not her daughter. If the latter, it would be meaningless, merely another turn of the wheel, nothing new, nothing different. The mother-son relationship is the beginning of everything that matters in our world; its relative health or pathology is the measure of the possibility of human progress.
This is the real reason for the “dominance” of men in human history: to serve women’s needs, both proximate (the invention of the washing machine, etc., etc.) and ultimate (the seeking and finding, through reason, of the means of liberation from the endless suffering of earthly life taught by men like the Buddha). As one honest woman, gadfly Camille Paglia, put it: “If the development of civilization had been left up to women, we’d still be living in grass huts.” (Note again: the feminist “Declaration of Sentiments” was adapted from a document created by men.) This is not a value judgement; it is simply an observation of reality.
It is worth noting that the feminist “Declaration of Sentiments” appeared concurrently with the Communist Manifesto (1848). Both are products of the same kind of thinking: superficial, short-sighted, earthbound, materialistic, utopian (from the Greek: ou-topos, “no place”) efforts to create an “earthly paradise” by forcibly moving the furniture around, without any effort to understand, much less address, the real causes of our suffering. It is not an accident that the century wherein women first began exercising overt political power (as distinct from the covert, total power they have always had and can never lose) also saw the greatest manifestations of collectivist mass hysteria (need we explore the etymology of this word?) — And mass suffering — in human history. Again, not an accident that the first and so-far only worldwide feminist convention was hosted in Beijing; feminism and communism are spiritual sisters. (I was not surprised to learn recently that Simone de Beauvoir, author of the feminist bible The Second Sex, was an ardent Maoist, who applauded the “Cultural Revolution.”)
If Ms. Sommers really is a “philosophy professor,” I would expect her to seek to understand a phenomenon by examining its essential principle, rather than wasting time on myriad superficial manifestations. The essence of feminism is inherent in its very name: it is concerned exclusively with women (Latin: femina), not with humanity as a whole. Feminism necessarily sees the sexes as at war — and why start a war if you don’t mean to win? Let us be clear: if it is to be war, then women cannot lose. Ultimately, in the game of life in this world, men may hold some of the cards, but women own the deck. But does one hand truly “win” by cutting off the other?
Now, it may be true that women could exist without men, while men certainly could not exist without women (“equality”?) — But what kind of existence would that be? In fact, a considerable number of species have taken this evolutionary path: they’ve simply stopped producing males, and now consist entirely of females. But they’ve also ceased to evolve; secure in their ecological niches, they’re dead ends.
An ex-lesbian once told me she gave it up because the exclusive company of women bored her out of her head. I’m a little slow; only later did I realize she was, rather clumsily, attempting to attract my interest. She went on to tell me how proud she was of her little son (conceived by anonymous artificial insemination), for staunchly maintaining among his preschool peers that fathers were unnecessary. What exactly was she trying to tell me, I wondered? What do women want, anyway? (Pace, Dr. Freud.) Sorry, not my type.
What do women want? Look around: what you see is what women want, because it is what they have made by their (mostly unconscious) use of their creative power. If the women of a culture want their men to be strong, physically, morally, intellectually, they will have strong men. Present-day American women want their men weak, indecisive, “sensitive,” easily controlled and manipulated, and that is what they have. So it has always been, in every dying civilization. If they want it different, they can have it different, but merely hating men for being what they have made us will not make any difference. It is, indeed, exactly how we have gotten to where we are now.
Yes, indeed, men are terribly imperfect. But, after all, where do men come from? I offer this bargain to any woman: when women are perfect, men will be perfect also. In fact, this is an ironclad prediction. Until then, however, we’ll just have to make do with what we have. That both sexes would be wise to tender more respect to the other is certainly true; but like everything else, this must begin with women. Very few women I know have any real respect for men — their own sons, every one of us. They treat us like the lapdogs whose ears and tails they crop to suit their sick fashion whims. They regard us with contempt while enjoying all the comforts of the civilization we created for them — from flush toilets to computers. Why value what you can always make more of — what, indeed, you have already produced to excess? Front men, fall guys, whipping boys and endless cannon fodder.
True, males exist to serve females’ needs; but we are also human beings. And even if we were not, the Golden Rule still applies; even an all-female Congress cannot “repeal” this Law. Now and forever, you get what you give.
.
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Monday, July 26, 2010
Philalethes #15 - Women Are Out of Control In Our Culture
Some years back I came across this bumper sticker (“MEN ARE NOT PIGS! Pigs are intelligent, sensitive, sweet and caring beings.“)This was not long after I saw in a shop window a rubber stamp that read ABORTION IS HARMFUL TO WOMEN / LEGALIZE CASTRATION. I went inside and inquired of the shopkeeper about the stamp, which I found also displayed on a shelf. “Some people find it funny,” she said. I wrote a letter of protest to the store owner (a woman), quoting another joke I’d heard (“Old enough to bleed, old enough to butcher.“) and asking if she found it “funny.” Curiously, I received no reply. Last I looked, the rubber stamp was still on sale.
I don’t think this kind of thing will ever end. It has become clear that even in the most intelligent, kind, gentle, even enlightened woman there is an underlying stratum of resentment against men that is never penetrated by reason. I have yet to encounter a woman whose first, involuntary reaction to this kind of “humour” is not amusement — perhaps quickly suppressed, but it’s always there.
I don’t really get angry about it any more. What’s the point? It’s like being upset about the weather, or other Acts of Nature. Women are as they are; it’s a fool’s errand to expect them to be like men, to understand that “equal treatment” really means something besides a way to wheedle everything they can get out of men. When a woman appeals to principle, it’s only a device, to get a man to do what she wants; the idea that a principle is something that applies to all equally, that might limit her activity as well as a man’s, is completely foreign to her mind. She knows instinctively that her innate power, derived from the power of Nature Herself, absolutely trumps anything a man can come up with. After all, she created him, did she not?
What she doesn’t understand, what never occurs to her without male assistance, is that the ultimate result of the use of her power will be her own suffering. This is why the Buddha, and every other great teacher of liberation from suffering, was a man. Woman on her own can’t get out of the prison of suffering life.
The bottom line is: there is no such thing as “equality” between the sexes. It is a chimera, a mythical beast, a political tool used by women — on average much more clever than men, as Harry Belafonte (“Dat’s right! De woman is uh! smatah!“), among many others, noted — and fundamentally lacking the innate sense of scruple that even the most corrupted man possesses — to fool and manipulate men by appealing to our sense of “reasonableness.”
Lead, or follow. There cannot be two drivers at the wheel, two hands on the tiller. Either our activity is guided by Reason, or it is propelled by Passion. And the life ruled by Passion is the life of suffering, no matter how attractive it may seem in the (very) short term.
Women in our culture are completely out of control. They have taken over the lead, but they really don’t know where they are going. They are no longer restrained and guided by men, and self-restraint is unknown to the female mind. The other day I saw an overweight teenage girl wearing a sleeveless tee-shirt that said “It’s all about ME. Deal with it.” Which I thought summed up feminism neatly and for all time.
“If you allow them [women] to pull away restraints and put themselves on an equality with their husbands, do you imagine that you will be able to tolerate them? From the moment that they become your fellows, they will become your masters.” Marcus Porcius Cato (the Elder, aka the Censor), 234-149 BCE
.
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I don’t think this kind of thing will ever end. It has become clear that even in the most intelligent, kind, gentle, even enlightened woman there is an underlying stratum of resentment against men that is never penetrated by reason. I have yet to encounter a woman whose first, involuntary reaction to this kind of “humour” is not amusement — perhaps quickly suppressed, but it’s always there.
I don’t really get angry about it any more. What’s the point? It’s like being upset about the weather, or other Acts of Nature. Women are as they are; it’s a fool’s errand to expect them to be like men, to understand that “equal treatment” really means something besides a way to wheedle everything they can get out of men. When a woman appeals to principle, it’s only a device, to get a man to do what she wants; the idea that a principle is something that applies to all equally, that might limit her activity as well as a man’s, is completely foreign to her mind. She knows instinctively that her innate power, derived from the power of Nature Herself, absolutely trumps anything a man can come up with. After all, she created him, did she not?
What she doesn’t understand, what never occurs to her without male assistance, is that the ultimate result of the use of her power will be her own suffering. This is why the Buddha, and every other great teacher of liberation from suffering, was a man. Woman on her own can’t get out of the prison of suffering life.
The bottom line is: there is no such thing as “equality” between the sexes. It is a chimera, a mythical beast, a political tool used by women — on average much more clever than men, as Harry Belafonte (“Dat’s right! De woman is uh! smatah!“), among many others, noted — and fundamentally lacking the innate sense of scruple that even the most corrupted man possesses — to fool and manipulate men by appealing to our sense of “reasonableness.”
Lead, or follow. There cannot be two drivers at the wheel, two hands on the tiller. Either our activity is guided by Reason, or it is propelled by Passion. And the life ruled by Passion is the life of suffering, no matter how attractive it may seem in the (very) short term.
Women in our culture are completely out of control. They have taken over the lead, but they really don’t know where they are going. They are no longer restrained and guided by men, and self-restraint is unknown to the female mind. The other day I saw an overweight teenage girl wearing a sleeveless tee-shirt that said “It’s all about ME. Deal with it.” Which I thought summed up feminism neatly and for all time.
“If you allow them [women] to pull away restraints and put themselves on an equality with their husbands, do you imagine that you will be able to tolerate them? From the moment that they become your fellows, they will become your masters.” Marcus Porcius Cato (the Elder, aka the Censor), 234-149 BCE
.
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Friday, July 23, 2010
Philalethes #14 - Hyphenate Them Any Way You Want, A Feminist is a Feminist is a Feminist
I’m sorry, I won’t be joining the pathetically eager Wendy McElroy fan club. She may be a “kinder, gentler” dominatrix, but you can be sure she still holds the whip. Can’t anyone see what’s happening here? Even if some “tide” is turning, it’s still women who hold all the power, and use it solely at their whim.
McElroy writes, “My point is that our cultural assumptions have shifted.” What do you mean “our,” white woman? My “assumptions” haven’t “shifted”; it’s always been plain to me that Naomi Wolfe and all her myriad “sisters” are idiots. What she means by “our” is the consensus among white, Anglo/Jewish North American women. Men, men’s thoughts and opinions, men’s welfare or abuse, don’t count except insofar as they may affect men’s fitness to meet the needs of women. This is nothing but an argument between factions of women about how men should best be managed.
Have you not noticed that this is the case in all the current ferment over what is feminism, who is a feminist, etc.? It’s a big coffee klatch, a room full of women, all talking at once at top volume. (One of the biggest lies of feminism is what I call the Myth of Sisterhood — that all women think alike. The truth is all wars are between factions of women, using men as proxies: front men, fall guys, whipping boys, cannon fodder.) When — if — they figure it out, they’ll let us know what our role is to be.
Note that every one of the “critics” and “sceptics” she quotes or refers to are women. Not a single man. Men’s opinions of Naomi Wolf are irrelevant; this is an issue — like all issues of any importance — to be decided by Woman, alone in Her Perfect Wisdom.
Women are notoriously, eternally creatures of mood, whim and impulse; change is their natural element. If you faint with gratitude to see her changing her mind today and allowing that men — some men, at least — should be treated a little better, what will you do tomorrow when she exercises her eternal prerogative and changes it again?
She will, you know. She gets bored easily. Very easily.
The idea that justice should be based on standards that do not change is a product of the male mind, and foreign to the female, for whom how she “feels” at any given moment is the absolute, final standard of judgment.
Another element of the male mind, much ridiculed and complained of by females, is the faculty of discrimination, whence comes the understanding that in some matters (everything, in fact, that matters in human life) you can’t have your cake and eat it too. We must make choices. One of those choices is which part of our nature shall rule our lives: emotion or reason? It’s either one or the other; no “equality” is possible. It’s women’s hatred of and refusal to acknowledge that choice that is the bedrock of feminism. You heard what they yelled: “We want it all!” They were not kidding.
One way you can always tell a feminist, even the “kinder, gentler” variety: she refuses to use her “husband’s name. I know, women will fume and spit about this, but I’ve found it to be a good indicator of where a woman really stands. I know intelligent, powerful women, clearly dominant in many respects in their marriage situations, who nonetheless identify themselves as their husbands’ wives; this does not diminish their real power in any way, but seems to constitute an acknowledgement, subtle (and often not consciously understood by the woman herself) but real, that she is not the be-all and end-all of creation. That there is a natural hierarchy, and that, for human life to be human, reason must be acknowledged the master of emotion.
“Individualist” feminism is really the ultimate form of the disease, woman usurping not only man but God as well. “I am Me, I don’t need anything or anyone, no one can tell me what to do, and I can do anything I want!” It is precisely because Woman is naturally subjective and narcissistic that sane cultures have placed man in charge.
“If you allow them [women] to pull away restraints and put themselves on an equality with their husbands, do you imagine that you will be able to tolerate them? From the moment that they become your fellows, they will become your masters.” Marcus Porcius Cato (the Elder, aka the Censor), 234-149 BCE
Read this quote again: it is not a joke, it is simply the truth. There is no “equality”; one or the other must be the final authority. And the prediction has come to pass, as evidenced by the common response of “men” here to Wendy McElroy. American “men” in our time are really boys, expectantly awaiting Mother’s judgment, pathetically grateful when she deigns to withhold the lash.
Boys are males who are subject to women; men are males who have graduated from childhood, that state that is naturally under female authority, and become capable and worthy of caring for and managing women and children. This “graduation” is another kind of birth, and in our culture it has been aborted wholesale (not by accident that abortion is the “sacrament” of feminism), so that boys do not grow into men, and thus women can be “free” — which in practice means totally out of control, along with every imaginable social pathology. Look around; it is all of a piece.
Probably nothing can be done about this; the disease, like every historical case of social degeneration and collapse, must run its course. Perhaps no one who reads this will be capable of understanding, but here it is anyway: the truth.
Hyphenate them any way you want, a feminist is a feminist is a feminist.
Previous Philalethes Index Next
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Further Reading:
Philalethes #1 – Feminist Allies?
McElroy writes, “My point is that our cultural assumptions have shifted.” What do you mean “our,” white woman? My “assumptions” haven’t “shifted”; it’s always been plain to me that Naomi Wolfe and all her myriad “sisters” are idiots. What she means by “our” is the consensus among white, Anglo/Jewish North American women. Men, men’s thoughts and opinions, men’s welfare or abuse, don’t count except insofar as they may affect men’s fitness to meet the needs of women. This is nothing but an argument between factions of women about how men should best be managed.
Have you not noticed that this is the case in all the current ferment over what is feminism, who is a feminist, etc.? It’s a big coffee klatch, a room full of women, all talking at once at top volume. (One of the biggest lies of feminism is what I call the Myth of Sisterhood — that all women think alike. The truth is all wars are between factions of women, using men as proxies: front men, fall guys, whipping boys, cannon fodder.) When — if — they figure it out, they’ll let us know what our role is to be.
Note that every one of the “critics” and “sceptics” she quotes or refers to are women. Not a single man. Men’s opinions of Naomi Wolf are irrelevant; this is an issue — like all issues of any importance — to be decided by Woman, alone in Her Perfect Wisdom.
Women are notoriously, eternally creatures of mood, whim and impulse; change is their natural element. If you faint with gratitude to see her changing her mind today and allowing that men — some men, at least — should be treated a little better, what will you do tomorrow when she exercises her eternal prerogative and changes it again?
She will, you know. She gets bored easily. Very easily.
The idea that justice should be based on standards that do not change is a product of the male mind, and foreign to the female, for whom how she “feels” at any given moment is the absolute, final standard of judgment.
Another element of the male mind, much ridiculed and complained of by females, is the faculty of discrimination, whence comes the understanding that in some matters (everything, in fact, that matters in human life) you can’t have your cake and eat it too. We must make choices. One of those choices is which part of our nature shall rule our lives: emotion or reason? It’s either one or the other; no “equality” is possible. It’s women’s hatred of and refusal to acknowledge that choice that is the bedrock of feminism. You heard what they yelled: “We want it all!” They were not kidding.
One way you can always tell a feminist, even the “kinder, gentler” variety: she refuses to use her “husband’s name. I know, women will fume and spit about this, but I’ve found it to be a good indicator of where a woman really stands. I know intelligent, powerful women, clearly dominant in many respects in their marriage situations, who nonetheless identify themselves as their husbands’ wives; this does not diminish their real power in any way, but seems to constitute an acknowledgement, subtle (and often not consciously understood by the woman herself) but real, that she is not the be-all and end-all of creation. That there is a natural hierarchy, and that, for human life to be human, reason must be acknowledged the master of emotion.
“Individualist” feminism is really the ultimate form of the disease, woman usurping not only man but God as well. “I am Me, I don’t need anything or anyone, no one can tell me what to do, and I can do anything I want!” It is precisely because Woman is naturally subjective and narcissistic that sane cultures have placed man in charge.
“If you allow them [women] to pull away restraints and put themselves on an equality with their husbands, do you imagine that you will be able to tolerate them? From the moment that they become your fellows, they will become your masters.” Marcus Porcius Cato (the Elder, aka the Censor), 234-149 BCE
Read this quote again: it is not a joke, it is simply the truth. There is no “equality”; one or the other must be the final authority. And the prediction has come to pass, as evidenced by the common response of “men” here to Wendy McElroy. American “men” in our time are really boys, expectantly awaiting Mother’s judgment, pathetically grateful when she deigns to withhold the lash.
Boys are males who are subject to women; men are males who have graduated from childhood, that state that is naturally under female authority, and become capable and worthy of caring for and managing women and children. This “graduation” is another kind of birth, and in our culture it has been aborted wholesale (not by accident that abortion is the “sacrament” of feminism), so that boys do not grow into men, and thus women can be “free” — which in practice means totally out of control, along with every imaginable social pathology. Look around; it is all of a piece.
Probably nothing can be done about this; the disease, like every historical case of social degeneration and collapse, must run its course. Perhaps no one who reads this will be capable of understanding, but here it is anyway: the truth.
Hyphenate them any way you want, a feminist is a feminist is a feminist.
Previous Philalethes Index Next
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Further Reading:
Philalethes #1 – Feminist Allies?
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Philalethes #13 - A Letter to Devvy Kidd
(In response to Devvy Kidd's article, Where Have All The Men Gone?)
Dear Devvy Kidd,
I was most interested recently to come across your article “Where Have All the ‘Men’ gone?” which was referenced on a site concerned with what are nowadays being called “men’s issues.” I note this article first appeared over nine months ago; I don’t know what kind of response/s you may have had, but would like to add my own.
I’ve heard of you before, through my own involvement in the “constitutionalist/patriot” movement, and while I haven’t followed your activities closely, I’ve had the impression you’ve been doing valuable work, alerting and educating the American people to the peril we face–in particular your role in the awakening of ex-IRS agent Joe Banister, among, I’m sure, many others. I’ve heard you on one or another shortwave radio program, and taken a couple looks at your web site. So I was intrigued to see you pop up on a site whose general political orientation tends to be (due mostly to ignorance, I feel) rather different than yours, or mine, on such issues.
Born during the Second Great War (while my father was away defending hearth and home–and Standard Oil’s profits, though he didn’t know it at the time), raised in the liberal atmosphere of a southern California university community, an avid experimenter with psychedelics in the 1960s, as well as “draft-dodger,” all-around hippie and long-term student of Oriental wisdom traditions, I was until about age 40 a fairly typical example of the feminist/socialist revolution’s effect on American culture: a regular “Sensitive New Age Guy.”
However, I also had the advantage of having had a father who was one of the fast-vanishing type of American men who thought for himself, was a real truth-seeker, and understood about freedom and responsibility. (He came home to a war with his wife, which she naturally won, assigning him the role of bogeyman and turning his children against him. Nevertheless, at least I had a father.) He taught me, mostly by a kind of osmosis, to “question authority”–enough that not only did I question the same authorities that so many in my generation questioned, I also continued questioning after most in my generation simply accepted yet another authority–the feminist/communist orthodoxy that is if anything even more rigid and stultifying than the one we originally rebelled against.
Thus, when at about age 40 I came across the work of Irwin Schiff, Tupper Saussy and others I was open enough to recognize almost immediately that they were making a lot better sense than anything I’d been taught before about political, economic and social issues. I immediately quit paying at least the major taxes for which I was not legally (or morally) liable, and have continued studying and learning in the twenty years since. Which was why your name was familiar to me when it appeared on the Mensactivism site.
What’s interesting to me about your article is that, although I know you disagree emphatically with all (or nearly all) the aims of the femmunist movement, you clearly agree with them on the one basic issue that I would consider the very cornerstone of their whole ideology: the idea that men, a mysterious species totally foreign to women (as in “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus”), rule the world, and women are merely their innocent, powerless victims. Thus, frustrated (understandably) in your efforts to awaken the American people, you resort, as women have since the Beginning, to castigating men.
Unfortunately, it won’t work. The premise is false, so any action based thereon will be fruitless.
The truth is, regardless of appearances, it is women who truly rule the world. This has always been so; it will always be so. Human males, like males of all species, are created by females for purposes of their own: to provide services which they cannot or prefer not to do for themselves. Including, e.g., the rapid evolution enabled by genetic roulette; taking out the garbage; fighting wars to capture (or defend) territory and assets whose possession provides for the comfort of women and their children; etc. etc.
And, occasionally, when asked, the ability to think clearly and dispassionately about issues of import, simply because men, at one remove from Nature who rules women’s lives, have at least the potential ability to escape the total hormonal control that She (the very Goddess the feminists insist we worship) exercises over women’s consciousness. But of course, this will be no help if women refuse to acknowledge that men can do anything for them that they can’t do for themselves.
Human males, like males of all other species, operate under a single Prime Directive: Please the Female. Since the invention of sex, roughly 1.5 billion years ago, males have been ruthlessly selectively bred to obey this imperative: those who did not, who failed to get there fastest with the most, did not become our forefathers, thus were genetically irrelevant.
The truth is, the argument you’re involved in is actually, like all human arguments, between groups of women. (In fact, I would extend this even to arguments between individual women and men: when a woman marries, she marries her mother-in-law’s idea of what a “proper” man is.) The men you complain about are the men created, molded and used by the women who run the other side of the argument. They don’t please you because that’s not their job; they please the women who control them–just as the men you and (the few) other women like you control strive to please you.
“Why is this? Why is this?” If you can’t see it for yourself, I guess I’ll have to enlighten you: The men you complain about are the sons of the mothers who created the feminist movement, which gave us Infant Male Circumcision (terrorize, torture and mutilate male babies so they’ll be sure to remember who’s the Boss throughout their life), Prohibition (if men drink to excess, never ask why, just clamp down with all the power of the State, in the process creating a vast network of organized crime and its mirror image, the Federal Police), and the “19th Amendment” (is it entirely accidental that the slide into totalitarian socialism has radically accelerated since women decided to trade in their husbands for the support provided by the All-Powerful State?). Not to mention the entire catalog of horrors since the 1960s, when the first universally-circumcised generation of American men came of age and began caving in completely to feminist demands.
“Systems and agencies that are putting their women and children into a state of involuntary servitude for all their lives.” Well, maybe they are (though I’m not sure exactly what you’re referring to)–but only in the time they have to spare from enslaving men, especially divorced fathers (now defined as “sex abusers”) who must turn over most of what they make to their ex-wives while they’re barred from any contact with their children. Not to mention single men who pay confiscatory taxes to support “female heads of household.” That’s what the “black robed judges” spend most of their time doing. At the behest of the women who elect them.
“Back in 1776, this breed of men would be called cowards.” Maybe, but now they’re called “enlightened,” while Washington, Jefferson and their ilk are seen for what they really were: male-chauvinist slavedrivers. This is the history that is taught in our government-run schools, by 90% female teachers, supported by the vast majority of American women voters–who are the absolute majority of all voters.
“The men of this country … refuse to lift a finger to ensure that their women and children will not be forced into global citizenship under the UN. Why is this?” You really don’t know? It’s for the simplest, most powerful, most ancient reason of all: because it’s what women want, and any man who doesn’t give women what they want is a failure, out of the picture.
“Why won’t these men stand up to this rogue agency called the IRS?” You really don’t know? Have you ever tried to talk to a woman about the IRS? I’ve found this is one of the best ways to lose all the female friends you have. They love the Income Tax, because it’s what makes it possible to dump their husbands and live off the State. Any man who says anything negative about the Income Tax is in serious danger of never getting a date.
“These men have put their children in harms way via mandatory social indoctrination in the anti-God public school system.” If talking about the Income Tax doesn’t get you drawn and quartered, try criticizing the public school system. There’s hardly any cow more sacred in our utopian Matriarchy.
“Over the past 40 years, the men of this country have sat back and allowed themselves to be brow beaten into submission and castrated by so-called ‘feminists’ like Rosie O’Donnell and Hillary Clinton….” Nearly all (90+%) of those men, like me, were already “castrated” at birth when their mothers had them circumcised. (The psychological effect of infant male circumcision is essentially the same as castration–i.e. abortion of full development of male consciousness and character–while still leaving the male able to provide necessary basic stud service.) You’re asking these men to rebel first against their own mothers. Is that what you want? Can a viable human society be created on such a basis? Is it even possible?
“Our nation was built by men who were self-reliant, independent and strong.” No, they were male chauvinist pigs and patriarchal oppressors. Just ask (almost) any woman.
“Women in this country spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year on ’romance books’ whose pages are filled with knights in shining armour and genuine heroes coming to rescue the damsel in distress. Why do you suppose that is?” I’ve wondered about this myself, since those same women demand that the men in their own lives be the spineless wimps you so scathingly describe in your essay. I don’t know why; perhaps, as a woman, you can enlighten me?
“Today they are tolerant, sensitive and genuflect at the feet of perverts called ‘gays.’” While you’re at it, perhaps you can elucidate another mystery for me: Why is it that the very same women who complain that all the “good” men are either married or “gay” also become instantly rabid in defence of “gay rights”?
Sigmund Freud became famous for (among other things) his immortal question: “What do women want?” Well, I’ve figured out the answer: WHAT WE HAVE is what women want, because it is what they have used their power to create. If they wanted it different, they would have made it different. Q.E.D.
One thing I do know, however: Although I was brought up to be a perfect little 20th century American male feminist, it has been the behaviour of women themselves which has finally convinced me of the truth in the “traditional” views of women, and of the wisdom of men in the past who kept women “in their place,” where their passionate irrationality could be prevented (at least somewhat) from doing damage, not only to men, but to themselves as well. Clearly, the 19th Amendment was one of the biggest mistakes in American history.
“Why are the women the ones out there on the front lines battling this government tooth and nail for our children – ready and willing to die if necessary to protect our own?” Sorry, not so. There may be a few women, such as yourself, involved in this fight, but there are many more men. I have a list of over a hundred web sites, 90% of them by men, devoted to the struggle to prevent the evils you enumerate in your article. Though I honour your work, such intellectual dishonesty … well, is typical of why men of the past–the very men you praise– paid only limited attention to women, even as they worked and risked their lives to build a nation wherein women were better off than they have been at any other time or place in human history.
Which these very same women are now working with equal enthusiasm (though far less risk, at least in the short run–which seems to be all they can see) to destroy.
You may have seen an excellent response to your article from Australian Graham Strachan. I would disagree with him only in that the history of this war on men and maleness is not just twenty years old. Its modern phase began, by the feminists’ own “herstory,” in 1848, at the Seneca Falls Convention (see its “Declaration of Sentiments” for a catty parody of the Declaration of Independence)–the same year that the Communist Manifesto appeared. Coincidence? Cui bono?
For my part, after a lifetime of abuse, I’ve gradually become rather sick of women, their endless complaints, irrational inconstancy, self-satisfied narcissism and wearisome temper tantrums. I’m retired. While I can see the value, in absolute spiritual terms, of standing up for the truth, it seems pointless to engage in battle for something whose intended beneficiaries clearly don’t want it. It’s your world, sisters; I’m only a guest here, my very existence a result of my mother’s not having bothered to exercise her “right to choose” to abort me. If you don’t like how things are, rather than complaining to the hired hands, the front men, fall guys, whipping boys and cannon fodder, you’d do better to talk to The Boss.
If something you’ve purchased doesn’t work right, what do you do? Take it back where you got it, no? Well, where do men come from? I’d suggest you address your complaint to the manufacturer.
Maybe when you girls’ve got it sorted out, you’ll let us know exactly what you do want. Or maybe my nephew (thank God I don’t have any children to worry about), or his son or grandson. My nephew, age 25, recently married. His wife is clearly smarter than he is–not to mention at least 50% heavier–and clearly knows exactly what she wants. God help him, poor chump. He’s what his mother, his teachers, American women have made him, and so he shall be.
Sincerely,
An American man who’s had enough
.
Previous Philalethes Index Next
Dear Devvy Kidd,
I was most interested recently to come across your article “Where Have All the ‘Men’ gone?” which was referenced on a site concerned with what are nowadays being called “men’s issues.” I note this article first appeared over nine months ago; I don’t know what kind of response/s you may have had, but would like to add my own.
I’ve heard of you before, through my own involvement in the “constitutionalist/patriot” movement, and while I haven’t followed your activities closely, I’ve had the impression you’ve been doing valuable work, alerting and educating the American people to the peril we face–in particular your role in the awakening of ex-IRS agent Joe Banister, among, I’m sure, many others. I’ve heard you on one or another shortwave radio program, and taken a couple looks at your web site. So I was intrigued to see you pop up on a site whose general political orientation tends to be (due mostly to ignorance, I feel) rather different than yours, or mine, on such issues.
Born during the Second Great War (while my father was away defending hearth and home–and Standard Oil’s profits, though he didn’t know it at the time), raised in the liberal atmosphere of a southern California university community, an avid experimenter with psychedelics in the 1960s, as well as “draft-dodger,” all-around hippie and long-term student of Oriental wisdom traditions, I was until about age 40 a fairly typical example of the feminist/socialist revolution’s effect on American culture: a regular “Sensitive New Age Guy.”
However, I also had the advantage of having had a father who was one of the fast-vanishing type of American men who thought for himself, was a real truth-seeker, and understood about freedom and responsibility. (He came home to a war with his wife, which she naturally won, assigning him the role of bogeyman and turning his children against him. Nevertheless, at least I had a father.) He taught me, mostly by a kind of osmosis, to “question authority”–enough that not only did I question the same authorities that so many in my generation questioned, I also continued questioning after most in my generation simply accepted yet another authority–the feminist/communist orthodoxy that is if anything even more rigid and stultifying than the one we originally rebelled against.
Thus, when at about age 40 I came across the work of Irwin Schiff, Tupper Saussy and others I was open enough to recognize almost immediately that they were making a lot better sense than anything I’d been taught before about political, economic and social issues. I immediately quit paying at least the major taxes for which I was not legally (or morally) liable, and have continued studying and learning in the twenty years since. Which was why your name was familiar to me when it appeared on the Mensactivism site.
What’s interesting to me about your article is that, although I know you disagree emphatically with all (or nearly all) the aims of the femmunist movement, you clearly agree with them on the one basic issue that I would consider the very cornerstone of their whole ideology: the idea that men, a mysterious species totally foreign to women (as in “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus”), rule the world, and women are merely their innocent, powerless victims. Thus, frustrated (understandably) in your efforts to awaken the American people, you resort, as women have since the Beginning, to castigating men.
Unfortunately, it won’t work. The premise is false, so any action based thereon will be fruitless.
The truth is, regardless of appearances, it is women who truly rule the world. This has always been so; it will always be so. Human males, like males of all species, are created by females for purposes of their own: to provide services which they cannot or prefer not to do for themselves. Including, e.g., the rapid evolution enabled by genetic roulette; taking out the garbage; fighting wars to capture (or defend) territory and assets whose possession provides for the comfort of women and their children; etc. etc.
And, occasionally, when asked, the ability to think clearly and dispassionately about issues of import, simply because men, at one remove from Nature who rules women’s lives, have at least the potential ability to escape the total hormonal control that She (the very Goddess the feminists insist we worship) exercises over women’s consciousness. But of course, this will be no help if women refuse to acknowledge that men can do anything for them that they can’t do for themselves.
Human males, like males of all other species, operate under a single Prime Directive: Please the Female. Since the invention of sex, roughly 1.5 billion years ago, males have been ruthlessly selectively bred to obey this imperative: those who did not, who failed to get there fastest with the most, did not become our forefathers, thus were genetically irrelevant.
The truth is, the argument you’re involved in is actually, like all human arguments, between groups of women. (In fact, I would extend this even to arguments between individual women and men: when a woman marries, she marries her mother-in-law’s idea of what a “proper” man is.) The men you complain about are the men created, molded and used by the women who run the other side of the argument. They don’t please you because that’s not their job; they please the women who control them–just as the men you and (the few) other women like you control strive to please you.
“Why is this? Why is this?” If you can’t see it for yourself, I guess I’ll have to enlighten you: The men you complain about are the sons of the mothers who created the feminist movement, which gave us Infant Male Circumcision (terrorize, torture and mutilate male babies so they’ll be sure to remember who’s the Boss throughout their life), Prohibition (if men drink to excess, never ask why, just clamp down with all the power of the State, in the process creating a vast network of organized crime and its mirror image, the Federal Police), and the “19th Amendment” (is it entirely accidental that the slide into totalitarian socialism has radically accelerated since women decided to trade in their husbands for the support provided by the All-Powerful State?). Not to mention the entire catalog of horrors since the 1960s, when the first universally-circumcised generation of American men came of age and began caving in completely to feminist demands.
“Systems and agencies that are putting their women and children into a state of involuntary servitude for all their lives.” Well, maybe they are (though I’m not sure exactly what you’re referring to)–but only in the time they have to spare from enslaving men, especially divorced fathers (now defined as “sex abusers”) who must turn over most of what they make to their ex-wives while they’re barred from any contact with their children. Not to mention single men who pay confiscatory taxes to support “female heads of household.” That’s what the “black robed judges” spend most of their time doing. At the behest of the women who elect them.
“Back in 1776, this breed of men would be called cowards.” Maybe, but now they’re called “enlightened,” while Washington, Jefferson and their ilk are seen for what they really were: male-chauvinist slavedrivers. This is the history that is taught in our government-run schools, by 90% female teachers, supported by the vast majority of American women voters–who are the absolute majority of all voters.
“The men of this country … refuse to lift a finger to ensure that their women and children will not be forced into global citizenship under the UN. Why is this?” You really don’t know? It’s for the simplest, most powerful, most ancient reason of all: because it’s what women want, and any man who doesn’t give women what they want is a failure, out of the picture.
“Why won’t these men stand up to this rogue agency called the IRS?” You really don’t know? Have you ever tried to talk to a woman about the IRS? I’ve found this is one of the best ways to lose all the female friends you have. They love the Income Tax, because it’s what makes it possible to dump their husbands and live off the State. Any man who says anything negative about the Income Tax is in serious danger of never getting a date.
“These men have put their children in harms way via mandatory social indoctrination in the anti-God public school system.” If talking about the Income Tax doesn’t get you drawn and quartered, try criticizing the public school system. There’s hardly any cow more sacred in our utopian Matriarchy.
“Over the past 40 years, the men of this country have sat back and allowed themselves to be brow beaten into submission and castrated by so-called ‘feminists’ like Rosie O’Donnell and Hillary Clinton….” Nearly all (90+%) of those men, like me, were already “castrated” at birth when their mothers had them circumcised. (The psychological effect of infant male circumcision is essentially the same as castration–i.e. abortion of full development of male consciousness and character–while still leaving the male able to provide necessary basic stud service.) You’re asking these men to rebel first against their own mothers. Is that what you want? Can a viable human society be created on such a basis? Is it even possible?
“Our nation was built by men who were self-reliant, independent and strong.” No, they were male chauvinist pigs and patriarchal oppressors. Just ask (almost) any woman.
“Women in this country spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year on ’romance books’ whose pages are filled with knights in shining armour and genuine heroes coming to rescue the damsel in distress. Why do you suppose that is?” I’ve wondered about this myself, since those same women demand that the men in their own lives be the spineless wimps you so scathingly describe in your essay. I don’t know why; perhaps, as a woman, you can enlighten me?
“Today they are tolerant, sensitive and genuflect at the feet of perverts called ‘gays.’” While you’re at it, perhaps you can elucidate another mystery for me: Why is it that the very same women who complain that all the “good” men are either married or “gay” also become instantly rabid in defence of “gay rights”?
Sigmund Freud became famous for (among other things) his immortal question: “What do women want?” Well, I’ve figured out the answer: WHAT WE HAVE is what women want, because it is what they have used their power to create. If they wanted it different, they would have made it different. Q.E.D.
One thing I do know, however: Although I was brought up to be a perfect little 20th century American male feminist, it has been the behaviour of women themselves which has finally convinced me of the truth in the “traditional” views of women, and of the wisdom of men in the past who kept women “in their place,” where their passionate irrationality could be prevented (at least somewhat) from doing damage, not only to men, but to themselves as well. Clearly, the 19th Amendment was one of the biggest mistakes in American history.
“Why are the women the ones out there on the front lines battling this government tooth and nail for our children – ready and willing to die if necessary to protect our own?” Sorry, not so. There may be a few women, such as yourself, involved in this fight, but there are many more men. I have a list of over a hundred web sites, 90% of them by men, devoted to the struggle to prevent the evils you enumerate in your article. Though I honour your work, such intellectual dishonesty … well, is typical of why men of the past–the very men you praise– paid only limited attention to women, even as they worked and risked their lives to build a nation wherein women were better off than they have been at any other time or place in human history.
Which these very same women are now working with equal enthusiasm (though far less risk, at least in the short run–which seems to be all they can see) to destroy.
You may have seen an excellent response to your article from Australian Graham Strachan. I would disagree with him only in that the history of this war on men and maleness is not just twenty years old. Its modern phase began, by the feminists’ own “herstory,” in 1848, at the Seneca Falls Convention (see its “Declaration of Sentiments” for a catty parody of the Declaration of Independence)–the same year that the Communist Manifesto appeared. Coincidence? Cui bono?
For my part, after a lifetime of abuse, I’ve gradually become rather sick of women, their endless complaints, irrational inconstancy, self-satisfied narcissism and wearisome temper tantrums. I’m retired. While I can see the value, in absolute spiritual terms, of standing up for the truth, it seems pointless to engage in battle for something whose intended beneficiaries clearly don’t want it. It’s your world, sisters; I’m only a guest here, my very existence a result of my mother’s not having bothered to exercise her “right to choose” to abort me. If you don’t like how things are, rather than complaining to the hired hands, the front men, fall guys, whipping boys and cannon fodder, you’d do better to talk to The Boss.
If something you’ve purchased doesn’t work right, what do you do? Take it back where you got it, no? Well, where do men come from? I’d suggest you address your complaint to the manufacturer.
Maybe when you girls’ve got it sorted out, you’ll let us know exactly what you do want. Or maybe my nephew (thank God I don’t have any children to worry about), or his son or grandson. My nephew, age 25, recently married. His wife is clearly smarter than he is–not to mention at least 50% heavier–and clearly knows exactly what she wants. God help him, poor chump. He’s what his mother, his teachers, American women have made him, and so he shall be.
Sincerely,
An American man who’s had enough
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Saturday, July 17, 2010
Philalethes #12 - Foreign Women
It does seem to be true that Asian women are, on average, a lot nicer to get along with than the American version (not to mention nicer to look at, to my taste, anyway), but I have to wonder: for how long? I don’t think there’s any fundamental difference between American and other women; what we’re seeing is simply traits native to female consciousness and character, unrestrained. And the rest of the world does seem to want to emulate America, in this perhaps more than anything else beyond simple economic prosperity.
A few years ago a local young man in his twenties met a Japanese girl in a Chinese class in Beijing, and brought her home and married her. Recently they separated, at her behest, I gather. I don’t know them well, but an older male friend who has been a mentor to the young man, and to their marriage, tells me he got so tired of the woman calling him up and screeching at him that he finally hung up on her. (He’s also been having a hard time keeping his own marriage together; his wife, a Filipina-American, beautiful and sweet, nearly left him–with their three children–after having her “consciousness raised” by local Anglo feminists. I know he’s a good husband and father, but they almost had her convinced he wasn’t good enough.)
In my slight acquaintance with the young man, I did find him self-confident to the verge of a kind of quiet arrogance, and suspect he may not be a very good listener. But that’s how young men are (if their spirit hasn’t been trashed, like so many of us); in effect, the challenge for a young woman is to tame him without breaking him, so she’ll have a strong protector. Modern American women just don’t seem to be up to that challenge, preferring weak males instead; and I have the feeling this pattern is spreading. A nation, a civilization whose women cripple their men is ripe for conquest. As Graham Strachan points out, “behind the feminist and other popular movements are some very ugly scheming people who want to destroy the institutions of civilisation so they can rule over the wreckage.” This is what’s really happening.
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A few years ago a local young man in his twenties met a Japanese girl in a Chinese class in Beijing, and brought her home and married her. Recently they separated, at her behest, I gather. I don’t know them well, but an older male friend who has been a mentor to the young man, and to their marriage, tells me he got so tired of the woman calling him up and screeching at him that he finally hung up on her. (He’s also been having a hard time keeping his own marriage together; his wife, a Filipina-American, beautiful and sweet, nearly left him–with their three children–after having her “consciousness raised” by local Anglo feminists. I know he’s a good husband and father, but they almost had her convinced he wasn’t good enough.)
In my slight acquaintance with the young man, I did find him self-confident to the verge of a kind of quiet arrogance, and suspect he may not be a very good listener. But that’s how young men are (if their spirit hasn’t been trashed, like so many of us); in effect, the challenge for a young woman is to tame him without breaking him, so she’ll have a strong protector. Modern American women just don’t seem to be up to that challenge, preferring weak males instead; and I have the feeling this pattern is spreading. A nation, a civilization whose women cripple their men is ripe for conquest. As Graham Strachan points out, “behind the feminist and other popular movements are some very ugly scheming people who want to destroy the institutions of civilisation so they can rule over the wreckage.” This is what’s really happening.
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Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Philalethes #11 - The End Results of Female Suffrage
Quote: "The feminists have started to push for the majority (read 'female') elected government to use tax dollars (much of them taken from men) to pay for women to be mothers. In other words, as women continue to eliminate men from the family, they will have their governments take money from men and give it to women and their children to live on."
No kidding. This is exactly what Warren Farrell explored The Myth of Male Power, in the aptly titled “Government as Substitute Husband” section.
Once I believed the idea that, on principle, women “deserve” to vote. However, it is now plain to me that the situation described is the inevitable consequence of women voting.
Women expect to be taken care of; this is not “social conditioning,” it’s genetic programming, going back at least to the avian level of evolution, where pair-bonding was invented. Male birds have to bring something, usually food or a built nest, to females to induce them to mate. Among humans, this arrangement was “formalized” somewhere around 50-100,000 years ago, anthropologists conjecture (see, among other sources, Helen E. Fisher, The Sex Contract), when women began emulating sexual receptivity even when not fertile, to induce men to bring them food, protect them from sexual and other predation, etc., while they were tied up with nursing infants they had to haul around. Women instinctively expect to be taken care of.
When women begin taking part directly in the political process, i.e. voting, they naturally begin to transfer this expectation of care and protection from the imperfect men in their personal lives (fathers, brothers, suitors, husbands, and sons) to the State, which, as a relatively distant, conceptual entity, can be imagined, in minds that don’t think very hard, to be perfectible. And the new arrangement works, in the short run, anyway. Since all politicians need from (most) women is votes, they’re happy to give them everything they want in return; and when women learn this, their desires quickly become unlimited. They don’t just want “equality”–whatever that may mean–now they “want it all!” Not just “the vote,” but affirmative action and every other form of guaranteed outcome, heavily skewed divorce and related laws, welfare (supplied by single, working men) for “female heads of household,” etc. etc. Like a horse that’s got into the oats, they’ll literally keep eating until they bloat up and explode. They have no internal self-restraint, because they’ve never had to develop any before; previously they were restrained by men, and by circumstances, but now in the artificial world of political power they’re restrained by nothing.
Frankly, at this point I don’t see any way to stop it. A Brave New World populated by “gender-transitioned” (Farrell’s term) perpetual pre-adolescents is the inevitable result of feminism. In the words of the late, lamented Edward Abbey, "A world of androgynes, encapsulated in beehive cities, fiddling with buttons penile, electronic and clitoral - that is the future beloved alike by the technocratic futurologists and throroughly logical radical feminists. Cut off from their primordial animal natures, denying the biological wellspring of life, reproducing themselves through artificial insemination of laboratory wombs, the inhabitants of this glittering metallic city will live to the full the existence of rationally programmed robots. And what is the ideal robot but a properly processed human being?" (“The Future of Sex: A Reaction to a Pair of Books” [by Susan Brownmiller and Gloria Steinem], in One Life at a Time, Please )
Sure, “men” nowadays prolong adolescence to their 30s and 40s. They have no incentive to do otherwise; in fact, should they try to become men, i.e. developed adults, they’ll catch hell for sure, from the perpetually-preadolescent “women” (“Boys. Yech.”) Of Sex and the City.
For my part, I’m happy I’m finally old and tired enough not to be entirely under the domination of my hormones, and thus of the females who control the supply of what my hormones tell me I can’t live without. I know it’s nearly inconceivable to younger men–which I was myself not so long ago–but the only solution I see is for men to simply turn away from these women. Should I get close to another woman in this life, I very much doubt it’ll be an American woman. I saw an interesting website (don’t have the URL handy) from a guy who went to Southeast Asia to find a wife who was willing to give him a little respect in return for the traditional love, support and protection. Nothing’s perfect, of course, but this sounds at least doable.
.
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No kidding. This is exactly what Warren Farrell explored The Myth of Male Power, in the aptly titled “Government as Substitute Husband” section.
Once I believed the idea that, on principle, women “deserve” to vote. However, it is now plain to me that the situation described is the inevitable consequence of women voting.
Women expect to be taken care of; this is not “social conditioning,” it’s genetic programming, going back at least to the avian level of evolution, where pair-bonding was invented. Male birds have to bring something, usually food or a built nest, to females to induce them to mate. Among humans, this arrangement was “formalized” somewhere around 50-100,000 years ago, anthropologists conjecture (see, among other sources, Helen E. Fisher, The Sex Contract), when women began emulating sexual receptivity even when not fertile, to induce men to bring them food, protect them from sexual and other predation, etc., while they were tied up with nursing infants they had to haul around. Women instinctively expect to be taken care of.
When women begin taking part directly in the political process, i.e. voting, they naturally begin to transfer this expectation of care and protection from the imperfect men in their personal lives (fathers, brothers, suitors, husbands, and sons) to the State, which, as a relatively distant, conceptual entity, can be imagined, in minds that don’t think very hard, to be perfectible. And the new arrangement works, in the short run, anyway. Since all politicians need from (most) women is votes, they’re happy to give them everything they want in return; and when women learn this, their desires quickly become unlimited. They don’t just want “equality”–whatever that may mean–now they “want it all!” Not just “the vote,” but affirmative action and every other form of guaranteed outcome, heavily skewed divorce and related laws, welfare (supplied by single, working men) for “female heads of household,” etc. etc. Like a horse that’s got into the oats, they’ll literally keep eating until they bloat up and explode. They have no internal self-restraint, because they’ve never had to develop any before; previously they were restrained by men, and by circumstances, but now in the artificial world of political power they’re restrained by nothing.
Frankly, at this point I don’t see any way to stop it. A Brave New World populated by “gender-transitioned” (Farrell’s term) perpetual pre-adolescents is the inevitable result of feminism. In the words of the late, lamented Edward Abbey, "A world of androgynes, encapsulated in beehive cities, fiddling with buttons penile, electronic and clitoral - that is the future beloved alike by the technocratic futurologists and throroughly logical radical feminists. Cut off from their primordial animal natures, denying the biological wellspring of life, reproducing themselves through artificial insemination of laboratory wombs, the inhabitants of this glittering metallic city will live to the full the existence of rationally programmed robots. And what is the ideal robot but a properly processed human being?" (“The Future of Sex: A Reaction to a Pair of Books” [by Susan Brownmiller and Gloria Steinem], in One Life at a Time, Please )
Sure, “men” nowadays prolong adolescence to their 30s and 40s. They have no incentive to do otherwise; in fact, should they try to become men, i.e. developed adults, they’ll catch hell for sure, from the perpetually-preadolescent “women” (“Boys. Yech.”) Of Sex and the City.
For my part, I’m happy I’m finally old and tired enough not to be entirely under the domination of my hormones, and thus of the females who control the supply of what my hormones tell me I can’t live without. I know it’s nearly inconceivable to younger men–which I was myself not so long ago–but the only solution I see is for men to simply turn away from these women. Should I get close to another woman in this life, I very much doubt it’ll be an American woman. I saw an interesting website (don’t have the URL handy) from a guy who went to Southeast Asia to find a wife who was willing to give him a little respect in return for the traditional love, support and protection. Nothing’s perfect, of course, but this sounds at least doable.
.
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Sunday, July 11, 2010
Philalethes #10 - Male vs. Female Thinking
Unfortunately, in this age of “public education,” very few of us are taught to think clearly anymore. One effect of this lack is careless use of poorly-understood language in emotionally-loaded contexts. For instance, the word “censorship,” used in the heading of this thread. It’s important to understand that this word can have two related but different meanings: in a general sense, it denotes the suppression of expression of views, while in a more specific sense it means such suppression when done by the State, with its “monopoly of force.” In these times when the State’s power is increasingly felt in all areas of our lives — thanks in great part to the growing power of feminism (see below) — many seem not to know or understand the difference between these two kinds of “censorship.” This is a case of the first type of censorship (and a classic example of how women wield power, covertly and by proxy), but not the second; the proprietor of [that forum] indeed does “have a right” (so far) to run his site however he wishes. Nor has anyone in this thread said he does not.
On the other hand, anyone else also “has a right” to criticize how he runs his site; he does, after all, present his efforts to public view. And I haven’t seen anything here that I’d call “bashing.” An honest, frank exchange of views between men is not “bashing.” Though women, who live in a world primarily of feelings, and often are so insecure in their thinking that frank disagreement (indeed any difference at all) is experienced as personal threat, might see it as such.
Which again is the problem. There’s nothing wrong with women thinking (or “thinking”) like women, but when men start thinking like women, things are out of balance. Feminist dogma notwithstanding, the problem is not that men aren’t more like women, it’s that “men” aren’t more like men. Though it seems quaint (and very politically incorrect) to current sensibilities, Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If” has a lot of truth to it:
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise...
… you'll be a Man my son!
One of the hallmarks of female (and childish) “thinking” is the instinctive belief that one “deserves” to have what one wants. It’s instinctive, biologically based — since the universal pattern is the male required to please the female (i.e. give her whatever she wants) in order to get “access.” But in humans this assumption has gone far beyond its evolutionary function — and is the reason behind both “chivalry” and the huge success of feminism.
And thus arises the complaint of “injustice” (or “it’s not fair”) when she doesn’t get what she wants. That’s how women naturally “think.” I don’t think that there’s “something unjust about the fact that a liberal news site doesn’t exist [similar to the forum].” Of course it’s not [the site owner's] responsibility to cater to my views, and I’m not a “liberal” anyway. But what’s interesting is the use of the word “unjust.” What does “justice” have to do with it? Nothing, except in the female mind — or a male mind that, like so many in our modern world, has never developed beyond the female/child mode of thinking.
Finally, as for “dividing” the men’s movement: I’m not part of any “movement,” actually. I’m a man (or hope to be one someday), and a truth seeker. And truth speaker, now and then. I don’t know that I really have “common goals” with anyone who wants (or acts on the unexamined impulse) to suppress the free exchange of ideas in the interest of some “higher good.” In my view, there is no higher good than the free exchange of ideas, and the freedom it requires.
All I really share with [the forum] is a critical attitude toward left-wing feminism; beyond that, the ideal world [the forum] appears to long for — an imperial American hegemony over the world, a totalitarian “conservative” (as opposed to “liberal”) dictatorship at home — is no more attractive to me than that envisioned by the most rabid left-feminist. The two of them are totally agreed on the level of principle; their only argument is who is going to dictate my life to me. That [the forum] should be thought representative of “men’s” views I find appalling. As I said above, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to learn that it’s a complete hoax, fabricated by a feminist “disinformation” program.
“Movements,” like harems, herds, and other collectives, are for females. It’s been remarked that men’s first priority is freedom, while women’s is security. Thus women are natural herd animals, for security is most easily and immediately found in numbers. And thus the inclusion of women in political life must inevitably lead to totalitarian collectivism, as it has everywhere it’s been tried — at this point, essentially the entire planet, which is fast turning into one vast nursery, where “everything that is not prohibited is compulsory.” Women instinctively seek the security of such an environment; when women rule, this is where everyone must live.
“Do you want to be free, or do you want to be taken care of?” Answer this question honestly, and you’ll know where you stand on the male–female spectrum, regardless of what form your personal plumbing may have.
On the other hand, anyone else also “has a right” to criticize how he runs his site; he does, after all, present his efforts to public view. And I haven’t seen anything here that I’d call “bashing.” An honest, frank exchange of views between men is not “bashing.” Though women, who live in a world primarily of feelings, and often are so insecure in their thinking that frank disagreement (indeed any difference at all) is experienced as personal threat, might see it as such.
Which again is the problem. There’s nothing wrong with women thinking (or “thinking”) like women, but when men start thinking like women, things are out of balance. Feminist dogma notwithstanding, the problem is not that men aren’t more like women, it’s that “men” aren’t more like men. Though it seems quaint (and very politically incorrect) to current sensibilities, Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If” has a lot of truth to it:
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise...
… you'll be a Man my son!
One of the hallmarks of female (and childish) “thinking” is the instinctive belief that one “deserves” to have what one wants. It’s instinctive, biologically based — since the universal pattern is the male required to please the female (i.e. give her whatever she wants) in order to get “access.” But in humans this assumption has gone far beyond its evolutionary function — and is the reason behind both “chivalry” and the huge success of feminism.
And thus arises the complaint of “injustice” (or “it’s not fair”) when she doesn’t get what she wants. That’s how women naturally “think.” I don’t think that there’s “something unjust about the fact that a liberal news site doesn’t exist [similar to the forum].” Of course it’s not [the site owner's] responsibility to cater to my views, and I’m not a “liberal” anyway. But what’s interesting is the use of the word “unjust.” What does “justice” have to do with it? Nothing, except in the female mind — or a male mind that, like so many in our modern world, has never developed beyond the female/child mode of thinking.
Finally, as for “dividing” the men’s movement: I’m not part of any “movement,” actually. I’m a man (or hope to be one someday), and a truth seeker. And truth speaker, now and then. I don’t know that I really have “common goals” with anyone who wants (or acts on the unexamined impulse) to suppress the free exchange of ideas in the interest of some “higher good.” In my view, there is no higher good than the free exchange of ideas, and the freedom it requires.
All I really share with [the forum] is a critical attitude toward left-wing feminism; beyond that, the ideal world [the forum] appears to long for — an imperial American hegemony over the world, a totalitarian “conservative” (as opposed to “liberal”) dictatorship at home — is no more attractive to me than that envisioned by the most rabid left-feminist. The two of them are totally agreed on the level of principle; their only argument is who is going to dictate my life to me. That [the forum] should be thought representative of “men’s” views I find appalling. As I said above, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to learn that it’s a complete hoax, fabricated by a feminist “disinformation” program.
“Movements,” like harems, herds, and other collectives, are for females. It’s been remarked that men’s first priority is freedom, while women’s is security. Thus women are natural herd animals, for security is most easily and immediately found in numbers. And thus the inclusion of women in political life must inevitably lead to totalitarian collectivism, as it has everywhere it’s been tried — at this point, essentially the entire planet, which is fast turning into one vast nursery, where “everything that is not prohibited is compulsory.” Women instinctively seek the security of such an environment; when women rule, this is where everyone must live.
“Do you want to be free, or do you want to be taken care of?” Answer this question honestly, and you’ll know where you stand on the male–female spectrum, regardless of what form your personal plumbing may have.
Thursday, July 08, 2010
Philalethes #9 - Immaculate Conception
Sea horses are vertebrates Indeed they are; my error. I’m not good at thinking/writing in the haste required by these forums. Nor am I expert in biology; that’s not my point.
Unfortunately for the sake of your argument, females, or any other individual, cannot change their biology. There are many species, including birds, fish and most amphibians, which the females lay eggs regardless of the presence of males. The problem? The eggs are infertile. Every time. The male is NECESSARY for reproduction. In humans? Well, the Mother Mary excepting, there are no cases of Immaculate Conception documented. Why? Because it takes a male to create life.
Well, this particular thread started with my mention of a number of known species (at least dozens, probably hundreds, maybe more) in which it does not take a male to create life. These species are assumed to have consisted of females and males at some point, but now consist only of females. I don’t know how evolutionary biologists think that happened; given the example of the geckos, in which male+female species always overcome female-only species in head-to-head competition, it’s difficult to construct a simple Darwinian model in which an individual female who reproduced without benefit of fertilization would have an immediate advantage over her “heterosexual” sisters in the same environment. Nevertheless, somehow it happened.
The New Mexican Whiptail lizard ( Cnemidophorus neomexicanus ), for instance, is a female-only species; no males of this species have ever been found. She reproduces by laying eggs, which, though unfertilized and presumably haploid, nevertheless hatch as baby female New Mexican Whiptail lizards, essentially clones of their mother. Some such female-only lizard species engage in a kind of lesbian sex, in which one female mounts another, presumably to stimulate egg production; of course no fertilization occurs, but the eggs do hatch and produce the next generation of lizards.
("The simple fact is that every woman must be willing to be identified as a lesbian to be fully feminist." –National NOW Times, Jan.1988)
There are, I gather, examples of such female-only (not asexual, as in amoebas) reproduction in all the major life groups (reptiles, amphibians, fishes, invertebrates, plants) except the warm-blooded birds and mammals — I presume because the pace of life, evolution and competition simply don’t allow for it among the latter. As illustrated by the example of the geckos, it appears (and makes sense) that the primary requirement for this evolutionary development (or devolution) is a comfortable, secure ecological niche without any significant competitive pressure. As we all know, males are incurably competitive; they can be dispensed with only when species don’t need such abilities. But so they will when possible, as males are also expensive (as snidely remarked in the title of a recent feminist screed).
BTW, an American Indian (Iroquois/Mohawk) shamaness I once discussed this with told me that her teachers had told her that female-only reproduction was possible in humans, but the resultant offspring would be only female — as in other species known to do so. So perhaps the logical end of feminism is theoretically possible; though it’s worth noting that this shamaness’s wise women teachers apparently didn’t think the idea worth promoting. She herself is married, by the way.
Anyway, my point is simply this: that clearly the male is not “NECESSARY for reproduction.” The eggs are not “infertile. Every time.” Or maybe they are, strictly speaking, since they possess only a half-set of genes, but nevertheless they do hatch, and produce individuals of the species capable of surviving, living full lizard (and other species’) lives, and reproducing.
True, it appears that “females, or any other individual, cannot change their biology”; but nevertheless it happened, somehow. My picture of how (“she … could dispense with the male and redefine her species as female-only”) was of course a metaphor. Maybe God did it; maybe it happened through some kind of mindless evolutionary process. In any case, if there was some sort of consciousness involved at some level of being, it makes more sense to me to say that it was the survivor of this event (the female) who made the “decision” rather than the one dispensed with (the male).
My point was that the discovery of this fact, unknown to me before ca. 1987, and still unknown to the vast majority of people, was, like the discovery that the Earth revolves around the Sun rather than vice-versa, a life-changing event that put everything into a very different perspective, and gave me the necessary key to understanding what had theretofore been a frustrating mystery, i.e. the entire vexed question of “gender relations.” Clearly, Simone de Beauvoir had it exactly, 180 degrees wrong in the title of her feminist Bible, The Second Sex (assuming that she was referring to woman; I haven’t read the book).
Before I learned about this, I was caught in the “he said – she said” trap when trying to unravel gender issues. Feminists claim that they are tired of being the “second sex” and want to be “equal” now. But if the sexes are “equal,” then there’s no basis for differentiating between them; everything goes around in an endless circle; there’s nowhere to start. Are there real, irreducible differences between the sexes? Exceptions have been found, it seems, to every one that has been proposed. Can we define anything, and begin from there? I can now say: Yes. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, “equality” is a myth, nowhere more so than in the relationship between the sexes. And if we try to live by a myth, rather than the truth, we will come to grief. The apparent relation between the sexes, like the appearance that the Sun revolves around the Earth, may be very compelling to our senses of observation, but it is not the truth.
When I was a teenager, my father sat me down one day and explained something to me: that freedom and responsibility are indissolubly linked, indeed, two parts of the same thing, like two sides of a coin. At the time, he was simply setting out ground rules for my teenage activity (that I could have as much freedom as I was willing to be responsible for); but it was not long before I realized that this was a Fundamental Principle of Life, and in the 40+ years since I have found its application to be unlimited, and unfailingly productive of understanding, sanity, and peace of mind. I’ve had a similar experience in application of this understanding of the true relation between the sexes; it has clarified every situation I’ve observed, including those previously most confusing.
Thus I believe that no real, fundamental understanding of any of the issues discussed here can be gained without beginning from the foundation of this fact: males are the “second sex,” and are optional in terms of fundamental biology. Of course, that’s not all there is to it, by far — it seems clear to me that males are absolutely necessary if we have any hope of developing our consciousness and existence beyond the level of mere biology, i.e. the animal level, with all its attendant suffering — but this fact is where we must start, if we wish to understand how this world works.
Think of a man as a stick in a woman’s hand, a tool which she has created for her use. Clearly, the woman with the biggest stick will prevail in any contest with other women and their sticks — or against any woman who doesn’t have a stick (which covers the example of the geckos). (And the idea that females are not competitive is another of the Big Lies of feminism.) Fundamentally, that’s what males are: tools created by females to use for tasks which they cannot or would rather not do for themselves. (Including, for instance, taking the rap for human competitiveness: "It's those awfule men who cause all the wars; we're just here being sweet and gentle all the time.") Front men, fall guys, whipping boys. Garbage men, soldiers (the ones who actually do the fighting) … all the jobs that all those “equal” women somehow still don’t seem to want.
With the advent of test tube reproduction, we have seen that neither parent need be present to create life. Give it another few years and the artificial womb, or male womb transplants (for the gay community) will make the woman as unnecessary to the whole process as you claim men to be.
God help us. Of all the insanities thought up in the ever-busy human mind, these must be among the most grotesque. Nevertheless, none of these clever, hubristic expedients amount to creating life; like the male sea horse’s incubation of eggs from the female, they are after the fact. “Test-tube reproduction” combines gametes from two human parents in an artificial environment; it does not create the gametes. The two parents may not be in the room, but they are absolutely necessary. The same goes for an “artificial” or “transplanted” womb; they are but containers, useless until they contain something, and that something comes from (at least) a female of the species. Only the Creator creates life; human hubris creates only misery.
Women have not always been in charge of every species. I find it interesting that you claim my example of the sea horse feminist (more national geographic than feminist in origin), when your argument for females being in charge is exactly what “proof” feminists themselves use to justify their position.
Depends what you mean by “in charge”; but it seems to me clear that if, in a general, absolute sense, females can exist without males but males cannot exist without females, and females can decide whether males exist or not, while males cannot decide whether females exist or not, nor even, apparently, have any control over what decision females make regarding males’ existence, then one of the two is in fundamental control of the situation, while the other is not. This is not a species-by-species matter; it is a universal truth. Thus I would say that females have been “in charge” of every species. The female is the species; the male is an optional variation on the theme. Once I was talking with a woman about this subject, and she said, “But aren’t there any species that consist only of males?” And a minute later she said, “No, I guess that’s impossible, isn’t it?” Exactly my point. “Girls rule!”
The sea horse example I believe I’ve heard/read before from feminists trying to “prove” that males are as suited as females for childrearing tasks. (And who says there’re no feminists at National Geographic? These days, feminist rhetoric comes from everywhere, including many male scientists who are, apparently, doing their best at what has always been required from males: to please the female.) Such one-off examples are always cited to “disprove” general rules, and always remind me of Samuel Johnson’s famous quip: 'Sir, a woman's preaching [in church] is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all."
Not clear to me what you mean by the feminist “position” that is justified by the argument I present. Let me make clear that, as with the subject of “blame” addressed elsewhere, I am not seeking to “justify” anything. Justification involves moral argument, and requires first defining moral principles, etc.; it’s a completely different discussion. I am presenting only (what I believe to be) facts, because I believe that we must get our facts straight before we can begin to discuss moral or similar issues.
It’s not that I do not care about moral issues, only that their discussion will be fruitless if we are not first agreed on the ground. For instance, it’s pointless to discuss questions of power and its proper use unless we first understand what power is and who has it. Feminists are constantly complaining about being powerless, and in fact “everyone knows” that women are helpless victims of male power — and, as exhaustively documented on this site, our entire moral/legal system is constructed on the basis of this assumption.
500 years ago, “everyone knew” that the Sun revolved around the Earth; after all, you could see it come up in the east every morning and travel across the sky. Until someone really looked, and found the truth was just the opposite. If NASA were running its space program on the basis of the pre-Copernican world view, it wouldn’t get very far. And so long as we try to address the deep, painful grievances of both genders in the “battle of the sexes” based on untrue assumptions, we’ll only go around in circles, and everyone will hurt more and get more angry, until perhaps we reach some sort of sexual Armageddon.
It’s true that in a way I may seem to be agreeing with some part of the feminist view. Because it’s true. Girls do rule. Tactically, I suppose, my approach is something like the “gentle” martial arts of judo and taiji (I’ve practiced the latter): yield to the opponent, and use her force to accomplish ones own goals. But it’s not a game I’m playing; I wouldn’t “agree” with any feminist position because it’s a feminist position, I merely present the truth, and if a feminist position agrees therewith, well that’s a place to start. And then hold them to it. Yes, girls do rule: so why not quit whining and rule responsibly? As a Zen master once said, if your horse-cart isn’t moving, do you hit the cart or the horse?
In the encounter between the sexes, it is women who make The Rules. Men may hold some of the cards, but women own the deck. All that’s really necessary to find solutions to the problems between the sexes is for women to recognize and acknowledge the power they already have, and that what we have has resulted from their use of that power, and to begin using that power consciously and constructively rather than, as in the past, unconsciously and (all too often) destructively. Will this ever happen? I don’t know.
Disciple: Why is there evil in the world?
Ramakrishna: To thicken the plot.
But it does seem clear that we can’t go on much longer as we have, for we are truly accelerating toward a precipice of a magnitude that few of us can even begin to imagine.
I’ve gone on far too long again. Don’t know if anyone really reads all this; but at least it’s helpful to me to think it through while writing it. Hope you get something out of it, anyone who reads this far.
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Further Reading:
Philalethes #7 – All Female Populations in the Animal Kingdom
Unfortunately for the sake of your argument, females, or any other individual, cannot change their biology. There are many species, including birds, fish and most amphibians, which the females lay eggs regardless of the presence of males. The problem? The eggs are infertile. Every time. The male is NECESSARY for reproduction. In humans? Well, the Mother Mary excepting, there are no cases of Immaculate Conception documented. Why? Because it takes a male to create life.
Well, this particular thread started with my mention of a number of known species (at least dozens, probably hundreds, maybe more) in which it does not take a male to create life. These species are assumed to have consisted of females and males at some point, but now consist only of females. I don’t know how evolutionary biologists think that happened; given the example of the geckos, in which male+female species always overcome female-only species in head-to-head competition, it’s difficult to construct a simple Darwinian model in which an individual female who reproduced without benefit of fertilization would have an immediate advantage over her “heterosexual” sisters in the same environment. Nevertheless, somehow it happened.
The New Mexican Whiptail lizard ( Cnemidophorus neomexicanus ), for instance, is a female-only species; no males of this species have ever been found. She reproduces by laying eggs, which, though unfertilized and presumably haploid, nevertheless hatch as baby female New Mexican Whiptail lizards, essentially clones of their mother. Some such female-only lizard species engage in a kind of lesbian sex, in which one female mounts another, presumably to stimulate egg production; of course no fertilization occurs, but the eggs do hatch and produce the next generation of lizards.
("The simple fact is that every woman must be willing to be identified as a lesbian to be fully feminist." –National NOW Times, Jan.1988)
There are, I gather, examples of such female-only (not asexual, as in amoebas) reproduction in all the major life groups (reptiles, amphibians, fishes, invertebrates, plants) except the warm-blooded birds and mammals — I presume because the pace of life, evolution and competition simply don’t allow for it among the latter. As illustrated by the example of the geckos, it appears (and makes sense) that the primary requirement for this evolutionary development (or devolution) is a comfortable, secure ecological niche without any significant competitive pressure. As we all know, males are incurably competitive; they can be dispensed with only when species don’t need such abilities. But so they will when possible, as males are also expensive (as snidely remarked in the title of a recent feminist screed).
BTW, an American Indian (Iroquois/Mohawk) shamaness I once discussed this with told me that her teachers had told her that female-only reproduction was possible in humans, but the resultant offspring would be only female — as in other species known to do so. So perhaps the logical end of feminism is theoretically possible; though it’s worth noting that this shamaness’s wise women teachers apparently didn’t think the idea worth promoting. She herself is married, by the way.
Anyway, my point is simply this: that clearly the male is not “NECESSARY for reproduction.” The eggs are not “infertile. Every time.” Or maybe they are, strictly speaking, since they possess only a half-set of genes, but nevertheless they do hatch, and produce individuals of the species capable of surviving, living full lizard (and other species’) lives, and reproducing.
True, it appears that “females, or any other individual, cannot change their biology”; but nevertheless it happened, somehow. My picture of how (“she … could dispense with the male and redefine her species as female-only”) was of course a metaphor. Maybe God did it; maybe it happened through some kind of mindless evolutionary process. In any case, if there was some sort of consciousness involved at some level of being, it makes more sense to me to say that it was the survivor of this event (the female) who made the “decision” rather than the one dispensed with (the male).
My point was that the discovery of this fact, unknown to me before ca. 1987, and still unknown to the vast majority of people, was, like the discovery that the Earth revolves around the Sun rather than vice-versa, a life-changing event that put everything into a very different perspective, and gave me the necessary key to understanding what had theretofore been a frustrating mystery, i.e. the entire vexed question of “gender relations.” Clearly, Simone de Beauvoir had it exactly, 180 degrees wrong in the title of her feminist Bible, The Second Sex (assuming that she was referring to woman; I haven’t read the book).
Before I learned about this, I was caught in the “he said – she said” trap when trying to unravel gender issues. Feminists claim that they are tired of being the “second sex” and want to be “equal” now. But if the sexes are “equal,” then there’s no basis for differentiating between them; everything goes around in an endless circle; there’s nowhere to start. Are there real, irreducible differences between the sexes? Exceptions have been found, it seems, to every one that has been proposed. Can we define anything, and begin from there? I can now say: Yes. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, “equality” is a myth, nowhere more so than in the relationship between the sexes. And if we try to live by a myth, rather than the truth, we will come to grief. The apparent relation between the sexes, like the appearance that the Sun revolves around the Earth, may be very compelling to our senses of observation, but it is not the truth.
When I was a teenager, my father sat me down one day and explained something to me: that freedom and responsibility are indissolubly linked, indeed, two parts of the same thing, like two sides of a coin. At the time, he was simply setting out ground rules for my teenage activity (that I could have as much freedom as I was willing to be responsible for); but it was not long before I realized that this was a Fundamental Principle of Life, and in the 40+ years since I have found its application to be unlimited, and unfailingly productive of understanding, sanity, and peace of mind. I’ve had a similar experience in application of this understanding of the true relation between the sexes; it has clarified every situation I’ve observed, including those previously most confusing.
Thus I believe that no real, fundamental understanding of any of the issues discussed here can be gained without beginning from the foundation of this fact: males are the “second sex,” and are optional in terms of fundamental biology. Of course, that’s not all there is to it, by far — it seems clear to me that males are absolutely necessary if we have any hope of developing our consciousness and existence beyond the level of mere biology, i.e. the animal level, with all its attendant suffering — but this fact is where we must start, if we wish to understand how this world works.
Think of a man as a stick in a woman’s hand, a tool which she has created for her use. Clearly, the woman with the biggest stick will prevail in any contest with other women and their sticks — or against any woman who doesn’t have a stick (which covers the example of the geckos). (And the idea that females are not competitive is another of the Big Lies of feminism.) Fundamentally, that’s what males are: tools created by females to use for tasks which they cannot or would rather not do for themselves. (Including, for instance, taking the rap for human competitiveness: "It's those awfule men who cause all the wars; we're just here being sweet and gentle all the time.") Front men, fall guys, whipping boys. Garbage men, soldiers (the ones who actually do the fighting) … all the jobs that all those “equal” women somehow still don’t seem to want.
With the advent of test tube reproduction, we have seen that neither parent need be present to create life. Give it another few years and the artificial womb, or male womb transplants (for the gay community) will make the woman as unnecessary to the whole process as you claim men to be.
God help us. Of all the insanities thought up in the ever-busy human mind, these must be among the most grotesque. Nevertheless, none of these clever, hubristic expedients amount to creating life; like the male sea horse’s incubation of eggs from the female, they are after the fact. “Test-tube reproduction” combines gametes from two human parents in an artificial environment; it does not create the gametes. The two parents may not be in the room, but they are absolutely necessary. The same goes for an “artificial” or “transplanted” womb; they are but containers, useless until they contain something, and that something comes from (at least) a female of the species. Only the Creator creates life; human hubris creates only misery.
Women have not always been in charge of every species. I find it interesting that you claim my example of the sea horse feminist (more national geographic than feminist in origin), when your argument for females being in charge is exactly what “proof” feminists themselves use to justify their position.
Depends what you mean by “in charge”; but it seems to me clear that if, in a general, absolute sense, females can exist without males but males cannot exist without females, and females can decide whether males exist or not, while males cannot decide whether females exist or not, nor even, apparently, have any control over what decision females make regarding males’ existence, then one of the two is in fundamental control of the situation, while the other is not. This is not a species-by-species matter; it is a universal truth. Thus I would say that females have been “in charge” of every species. The female is the species; the male is an optional variation on the theme. Once I was talking with a woman about this subject, and she said, “But aren’t there any species that consist only of males?” And a minute later she said, “No, I guess that’s impossible, isn’t it?” Exactly my point. “Girls rule!”
The sea horse example I believe I’ve heard/read before from feminists trying to “prove” that males are as suited as females for childrearing tasks. (And who says there’re no feminists at National Geographic? These days, feminist rhetoric comes from everywhere, including many male scientists who are, apparently, doing their best at what has always been required from males: to please the female.) Such one-off examples are always cited to “disprove” general rules, and always remind me of Samuel Johnson’s famous quip: 'Sir, a woman's preaching [in church] is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all."
Not clear to me what you mean by the feminist “position” that is justified by the argument I present. Let me make clear that, as with the subject of “blame” addressed elsewhere, I am not seeking to “justify” anything. Justification involves moral argument, and requires first defining moral principles, etc.; it’s a completely different discussion. I am presenting only (what I believe to be) facts, because I believe that we must get our facts straight before we can begin to discuss moral or similar issues.
It’s not that I do not care about moral issues, only that their discussion will be fruitless if we are not first agreed on the ground. For instance, it’s pointless to discuss questions of power and its proper use unless we first understand what power is and who has it. Feminists are constantly complaining about being powerless, and in fact “everyone knows” that women are helpless victims of male power — and, as exhaustively documented on this site, our entire moral/legal system is constructed on the basis of this assumption.
500 years ago, “everyone knew” that the Sun revolved around the Earth; after all, you could see it come up in the east every morning and travel across the sky. Until someone really looked, and found the truth was just the opposite. If NASA were running its space program on the basis of the pre-Copernican world view, it wouldn’t get very far. And so long as we try to address the deep, painful grievances of both genders in the “battle of the sexes” based on untrue assumptions, we’ll only go around in circles, and everyone will hurt more and get more angry, until perhaps we reach some sort of sexual Armageddon.
It’s true that in a way I may seem to be agreeing with some part of the feminist view. Because it’s true. Girls do rule. Tactically, I suppose, my approach is something like the “gentle” martial arts of judo and taiji (I’ve practiced the latter): yield to the opponent, and use her force to accomplish ones own goals. But it’s not a game I’m playing; I wouldn’t “agree” with any feminist position because it’s a feminist position, I merely present the truth, and if a feminist position agrees therewith, well that’s a place to start. And then hold them to it. Yes, girls do rule: so why not quit whining and rule responsibly? As a Zen master once said, if your horse-cart isn’t moving, do you hit the cart or the horse?
In the encounter between the sexes, it is women who make The Rules. Men may hold some of the cards, but women own the deck. All that’s really necessary to find solutions to the problems between the sexes is for women to recognize and acknowledge the power they already have, and that what we have has resulted from their use of that power, and to begin using that power consciously and constructively rather than, as in the past, unconsciously and (all too often) destructively. Will this ever happen? I don’t know.
Disciple: Why is there evil in the world?
Ramakrishna: To thicken the plot.
But it does seem clear that we can’t go on much longer as we have, for we are truly accelerating toward a precipice of a magnitude that few of us can even begin to imagine.
I’ve gone on far too long again. Don’t know if anyone really reads all this; but at least it’s helpful to me to think it through while writing it. Hope you get something out of it, anyone who reads this far.
Previous Philalethes Index Next
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Further Reading:
Philalethes #7 – All Female Populations in the Animal Kingdom
Monday, July 05, 2010
Philalethes #8 - When the Cow Rides the Bull - Priest, Watch Your Skull
As for the sea horse example: I’m sorry, but you’re off the mark; I’ll chalk this up to a leftover from your feminist past. (1) The male sea horse does not “give birth”; he merely incubates the eggs produced by the female, just as do many male birds. Neither male nor female sea horse has a womb as do mammals; in the case of oviparous species the egg leaving the female body is the equivalent of mammalian females giving birth. Certainly the eggs may not survive without male sea horse’s care, but that’s true of bird eggs as well; what’s unusual is that an invertebrate’s eggs need such care, from either parent.
That the male sea horse does more child-rearing work than most males is certainly true; but it’s still the female who creates the new life. And at some point in sea horse evolution it was she who decided (on whatever level such decisions are made) that any male who wanted to mate with her would have to provide postnatal day-care as well. Females make The Rules. Presumably she, like the females of other species mentioned, could dispense with the male and redefine her species as female-only. If that were to her evolutionary advantage. Males are expensive (as a recent feminist book snidely remarked in its title); they must confer some advantage to be economically justified. As they do in most sexual species. But not all.
And (2) it is just such responses — citing a single, artfully mischaracterized example to “refute” a carefully made argument — that long ago led to the bit of male traditional wisdom that advises, “Never argue with a woman.” Because women don’t ordinarily engage in discourse to discover the truth — as men do, not always, but men can be held to it if confronted, while women will dodge (a.k.a. “change the subject”) — but merely to “win.” And “all’s fair in war and love.” “Love” here defined as any encounter between the sexes, and “all’s fair” because that’s how women fight.
But as I said, I’ll chalk it up to your past as a former “feminist.” You probably read this example of how the sea horse single-handedly disproves the entire idea of meaningful differences between the sexes in some feminist polemic. Well, it doesn’t. Like all feminist “natural herstory,” it’s entirely specious.
Quote: "I have done some studying of the bible, and I feel that the reason for the "wife is to submit to her husband" passage is just that. Women are not capable, as a whole, to be completely equal yet not try to take over. It is in our genes, as mothers, to control and dominated over others, as we do to our children. It is our jobs. We must be reminded, however, that this does not extend to others around us, i.e. our husbands.
Some good thinking here. But I would say that in Reality, there is actually no such thing as “equality.” All relationships are hierarchical, in one way or another. Many change, from time to time. “Equality” only has meaning in relation to the limited sphere of human law i.e. that, for instance, all people should be “equal” before the law in regard to their rights. And here “rights” means only what the Founders (Jefferson et al.) understood it to mean: self-ownership, the rights to life, liberty and property. Not any “right” to a job, health-care, or chocolate before breakfast (if it’s someone else’s chocolate). Otherwise, no body can have two heads, and neither can a family, nor any human relationship. Someone always leads, the other always follows. On the surface; below the surface, the reverse is often true. But that’s as it should be; however, turn the relationship over and everything’s upside-down.
An old English saying I read once: "When the cow rides the bull - priest, watch your skull." Meaning that when natural relationships are turned upside-down, the truth (represented by God’s deputy in this world, the priest) is in danger.
What is often forgotten about the Biblical idea is that the corollary to the wife submitting to her husband is that her husband must also submit to God. Only if a man is in proper relation to the Absolute (however you may characterize this — as a Buddhist I don’t call it God, but recognize that I must live according to the truth if I want my life to work) can he expect a woman to be in proper relation to him. And, as Christ pointed out, to “rule” truly is to serve. A husband’s job is to “husband” his family’s resources, meaning the energy created by his wife’s devotion. A real marriage is a relationship of mutual devotion — to each other and to the Truth, in which each member does the tasks he or she is most suited to do. And neither “lords it over” the other, in public or private.
Yes, it is true that woman is naturally suited to watch over and care for her children. And that her authority to do so is natural and right. But when her relationship to her husband is as to a child, things are not right. Because it means he never grew up. Of course, this arrangement can be very gratifying to her ego, but in the end a child-husband will fail to satisfy her real needs. But she won’t know why, only that she’s dissatisfied. This, I believe, is the real root of feminists’ tremendous anger. They’re not getting what they need from men: not only husbands but fathers. In great part it goes back to the Industrial Revolution, which famously separated men from their families. Absent fathers are not good for either boys or girls. Mothers can raise children up to the “age of reason” (6-7 years), and partially to puberty (11-2 years), but beyond that boys need fathering to become men, and girls need fathering to become women.
(But don’t forget that the purpose of the Industrial Revolution was to make refrigerators, and other labour-saving devices. As Camille Paglia points out, civilization has been created by men, but, as always, in the service of women.)
Quote: "I feel that passage is written to make sure we each work on what is most difficult. For women, it is letting go of control, for men it is putting their family first."
Indeed. My thanks for an insightful observation.
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"There has never been a case of men and women reigning together, but wherever on the earth men are found, there we see that men rule, and women are ruled, and that on this plan, both sexes live in harmony. But on the other hand, the Amazons, who are reported to have held rule of old, did not suffer men to stop in their country, but reared only their female children, killing the males to whom they gave birth." -- Spinoza
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Further Reading:
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Woman over Wisdom -- by Mathieu of Boulogne, 1295 A.D.
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Bonecrker #51 – Don’t Argue with Women
That the male sea horse does more child-rearing work than most males is certainly true; but it’s still the female who creates the new life. And at some point in sea horse evolution it was she who decided (on whatever level such decisions are made) that any male who wanted to mate with her would have to provide postnatal day-care as well. Females make The Rules. Presumably she, like the females of other species mentioned, could dispense with the male and redefine her species as female-only. If that were to her evolutionary advantage. Males are expensive (as a recent feminist book snidely remarked in its title); they must confer some advantage to be economically justified. As they do in most sexual species. But not all.
And (2) it is just such responses — citing a single, artfully mischaracterized example to “refute” a carefully made argument — that long ago led to the bit of male traditional wisdom that advises, “Never argue with a woman.” Because women don’t ordinarily engage in discourse to discover the truth — as men do, not always, but men can be held to it if confronted, while women will dodge (a.k.a. “change the subject”) — but merely to “win.” And “all’s fair in war and love.” “Love” here defined as any encounter between the sexes, and “all’s fair” because that’s how women fight.
But as I said, I’ll chalk it up to your past as a former “feminist.” You probably read this example of how the sea horse single-handedly disproves the entire idea of meaningful differences between the sexes in some feminist polemic. Well, it doesn’t. Like all feminist “natural herstory,” it’s entirely specious.
Quote: "I have done some studying of the bible, and I feel that the reason for the "wife is to submit to her husband" passage is just that. Women are not capable, as a whole, to be completely equal yet not try to take over. It is in our genes, as mothers, to control and dominated over others, as we do to our children. It is our jobs. We must be reminded, however, that this does not extend to others around us, i.e. our husbands.
Some good thinking here. But I would say that in Reality, there is actually no such thing as “equality.” All relationships are hierarchical, in one way or another. Many change, from time to time. “Equality” only has meaning in relation to the limited sphere of human law i.e. that, for instance, all people should be “equal” before the law in regard to their rights. And here “rights” means only what the Founders (Jefferson et al.) understood it to mean: self-ownership, the rights to life, liberty and property. Not any “right” to a job, health-care, or chocolate before breakfast (if it’s someone else’s chocolate). Otherwise, no body can have two heads, and neither can a family, nor any human relationship. Someone always leads, the other always follows. On the surface; below the surface, the reverse is often true. But that’s as it should be; however, turn the relationship over and everything’s upside-down.
An old English saying I read once: "When the cow rides the bull - priest, watch your skull." Meaning that when natural relationships are turned upside-down, the truth (represented by God’s deputy in this world, the priest) is in danger.
What is often forgotten about the Biblical idea is that the corollary to the wife submitting to her husband is that her husband must also submit to God. Only if a man is in proper relation to the Absolute (however you may characterize this — as a Buddhist I don’t call it God, but recognize that I must live according to the truth if I want my life to work) can he expect a woman to be in proper relation to him. And, as Christ pointed out, to “rule” truly is to serve. A husband’s job is to “husband” his family’s resources, meaning the energy created by his wife’s devotion. A real marriage is a relationship of mutual devotion — to each other and to the Truth, in which each member does the tasks he or she is most suited to do. And neither “lords it over” the other, in public or private.
Yes, it is true that woman is naturally suited to watch over and care for her children. And that her authority to do so is natural and right. But when her relationship to her husband is as to a child, things are not right. Because it means he never grew up. Of course, this arrangement can be very gratifying to her ego, but in the end a child-husband will fail to satisfy her real needs. But she won’t know why, only that she’s dissatisfied. This, I believe, is the real root of feminists’ tremendous anger. They’re not getting what they need from men: not only husbands but fathers. In great part it goes back to the Industrial Revolution, which famously separated men from their families. Absent fathers are not good for either boys or girls. Mothers can raise children up to the “age of reason” (6-7 years), and partially to puberty (11-2 years), but beyond that boys need fathering to become men, and girls need fathering to become women.
(But don’t forget that the purpose of the Industrial Revolution was to make refrigerators, and other labour-saving devices. As Camille Paglia points out, civilization has been created by men, but, as always, in the service of women.)
Quote: "I feel that passage is written to make sure we each work on what is most difficult. For women, it is letting go of control, for men it is putting their family first."
Indeed. My thanks for an insightful observation.
Previous Philalethes Index Next
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"There has never been a case of men and women reigning together, but wherever on the earth men are found, there we see that men rule, and women are ruled, and that on this plan, both sexes live in harmony. But on the other hand, the Amazons, who are reported to have held rule of old, did not suffer men to stop in their country, but reared only their female children, killing the males to whom they gave birth." -- Spinoza
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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Further Reading:
.
Woman over Wisdom -- by Mathieu of Boulogne, 1295 A.D.
.
Bonecrker #51 – Don’t Argue with Women
Friday, July 02, 2010
Philalethes #7 - All Female Populations in the Animal Kingdom
Quote: "The topic of all female populations in the animal kingdom is fascinating."
Certainly, and even more, crucial to understanding “gender issues.” For me, as I said, this discovery was the key; once I got that, everything else fell into place.
Quote: "A friend of mine told me the other day of a lizard population that is all female."
One such species lives in the desert here in New Mexico. Haven’t seen any myself, though. Another I have seen: the common dandelion. Worth noting, however, that so far as I know there is no such female-only species among the birds and mammals, the fast-moving, intelligent (well, relatively), warm-blooded species. So it’s not clear how far feminism can go in this reverse-evolution scheme.
Quote: "He said that if the lizards were removed from their environments that they die immediately. Without the male they have lost all adaptability."
Well, not quite all, I suppose, but they would evolve very slowly, by comparison. I have a newspaper article about geckos, the ubiquitous lizards of tropical Asia and Pacific islands: Seems that some island populations became isolated long enough to take this step and lose their males, but now with frequent human travel between the islands the species are mixing again, and the female-only species are losing out in every encounter with the male female species. Can’t compete. That’s the tradeoff: comfort and security for adaptability and variety — a.k.a. the “spice of life.” A while ago a woman told me she’d quit being a lesbian because in the end the lifestyle was just terminally boring. And there’s nothing she can’t stand more than boredom — after all, that’s why she created this whole show in the first place.
Yes, the Ancients knew a lot we seem to have forgotten. For instance, according to Cato the Elder (234-149 BCE), "If you allow them [women] to pull away the restraints and put themselves on an equality with their husbands, do you imagine that you will be able to tolerate them? From the moment that they become your fellows, they will become your masters." MISOGYNY!! (See, if you yell loud enough, nobody’ll try to figure out if there’s any truth to it.)
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Certainly, and even more, crucial to understanding “gender issues.” For me, as I said, this discovery was the key; once I got that, everything else fell into place.
Quote: "A friend of mine told me the other day of a lizard population that is all female."
One such species lives in the desert here in New Mexico. Haven’t seen any myself, though. Another I have seen: the common dandelion. Worth noting, however, that so far as I know there is no such female-only species among the birds and mammals, the fast-moving, intelligent (well, relatively), warm-blooded species. So it’s not clear how far feminism can go in this reverse-evolution scheme.
Quote: "He said that if the lizards were removed from their environments that they die immediately. Without the male they have lost all adaptability."
Well, not quite all, I suppose, but they would evolve very slowly, by comparison. I have a newspaper article about geckos, the ubiquitous lizards of tropical Asia and Pacific islands: Seems that some island populations became isolated long enough to take this step and lose their males, but now with frequent human travel between the islands the species are mixing again, and the female-only species are losing out in every encounter with the male female species. Can’t compete. That’s the tradeoff: comfort and security for adaptability and variety — a.k.a. the “spice of life.” A while ago a woman told me she’d quit being a lesbian because in the end the lifestyle was just terminally boring. And there’s nothing she can’t stand more than boredom — after all, that’s why she created this whole show in the first place.
Yes, the Ancients knew a lot we seem to have forgotten. For instance, according to Cato the Elder (234-149 BCE), "If you allow them [women] to pull away the restraints and put themselves on an equality with their husbands, do you imagine that you will be able to tolerate them? From the moment that they become your fellows, they will become your masters." MISOGYNY!! (See, if you yell loud enough, nobody’ll try to figure out if there’s any truth to it.)
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