Philalethes #21 - Circumcision

Quote: "While an interesting correlation is made between circumcision rates in the USA and other industrial countries and the rate of male violence this seems inherently flawed. There is no empirical evidence for this sort of claim."

Well, no, I don’t guess there is. Nor can there ever be. “Empirical evidence” is a myth, really, in relation to non-quantifiable factors like human feelings and behaviours. Nevertheless, since I became aware a decade ago of what circumcision did to me, (1) I have been in a state of severe shock and post-traumatic stress, and (2) I’ve noticed a consistent psychological pattern which I consider significant: infant-circumcised men are subconsciously* terrified of women, while intact men are not. I can’t “prove” this, no. But I think it’s interesting to note that it was precisely when the first universally-circumcised generation (mine, born during WWII) came of age, that feminism took over the culture. There are few men in America today who know how, or why, or when, to gently but firmly say “No” to a woman. We just can’t do it. And the consequences have been and will be disastrous for women as well as for men. Because–feminist dogma notwithstanding–even women are not perfect, and we all need someone in our lives to tell us “No” now and then. When our most infantile impulses are given free reign, we suffer.

(*Note: “Subconsciously” means we aren’t aware of it, but it profoundly affects our behaviour. We can become aware of such subconscious influences, however, and try to compensate; as I have been doing since I became aware of this.)

What I was pointing out was that the radio segment made a big point of comparing the rates of “male violence” (a term I don’t generally use, since it’s a code-word for misandry) in America with those in other countries, but somehow neglected to note what, as I said, I consider the decisive difference between those countries (Britain, France) and ours in the rearing of male children. And I have observed an identical neglect in every other commentator on the question of “what’s wrong with [American] boys?” who has received any media coverage.

And no, I don’t think it’s exactly a “conspiracy.” It’s a lot deeper, a lot bigger than that. It’s a symptom of a deeply rooted, pervasive cultural psychosis. “Denial is not a river in Egypt.”

Quote: "What is [interesting] in this comparison is … the way male circumcision is treated in comparison with female circumcision."

Precisely. When in the mid-1990s immigrants from East Africa and neighbouring regions began bringing their daughters to American hospitals for this traditional procedure, American feminists rose up and had female circumcision outlawed, in probably the swiftest Congressional action since December 8, 1941. Nevertheless, these same feminists continue to actively support the American “tradition” of infant male circumcision. A doctor in Cairo will give exactly the same reasons of “health” and “hygiene” for female circumcision that you’ll hear in this country for male circumcision. So why is it bad to do this to girls, if it’s good to do it to boys? This, I gather, is what feminism calls “equal treatment.”

On the other hand, I’ve never yet come across a man involved in the effort to stop male circumcision in America who is not also appalled and horrified by the genital mutilation practiced on girls elsewhere in the world, who does not want to see both practices stopped. I can only guess that this apparent discrepancy must be related to the male inability (which I’ve been hearing about all my life, ad nauseam) to experience the finer, more superior form of compassion naturally demonstrated by females.

Quote: "Men are expected to take abuse with a stoic resolve."

A remark from a feminist quoted in Say No to Circumcision summed it up pretty well, I thought: “Well, if he can’t take that, what can he take?” (I remember reading this in the book, but haven’t been able to find it again; if someone can tell me the page it’s on, I’d appreciate it.)

However, I don’t think this is entirely “wrong,” or that the “solution” is for men to become more like women in this regard (or any other). From the beginning of time it has been men’s task to protect and defend women and children. It’s the natural order, also seen in many other species. To this end, males must learn to, in ‘Enry ‘Iggins immortal words, “take a position and staunchly never budge.” Which means being able to endure suffering without complaint, to die if necessary. As millions of men have, in various ways, to give us the world we have now. What’s changed is that we used to get, as Otis Redding said, “a little respect” for our sacrifices.

In a difficult and dangerous world, the freedom to “be in touch with ones feelings” is a luxury, which men have forgone so that women may enjoy it. There’s just no time or energy to waste on “having a good cry” when home and family must be defended, right now, against a savage attack.

This is where I–regretfully–must disagree with Warren Farrell, much though I respect his work. Farrell thinks the solution is for the sexes to become more alike–which only shows he has not yet completely recovered from his former lapdog role. The solution is for men to be men again, and for the two sexes to respect each other. Which begins with mothers respecting their sons. The relationship between the sexes is not circular; it’s a spiral, which begins with Mother, as do all things.

In the larger context, it seems like this sort of thing happens in every decaying empire. Life becomes comfortable, people forget about hard the world is outside their limited, temporary prosperity, and women start to think that the security they have is just naturally theirs, that they don’t “need” men anymore. “Fathers are redundant.” Since the necessities of life have resulted in women having an exclusive copyright on all the “virtues” (it’s ironic that this word itself comes from the Latin word for “man”: vir)–gentleness, compassion, caring, etc.–for the protection of which men have made themselves hard and “unfeeling”–women begin cultivating contempt for the men they see around them–the men they themselves have made.

And eventually, of course, the empire rots from within and is invaded and conquered by another culture whose women have kept their men strong. There may be no help for it, really.

Quote: "The person who submitted this apparently has some issues with women…and I think the credibility of this web site has just gone down a notch."

Yes indeed, I do have some issues with women–American women especially. There will always be “issues” between the sexes, as between any pair of complementary opposites. I see the relation between the sexes as like that between sparring partners: we help each other by being difficult for each other, giving each other opportunities to learn and grow. But that can only work if there is some parity between us, if we are “worthy opponents.” Since in fact there is no such thing as “equality” between the sexes–the creature (the male) cannot be “equal” to his Creator (the female)–then the entire relationship rests on how mothers bring up their sons: whether to be strong, independent, adult men who are secure in themselves and can hold their own with the women they will encounter later in life, or to be weak, dependent Mama’s boys whose assigned role is to gratify women’s infantile greed for power.

In the last century, American women seem to have decided on the latter. To that end they have embraced the Tonya Harding strategy: since the point, as they see it, of the relationship is to win–by whatever means necessary–it makes sense to cripple the “enemy” before the contest even begins. So Tonya hired a couple of hit men to kneecap her rival in women’s skating competition–and American mothers hire doctors to torture and cripple (physically, yes, but even more important, psychologically) their newborn, defenceless sons. It’s sick, that’s what it is. And it was done to me, and damned right I have “issues” about it.

I am what’s fashionable these days to call a “survivor” of severe childhood abuse–all, the overt part anyway, from my father. Trained to seek refuge with my mother, I was brought up to believe all the feminist dogma about how men are “bad” and women are “good” (a gross oversimplification, but that’s what it comes down to). Only at age 50 did I begin to understand what my mother had done to me–unconsciously and thus in “innocence,” but nevertheless the consequences for me are very real–and that the beginning of it, my circumcision at birth, unlike everything my father did, is permanent and irreparable.

So yes, I have “issues.” And no, I’m not mad at my mother about it–she didn’t know what she was doing. But I have no patience with lies, or those who prefer lies to the truth, or offer lies in response to truth. Like the Man said, the truth–and only the truth–will set us free.

“Let us speak the truth.” – George W. Bush, Berlin, Germany, 23 May 2002 (Scuse me, I couldn’t resist. He really said it; I heard him on the radio.)

And I will say this: if you are a circumcised American man and you don’t have “issues,” you’re in serious denial. Ironically, I get more ridicule from men on this than from women. But I understand why.

Quote: "I don’t think it’s the definitive aspect of American culture, or that it profoundly affects most men’s psychology."

Well, of course you don’t. But refusing to see something doesn’t mean it’s not there. The fact is this: only two cultures on the planet practice infant male circumcision: the Jews (whose psychology in this regard–and its wider implications–deserves a whole essay in itself) and the White Anglo Protestant Americans–who got the idea from the Jews. (And formerly the other English-speaking countries, though Britain itself has almost entirely abandoned the idea since 1950.) It’s also become popular in South Korea, due to overwhelming American cultural influence. Given this fact, and what a horrendous thing it is to do to a newborn baby (those who aren’t permanently scarred bleed to death), I think it’s a pretty “definitive aspect” of a culture. Why do they do this? Women in other countries–continental Europe, for example–find the idea ridiculous/horrifying. But American women not only consider it perfectly “normal” but actually become hysterical (look that word up in the dictionary) when it is questioned. This is not like a difference in how various cultures clip their nails or comb their hair. And how do you know it doesn’t “profoundly affect” men’s psychology? Have you even thought about it?

Again, the plain facts are these: (1) There’s no end of wringing of hands (and lucrative book contracts) these days over the question of “what’s wrong with American men?” and (2) The fact that only American men, relative to all other major nations on the planet, are subjected to this treatment is never mentioned in any of this voluminous “what’s wrong” literature. If this doesn’t look funny to you, you definitely need to see an optometrist. Or some kind of healer.

“Inside every boy there is a nice, loving, little girl waiting to come out if only we have the eyes to see it.”

Excellent! What frustrates me most is men like this, who’ve bought the feminist line and are doing their best to “justify” men within a system where ultimately it cannot be done. Either men are men, or they are poor imitations of women. There is no middle ground on this. Because, while women can, to some extent, do anything men can do, men cannot do what women do. Nothing will change this truth. The real question is, do women want men, or not. Because, while women can live without men, men cannot exist without women. If women do not want men, the best solution would be to get rid of them entirely, and turn to cloning, as some other species have done (See why males exist). That is a legitimate solution, because it is women’s decision. But if they do want men, they are only harming themselves by crippling the men they make. It’s insane.

The real insanity is feminism itself, whose bedrock foundation is the “men are from Mars, women are from Venus” fallacy. The truth is, women are from Earth, and men are from women. We are two parts of the same being. As Gandhi said, “An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.” But this is even closer to home: Feminism is one hand cutting off the other and calling it “equality,” or “justice” or “progress” or any of a million other senseless buzzwords. It’s truly insane.

Well, enough for the moment. My thanks to anyone who’s taken the trouble to read this, and to all who made this a fruitful discussion.
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Q: Why do you think male circumcision exists?
A: To reduce male libido, or as Rambam (the most famous Jewish Rabbi) wrote:
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"Similarly with regard to circumcision, one of the reasons for it is, in my opinion, the wish to bring about a decrease in sexual intercourse and a weakening of the organ in question, so that this activity be diminished and the organ be in as quiet a state as possible.
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It has been thought that circumcision perfects what is defective congenitally. This gave the possibility to everyone to raise an objection and to say: How can natural things be defective so that they need to be perfected from outside, all the more because we know how useful the foreskin is for that member?
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In fact this commandment has not been prescribed with a view to perfecting what is defective congenitally, but to perfecting what is defective morally.
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The bodily pain caused to that member is the real purpose of circumcision. None of the activities necessary for the preservation of the individual is harmed thereby, nor is procreation rendered impossible, but violent concupiscence and lust that goes beyond what is needed are diminished.
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The fact that circumcision weakens the faculty of sexual excitement and sometimes perhaps diminishes the pleasure is indubitable.
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For if at birth this member has been made to bleed and has had its covering taken away from it, it must indubitably be weakened. The Sages, may their memory be blessed, have explicitly stated: It is hard for a woman with whom an uncircumcised man has had sexual intercourse to separate from him. In my opinion this is the strongest of the reasons for circumcision."
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Philalethes #20 - Chivalry

Quote: There is no longer anything noble about chivalry. It is just a forum for the devaluation of males.

Sorry, I don’t agree. The problem is not the courtesies men show to women, the problem is that many women have dropped their side of the ancient bargain. A culture in which all relationships are based on total egotism and savage competition cannot last.

“How do porcupines make love? Very carefully.” But at least they do it; otherwise there’d be no little porcupines.

The ancient bargain is, in essence, this: mothers care for and protect their sons, who grow up to care for and protect their wives, and the cycle repeats. Both must do their part for it to work, and for human society to survive. But mothers have the ultimate power to define, or redefine, the arrangement; however, even they cannot contravene natural law. Natural law is, in essence, the Golden Rule: you get what you give. And, your creation cannot be other than what you create it to be. And, your creation’s character will be a reflection of your character. This is what women need to get straight.
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Philalethes #19 - Not Much Happens That Women Don't Approve Of

BTW, I hear Bob Dylan said something like “Not much happens that women don’t approve of”

You might have heard this from a previous post by me; somewhere in many boxes of papers I have a Rolling Stone interview with Dylan ca. 1988 in which he said (approximately, according to my memory): “Women rule the world. No man ever did anything unless a woman allowed or encouraged him to do it.” (And I have quoted this in numerous posts here.) It was this remark, and the book Why Males Exist (out of print, check your library), which I discovered about the same time, that finally gave me the necessary keys to understanding the whole “gender” question.

From the beginning of sex, ca. 1.5 billion years ago, the male is the creation of the female, and always will be. She creates/produces males to take care of chores which she cannot or would rather not deal with herself.

“Cannot”: provide genetic diversity to enable swift evolutionary change; single-sex species of any complexity cannot adapt quickly to new conditions. This includes particularly those species which used to have males but no longer do — about which I learned in Why Males Exist. It is worth noting that while there is a substantial number of female-only species among plants, invertebrate animals, fish, amphibians and reptiles, I know of none among the warm-blooded, fast-moving birds and mammals. Certainly this is not an accident. Like the modern fad of lesbianism, female-only species can survive only in thoroughly-protected, unchanging ecological niches.

A woman once told me she used to be a lesbian, but gave it up because lesbian culture/society was terminally boring. I was not surprised. I was also not interested in her rather pathetic attempts to engage my male interest — which included her proud story of how her little boy (a product of anonymous artificial insemination) stood up in school for the idea that fathers are unnecessary. Why she thought I would be charmed by this story I don’t know. This woman came from Berkeley; maybe she should have stayed there.

“Would rather not”: any dangerous task, since the female’s first priority is the security necessary to reproduce successfully. This is why men have always fought the wars, not because women can’t fight, but because men are expendable. And, of course, why men provide 95% of on-the-job deaths, etc. etc. She can always make more, after all.

The male is the front man, fall guy, and whipping boy in her melodrama. The male “rulers” and warriors feminists complain about are simply front men for the females who run them — mothers, “lovers,” wives, daughters — and benefit from their amassing of power, territory and material goods — or their defending of power, territory and material goods from the front men sent by the women across the river. “Fall guy” and “whipping boy”: well, you can figure it out.

Yeah, this article is a joke, but it is a sick joke. The truth is, Bob Dylan was right: women do rule the world, and the world we have is what women want — or at least what they have used their power to create. Including the pathetic politically-correct feminist males like the editor of this paper. I no longer see much point in complaining about it. They’ll do what they want, as they always have. If ever any substantial number of women begin to wonder why they’re suffering, and really want to know, the information is available. The Buddha explained it all quite clearly 2500 years ago, and he was surely not the first, nor the last. And then he simply walked away from the melodrama.
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"Women invent rules, manipulate men to obey them, and in this way dominate men - but in no way apply the rules to themselves." -- Esther Vilar in her 1972 book The Manipulated Man
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“It is an amazing thing to see in our city the wife of a shoemaker, or a butcher, or a porter dressed in silk with chains of gold at the throat, with pearls and a ring of good value… and then in contrast to see her husband cutting the meat, all smeared with cow’s blood, poorly dressed, or burdened like an ass, clothed with the stuff from which sacks are made… but whoever considers this carefully will find it reasonable, because it is necessary that the lady, even if low born and humble, be draped with such clothes for her natural excellence and dignity, and that the man [be] less adorned as if a slave, or a little ass, born to her service.” – Lucrezia Marinella of Venice, Italy, 1600, The Nobility and Excellence of Women Together With the Defects and Deficiencies of Men


Interview with a Womenfirster: Phyllis Schlafly

Jack Kammer: What if I was the kind of man, like a lot of men who have confided to me, who is sick to death of the corporate world and in a heartbeat would stay home to take care of their kids because they love them so much and they know the business world is a crock?

Phyllis Schlafly:… That’s their problem. As I look around the world about me, I just don’t find there are many [women] who want the so-called non-traditional relationships.

-- a radio interview, WCVT-FM (now WTMD), Towson University, Maryland, January 5, 1989

Philalethes #18 - Opposed to Woman Suffrage?

Women SHOULD have the right to vote.

When I was younger, before the “hormone-induced fog” (thanks, Warren Farrell) began to clear and I started to actually see the situation with some clarity, I would have said the same. Now I’m older, not so desperately in need of female approval, I can simply say what I see without having to be furious, which also clouds the vision.

Another common prediction by opponents of female suffrage was that it would destroy the family. Well? Isn’t that exactly what has happened? When women can look to the government for their needs — a government funded by involuntary contributions from working men — why should they bother to do the work of maintaining relationships with men? Why should they have any respect for men, if they can use and discard them at whim? As Warren Farrell made clear in The Myth of Male Power, the State is now every woman’s “husband.” Women are generally the majority in most human populations, so when women vote, they’ll get what they want. (It’ll be very interesting to see what happens in China in a few decades, with something like 20% more men than women. Sexual power far outweighs political power in any case.)

“The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money.” (Alexis de Tocqueville) What about when politicians can bribe the “voters” with other people’s money? Then you have socialism, which ultimately self-destructs, like any “system” that separates freedom (or power) from responsibility.

Is it only coincidence that the century that saw the transfer of political power to women also saw the exponential growth of socialism all over the planet? Remember: while the prime value of the male is freedom, the prime value of the female is security. Women may say they want to be “free,” but what they really want is to be able to indulge their whims and fancies without being held responsible for the consequences. It’s not an accident that the #2 issue of feminism (right after voting) is abortion.

I suppose I’m not really an “MRA” … I’m not proposing that the “right to vote” be taken from women. I understand that women rule the world, and it’s what they seem to want. I’m merely commenting on what I see. I agree with the poster below: there’s really no way to “fight” it; we can only walk away. Let them change their own damned oil.

In a healthy political order, voting is not a “right”; it’s a privilege. For thousands of years, human cultures that lasted understood, if only unconsciously, that formal political decision-making power should be in the hands of those society members who understand that freedom requires responsibility — i.e. those with whom the buck stops. Children do not understand the connection of responsibility with freedom, which is why adults are responsible for children, and children traditionally have not been given political power. I hear that in Europe, it is now seriously being proposed that children should be given the vote. Not surprising, once power has been separated from responsibility. Politicians, of course, love the idea: more fools to rule.

Traditionally, men have been responsible for supporting their families, i.e. the women and children dependent on them, which is why men have had the power that rests on that responsibility. Now that women can use the power of the State, men are still assumed to bear that responsibility — have you been watching the “family court” travesty? — But no longer have any authority — or freedom. A “wallet” is not a man. Similarly, in the area of sexual encounter, men still bear all the responsibility, but women have all the freedom — thus the “bias in the system against men” that “infuriated” you. Think about it.

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“The women’s suffrage movement is only the small edge of the wedge, if we allow women to vote it will mean the loss of social structure and the rise of every liberal cause under the sun. Women are well represented by their fathers, brothers, and husbands.” -- Winston Churchill
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Further Reading:

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Philalethes #11 – The End Results of Female Suffrage

Philalethes #17 - When Women Rule

Switzerland is now ruled by a woman (the president or whatever is the single-person office at the head of its government), and a few years ago discarded their ancient governmental system for a new, politically-correct constitution which, like that of Canada, pretends to “give” rights while actually vastly expanding government powers. Switzerland, R.I.P.

In 1995 I saw a PBS special celebrating the 75th anniversary of the 19th Amendment (1920), and was amused to hear that opponents of female suffrage predicted that it would result in alcohol prohibition (the “temperance” movement — like the push for infant male circumcision — was closely allied to the female suffrage movement, all promoted by 19th century Miss Wormwoods determined to make the world a better place by controlling male behaviour). Somehow it seemed to escape the writers of the show that indeed that was exactly what happened. Duh. The 18th Amendment actually preceded the 19th in ratification, but was a product of the same growing influence of women in political life. And Prohibition typified the female obsession with appearances over reality, and the use of force-by-proxy to make the world “better,” which actually makes the situation worse.

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"The female of the species is more deadly than the male." -- Rudyard Kipling

"The history of woman is the history of the worst form of tyranny the world has ever known; the tyranny of the weak over the strong. It is the only tyranny that lasts." -- Oscar Wilde

"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

"When women hold the helm of government, the state is at once in jeopardy" -- Hegel
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Further Reading:

Man Superior to Woman - Chapter Four

Toronto Cops Gone Wild

Toronto Cops Gone Wild  

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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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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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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.

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Further Reading:

Philalethes #1 – Feminist Allies?

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
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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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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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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.

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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