The Backlash! - April 1996

• Pop-feminists categorically attack the "patriarchy" as "hierarchical" and "authoritarian." Yet, the rights they demand for women are inherently hierarchical and authoritarian, because they depend on a hierarchy of authority to enforce them.

• When it's a woman's body, it's "boundary issues," but when it's a man's body, it's "responsibilities."

• Frequently, women will agree to things between themselves that violate the rights of others.

• Few young women in America spend a lot of time dealing with unfulfilled lust because most of them can get their wildest sexual and gastronomic fantasies fulfilled any time they want to.

• Pop-feminists say a woman should be able to charge a man with domestic violence if she is somehow frightened by his behavior, but a man should never be allowed to mitigate a charge of sexual impropriety because he is somehow aroused by her behavior. Okay, so what's the difference between, "He made me afraid," and, "She made me horny"?

• We know that men who have sex with men run a very high risk of contracting HIV. Additionally, it seems that men who have sex with women run a very high risk of contracting an STD, a jail sentence, or both. With this in mind, has the time come for all men to buy and read The Joys of Masturbation and enter into a monogamous relationship with Rosy Palm?

• According to pop-feminists, when women conform to feminine stereotypes, they're victims, but when men conform to masculine stereotypes, they're villains.

• New Rage women comment at length on how men experience being male. How would they know?

• When women complain about having to wear makeup, perfume and provocative clothing, they're being oppressed by the male-imposed "beauty myth." But when men complain that they're being sexually harassed by women who wear makeup, perfume and provocative clothing, it's women exercising their individual rights.

• If men could get pregnant, menstrual cramps would be manly -- "Forget the Midol. Take it like a man!"

• In a society that tells girls they are victims if a man has sex or engages in sex play with them, but boys are told they are lucky if a woman has sex or engages in sex play with them, how can we obtain a true picture of the extent to which boys are victimized by female sex offenders?

• Men kill themselves 1.2 times more often than they kill others. Must have something to do with all that excess male self-esteem the American Association of University Women complains about.

• What are we to make of this contradiction: non-feminist women (most women) tell us they like sleeping with the cowboys - men who are alive, vigorous, adventurous and a little dangerous, like the men on the covers of romance novels - but New Rage women complain when men act like cowboys. Why?

• Are female actors paid less than male actors because men are biased against them, or because men are less discriminating about which actresses they enjoy? While male fans of Sharon Stone enjoy watching her, or a Sharon Stone lookalike, or just about any reasonably attractive woman, female fans of Mel Gibson accept no substitutes. In other words, are male actors paid more than female actors because women are biased?

• Men often nurture others by solving problems, earning money, or respecting another's need to be left alone. Why are pop-feminists unwilling to acknowledge this?

• Isn't the pop-feminist assumption that women always tell the truth and men always lie, sexist?

• Most people do little of note. That's because most people are, well, average. Feminist authors like Susan Faludi complain that women are average because men hold them back. But when it comes to average men, they're "just losers." Sounds sexist to me.

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