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From the author of Surviving the Feminization of America. |
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March 2002
Outta the way, Mae?
If the first wave of the sexual revolution, Kamen writes, "promised women sexual freedom on men's terms of promiscuity (always being available to satisfy their needs), the sexual revolution of the 1990s and beyond stresses the importance of women's taking charge." - OregonianWest and Gabor weren't in control? Or is Kamen calling for a return to the Victorian ethic, expecting women to be the gatekeepers of sexual morality? Capitalizing on her readers' ignorance of their mothers' world might be a more accurate description. The "new" practice of sharing explicit details of their sex lives, for instance: Signs of this new order have been percolating in pop culture for years, Kamen says. Take, for example, the phenomenon of women adopting men's "locker-room talk," in which they brag about conquests and go into gleeful, play-by-play detail about who did what to whom. - OregonianIronic Kamen would suggest this transpired during the past 10 years, given that in her 1990 book, Why They Don't Call When They Say They Will and Other Mixed Signals  , Joy Browne, author of Dating for Dummies , wrote: "Very few women would think of not confiding intimate details of their lives and especially loves to their friends." So, what's changed? The distribution of power:
All in all, "this is one of the best times to grow up as a teen-ager," Kamen says, "because these girls have more education and we're seeing women having more power in society." - OregonianNothing wrong with that. Girls and women should have power. As George Gilder, author of Men and Marriage  , notes, however, when women and men do not share power through marriage, it leads to precisely the kind of social decay we are experiencing in such growing abundance today.
Bigot, or protective mother?
A 31-year-old Bellevue woman - who was picking up her 9-month-old daughter from the Little Friends in the 1400 block of 140th Avenue Northeast - called police after an unknown man complimented her on her baby. Police said the woman was worried by the compliment, and that the man reached toward the baby, so she called police. - the now-defunct Bellevue Journal AmericanAs it happens, Little Friends daycare is located right across the street from where I lived for many years on a busy, well-lit and heavily patrolled street: A child is more likely to be hit by a car than abducted by a stranger. So, we might shrug this off as a simple case of an overprotective mother. But would she have reacted the same way to an "unknown woman"? Women compliment strangers' babies all the time. And what if she is white and the man was black? Was her reaction racist? Contrasted against how she probably would have reacted had the stranger been a woman, the question we should ask is, was her response sexist?
Feminists indifferent to murder of men?
Mallard told police she had been drinking and using ecstasy that night and was driving home when she struck a man. The impact hurled him headfirst through the windshield, his broken legs protruding onto the hood. - Boston GlobeAlthough far too many pedestrians are killed by hit-and-run drivers, most people do the right thing and call for help. In this instance, although she couldn't run, she didn't call for help, either: Biggs pleaded for help, she told police. He got none. ... Mallard told police she periodically went into the garage to check on the man. She said she apologized profusely for what she had done but ignored his cries for help. - Boston GlobeHad a man done this to a woman, not only would there be no question of calling it murder, but the feminist press would be frothing over it as another example of the patriarchal oppression of women. In this case, however, not only are feminists silent on the issue, but Mallard's attorney says it's not murder: Her attorney, Mike Heiskell, has said the case does not merit murder charges. - Boston GlobeClearly, the feminist hate campaign against men is as strong as ever, but at what cost to our humanity?
The fruits of feminist labor
Ten short years of progressive change/Fifty (bleeping) years of calling us names/Can we trade Title Nine for an end to hate crime?" - from Feminist SweepstakesFifty years of calling women names, such as ass, asshole, bastard, bonehead, boob, bore, brute, buffoon, butthead, cad, cheap date, clod, cock sucker, coward, creep, cretin, deadbeat, dick, dickhead, dirty old man, dope, drip, dweeb, fag, ferret, fool, geek, goofball, horn dog, idiot, imbecile, jackass, jerk, jerk off, loser, moron, mother f-r, nincompoop, ninny, nitwit, oppressor, pansy, pervert, pig, prick, puissant, pussy, putz, rapist, schmuck, sexist, sissy, son of a bitch, swine, toad, turkey, weasel, whoremonger, wimp and wonk, to name a few. Oh, wait, those are among the many names usually reserved for men. Never mind.
Misandry in the mainstream
The authors of a new and exhaustive study on the battle of the sexes say that (Mel Gibson), by playing Nick (in What Do Women Want?In fairness, What Do Women Want?  is just a movie, and there are plenty of movies in which women are portrayed in a less than flattering light. One difference is that 40 years ago audiences loved Lucy and most men adored most women, while today, according to Paul Nathanson and Katherine K. Young, authors of Nathanson & Young: Spreading Misandry , men are viewed with a sexist but largely unacknowledged scorn:
The book argues that, while extreme male sexism, or misogyny, is a widely acknowledged, discussed and studied cultural phenomenon, misandry is unrecognized, trivialized or dismissed. - Scott McKeen, Edmonton JournalMoreover, the book supports the long held equalitarian belief that this anti male sexism originated in the feminist fringe: The authors believe the legitimate aims of the modern women's liberation movement were exploited by a radical fringe and twisted into a campaign of revenge against men, which was reflected in popular culture - 'the folklore, the conventional wisdom of an urban, industrial society.' - Scott McKeen, Edmonton JournalThough these things may be only pop culture, they are harmful nonetheless and, as I noted in a 1998 article, Expecting the worst, the feminists know it: But as Nathanson and Young point out, feminists have long argued that sexist pop-culture portrayals of women are damaging because they perpetuate the image of women as sex objects or dumb blondes, or delicate and inferior creatures. It is a terrible message to send to little girls. - Scott McKeen, Edmonton JournalAs are today's messages sent to little boys: The violence in movies was debated. But few took issue with the unrelenting stream of unambiguously violent portrayals of men. These men had few, if any redeeming qualities. There was little, if any explanation for how they became evil. So, there was no reason to wonder about or discuss the social factors which spawn male violence -- like poverty, neglect and abuse. ... Did anyone wonder: What was this sending to little boys? - Scott McKeen, Edmonton JournalThe message is that the only good man is a man made over in woman's image. So where might we find images of masculinity that are both appropriate yet manly? Nathanson turns to the past to find a movie character who he believes captures a more ideal essence of manhood: Gregory Peck's portrayal of Atticus Finch in To Kill a MockingbirdOthers include such characters as Jean-Luc Picard, captain of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and Horatio Hornblower  . These icons provide important lessons about how to be good men. As important as such lessons are, however, it's equally important for the public discussion about inappropriate icons to be balanced:
Nathanson and Young are adamant about a few things. One, that their work is not an indictment of feminism, but of dualism. ... They don't claim that misogyny is dead or that pop culture is free of sexist portrayals of women. ... But again, while the latter has been widely debated and discussed, misandry remains almost a taboo topic. Why? ... (Many men) ... stayed silent because they didn't know how to express their anger. They feared being portrayed as anti-feminists or worse. - Scott McKeen, Edmonton JournalI know about that. From hate mail, death threats and physical assaults, to being fired or not hired for my equalitarian views, I've experienced what such men fear. Why? In a culture with no clear positive masculine identity and one that has routinely stereotyped men as violent and sexist, what are little boys to think? Tell a little boy all men are violent, just like Marc Lepine, and he might grow up to believe it. - Scott McKeen, Edmonton Journal |
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, the ground you broke wasn't broken at all, and a "new breed" of women has stepped forward to do the job:
, by 
, wrote about the burgeoning misandry in western society. But the feminists have such a strong grip on the discussion about gender that it has taken this long for the realization to surface in the mainstream:
. Finch, a humble man, demonstrated decency and courage in defending a black man accused of raping a white woman in a decidedly racist southern community. - Scott McKeen, 