The backlash in bed?
The Soft Man has a slow testosterone leak and is so committed to career ambition, so freaked out by a woman's expectations, that his libido is on slow drip by day's end. Forget about auditioning for the part of his sexy girlfriend. All he really wants is a buddy with long hair and nice breasts. - Kylie Adams, The Good Life, He's got a headache, Ally McBeal site.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not slamming the Ally McBeal show. Far from it - I think it's one of the best shows on network television. But Adam's take on the modern American male had me chuckling.
They're finally "getting it," to cop a euphemism from Pat Schroeder.
Since the early 1980s, pop feminists have so slandered all things male that they have virtually created a no-win situation for men in which there are only two choices - either you're an abusive jerk who uses women, or you're a culturally castrated eunuch.
Since abusive jerks often end up in court or, worse, jail, more and more guys are choosing the safer option and becoming culturally castrated eunuchs. And while a lot of women really do like having sex with abusive jerks (they can't help it, poor dears - see Donna Laframboise's Pink Kink catalog - warning, x-rated), most would rather spend a life-time with a nice man.
But, thanks to the pop feminists, most nice men are culturally castrated eunuchs. Fortunately, this is not a terminal condition. It can be reversed. Just as the cause began with women (pop feminists), however, the cure must begin with women, too.
The Cave Girl
Female sex symbols in the movies have progressed 180 degrees from the helpless maidens of yore, so much so that a passively accommodating female would be booed off the screen these days, by men and women alike. Men want to tame today's self-sufficient vixens. Women want to cop a few moves from them. - Jami Bernard, Movie Gals Get Macho, January 14, 2001, New York Daily News
How soon they forget the passions of yesteryear. Or is it a matter of convenience? Popular culture pre-dating modern feminism is rife with examples of "self-sufficient vixens."
When I was a kid, the original "Sheena, Queen of the Jungle" (which was recently resurrected), featuring a strong, independent woman, was popular both in comics and on TV. The female characters of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Princess of Mars (1912), Cave Girl (1925), and Moon Maid (1926), as well as the Pellucidar series (1914), the Venus series (1934) and Jungle Girl (1932), were also all intelligent, strong and resourceful.
Additionally, I grew up reading E.E. "Doc" Smith's famous Lensman and Skylark series, both featuring female characters who were intelligent, heroic and strong. (For those who don't know, Smith invented the modern space opera.)
Then there is Wonder Woman, created in 1941 by William Moulton Marston, whose attitudes toward women could best be described as, "You go, girl!"
And the list goes on: science fiction is loaded with female characters who are intelligent and strong, reflecting the desires of intelligent men.
But this fact does not sit well with the post-pop feminist Grrl Power set, who feel compelled to claim the Athena icon as essentially of their own making. Which is sad since, until women embrace men as equal partners, there can never be real gender equality.
See also: Boring Women and Civilizing Evolution.
Loyalty goes both ways
The best thing that can be said about the gloomy business mood of this holiday season, haunted by the Ghost of Nasdaq Past, is that it reminds us of such old economy values as employee loyalty and caring management. - David Ignatius, As Dot-Com Fever Dies, Job Loyalty Doesn't Look So Dumb, December 23, 2000, International Herald Tribune
Loyalty is a two-way street. Employers have not been particularly loyal to their employees during the past several years.
Homophobic grrls?
More than a million girls have turned away from sport and PE because of sexism in schools, it was claimed yesterday. ... Almost 40 per cent in the 12-to- 18 age group drop out of sport altogether because they are put off by the gymslip image of competitive games, open showers and having to wear short skirts during PE lessons. - Dorothy Lepowska, Sexism making girls run a mile from sport, November 10, 2000, LineOne
Running from open showers? They're not suggesting girls are homophobic, are they?
Hitting Gore below the belt
In his concession speech, Vice President Al Gore observed "as my father once said, that no matter how hard the loss, defeat may serve as well as victory to shake the soul and let the glory out." We jumped on the Internet yesterday and found the same "Cyber Quotation: One stop to get Inspired!" under the category "Victory in Defeat." "Defeat may serve as well as victory," poet Edwin Markham (1852-1940) had observed, "To shake the soul and let the glory out." - John McCaslin, Inside the Beltway, December 15, 2000, Washington Times
It's not that I voted for Gore (guided by my conscience rather than whom I thought would win, I cast my vote for the only conservative candidate on the ballot), nor that I think he'd have been a better president than Bush (both demeaned the office to which they aspired), but I'm confused by McCaslin's implication that because the quote Gore attributed to his father was in fact written by somebody else it necessarily indicates he lied.
My grandfather said many things to me which, though he was innocent of any intention that I should think they originated with him, it was not until many years later I learned they were quotes.
Gore may well have been lying, or not, but to assert he did on the basis that it was a quote of somebody else is a low blow at best.
Pay globally, price locally
Relatively low wage pressures are due in large part to job security having become more important than wage increases. In the 1990s, workers witnessed an involuntary job loss at rates double that of the 1980s, at a time when unions have declined to about one-tenth of the private sector work force. Everyone knows, white-collar workers included, that wages of workers in poorer countries are critically relevant in an era of global production. ... The wages of foreign workers are now very much a factor in corporate planning and labor reactions. ... In 1996, 46 percent of workers in large firms feared being laid off -- twice the 1991 level, despite five years of economic expansion and a sharply lower unemployment rate. - Mortimer B. Zuckerman, A Second American Century, May/June 1998, Foreign Affairs
Americans provide corporations with a stable marketplace (which American citizens defend with their lives), we grant them "limited liability" for the explicit purpose of providing an incentive for American investors to fund them, and in exchange for this what do we get? "Global competition requires us to cut our American payroll."
Moreover, while more multinational employers are paying based on the global price for labor, they are selling their merchandise based on local markets.
Maybe it's time we stopped treating these corporations like American citizens and began taxing them like foreign enterprises.
Complementary strengths?
By and large, the studies show that women executives, when rated by their peers, underlings, and bosses, score higher than their male counterparts on a wide variety of measures-from producing high-quality work to goal-setting to mentoring employees. - Rochelle Sharpe, As Leaders, Women Rule: New studies find that female managers outshine their male counterparts in almost every measure, November 2000 - Business Week.
I have an admission: I already knew that. It gets worse: I've been saying this for years. Yes, it's true. Moreover, it ain't men been most opposed to my saying so, but pop feminists.
Over the years, almost all my managers have been women. Yes, I've worked under men, and some of them have been great, and some of the women I've worked under have been downright horrible, cretins of the worst sort. By and large, however, either by observation or personal experience, I have found women to make better bosses.
In my experience, however, female executives also tend to be more inclined to make biased personnel decisions based on how they feel rather than what they know about someone:
"I would rather hire a woman," says Anu Shukla, who sold her Internet marketing-software company Rubric Inc. earlier this year for $390 million. "I know I'm going to get a certain quality of work, I know I'm going to get a certain dedication," she says, quickly adding that she's fully aware that not all women execs excel.
Kind of like the way women voted for and then reelected Bill Clinton, an admitted liar and lecher.
But why would pop feminists be so opposed to the suggestion women generally make better bosses than men? Because those same studies point to some areas of genuine masculine strengths which counter the "women can do anything" myth:
The gender differences were often small, and men sometimes earned higher marks in some critical areas, such as strategic ability and technical analysis.
Underlying this finding is the real reason why there are more male than female engineers, scientists, and Nobel Prize laureates: just as women have uniquely female strengths, so men have uniquely male strengths. The kind that complement each other. And that's the last thing pop feminists want to admit.
Bigots demand compensation
A powerful group of civil rights and class-action lawyers who have won billions of dollars in court is preparing a lawsuit seeking reparations for American blacks descended from slaves. - Paul Shepard, Lawsuit would seek damages for slavery in U.S., November 5, 2000, Seattle P-I
The continuing efforts of a few African American fringe groups to get money because once upon a time Africans were bought as slaves from other Africans and transported to, among other places, America, is predicated upon ignoring an uncomfortable fact: Their ancestors participated as full partners in the oppression of Native American Indians.
While most African Americans are decent, hard-working people, too many are among the worst bigots in the country. Maybe that's why their accusations are so shrill - to divert attention from their own bigoted past and present.
What do you think? - Equalitarian Discussion forums.
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