The Feminization Of America

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Registered: 05-18-2004
The Feminization Of America
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Mon, 06-21-2004 - 12:12pm
I don't always agree with his columns (who does) but he is a compelling writer and this column is no different. I think he is right for the most part on this one.


http://www.fredoneverything.net/FOE_Frame_Column.htm

Driving Down Unknown Roads

The Feminization Of America

March 29, 2004

In the United States women are, I think for the first time in history, gaining real power. Often nations have had queens, heiresses, and female aristocrats. These do not amount to much. Today women occupy positions of genuine authority in fields that matter, as for example publishing, journalism, and academia. They control education through high school. Politicians scramble for their votes. They control the divorce courts and usually get their way with things that matter to them.

If this is not unprecedented, I do not know of the precedent. What will be the consequences?

Men have controlled the world through most of history so we know what they do: build things, break things, invent things, compete with each other fiercely and often pointlessly, and fight endless wars that seem to them justifiable at the time but that, seen from afar, are just what males do. The unanswered question is what women would, or will, do. How will their increasing influence reshape the polity?

Women and men want very different things and therefore very different worlds. Men want sex, freedom, and adventure; women want security, pleasantness, and someone to care about (or for)them. Both like power. Men use it to conquer their neighbors whether in business or war, women to impose security and pleasantness.

I do not suggest that the instinctive behavior of women is necessarily bad, nor that of men necessarily good. I do suggest that that the effects will be profound, probably irreversible, and not necessarily entirely to the liking of either sex. The question may be whether one fears most being conquered or being nicened to death.

Consider what is called the Nanny State by men, who feel smothered by it, but is accepted if not supported by women, who see it as protective and caring. (Yes, I know that there are exceptions and degrees in all of this, and no, I don’t have polling data.) Note that women are much more concerned than are men about health and well-being. Women worry about second-hand smoke, outlawing guns, lowering the allowable blood-alcohol levels for drivers, making little boys wear helmets while riding bicycles, and outlawing such forms of violence as dodge ball or the use of plastic ray guns. Much of this is demonstrably irrational, but that is the nature of instincts. (Neither is the male tendency to form armed bands and attack anyone within reach a pinnacle of reason.)

The implications of female influence for freedom, at least as men understand the word, are not good. Women will accept restrictions on their behavior if in doing so they feel more secure. They have less need of freedom, which is not particularly important in living a secure, orderly, routine, and comfortable life. They tend not to see political correctness as irritating, but as keeping people from saying unpleasant things.

The growing feminizaton accounts for much of the decline in the schools. The hostility to competition of any sort is an expression of the female desire for pleasantness; competition is a mild form of combat, by which men are attracted and women repelled. The emphasis on how children feel about each other instead of on what they learn is profoundly female (as for that matter is the associated fascination with psychotherapy). The drugging of male schoolchildren into passivity is the imposition of pleasantness by chemical means. Little boys are not nice, but fidgety wild men writ small who, bored out of their skulls, tend to rowdiness. They are also hard for the average woman to control and, since male teachers are absent, gelded, or terrified of litigious parents, expulsion and resort to the police fill the void. The oft-repeated suspension of boys for drawing soldiers or playing space war is, methinks, a quietly hysterical attempt to assuage formless insecurity.

The change in marriage and the deterioration of the family are likewise the results of the growth of political power of women. Whether this is good or bad remains to be seen, but it is assuredly happening. Divorce became common because women wanted to get out of unsatisfactory marriages. In divorce women usually want the children, and have the clout to get them. But someone has to feed the young. Thus the vindictive pursuit of divorced fathers who won’t or can’t pay child support. And thus the rise of the government as de facto father to provide welfare, tax breaks, daycare, and otherwise behave as a virtual husband.

When women entered a male workplace, they found that they didn’t much like it. Men told off-color jokes, looked at protuberant body parts, engaged in rough verbal sparring as a form of social interaction, and behaved in accord with rules that women didn’t and don’t understand. Women had the influence to change things, and did. Laws grew like kudzu to ban sexual harassment, whether real or imagined. Affirmative action, in addition to being a naked power grab, avoids competition and therefore making the losers feel bad. It degrades the performance of organizations, sometimes seriously, but performance is a preoccupation of males.

Men are capable of malignant government, whether authoritarian or totalitarian, as witness North Korea or the Russia of Stalin. I don’t know whether women would behave as badly if they had the power. (I’d guess not.) But women have their own totalitarian tendencies. They will if allowed impose a seamless tyranny of suffocating safety, social control, and political propriety. Men are happy for men to be men and women to be women; women want us all to be women.

The United States becomes daily more a woman’s world: comfortable, safe, with few outlets for a man’s desire for risk. The America of wild empty country, of guns and fishing and hunting, of physical labor and hot rods and schoolyard fights, has turned gradually into a land of shopping malls and sensible cars and bureaucracy. Risk is now mostly artificial and not very risky. There is skydiving and scuba and you can still find places to go fast on motorcycles, but it gets harder. Jobs increasingly require the feminine virtues of patience, accommodation to routine, and subordination of performance to civility. Just about everything that once defined masculinity is now denounced as “macho,” a hostile word embodying the female incomprehension of men.

A case can be made that a feminized world would (or will) be preferable to a masculine. Perhaps. It is males who bomb cities and shoot people in Seven-Elevens. Yet the experiment has not been made. I suspect we will have the worst of both worlds: a nation in which men at the top engage in the usual wars and, a step below, women impose inutterable boredom.

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Avatar for jc1202
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Fri, 06-25-2004 - 4:10pm
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Could you maybe describe the harm that could be caused by a girl wearing a T-shirt saying "Girls Rule" and "Girl Power"? Because I would think that all it would do is to make them feel empowered. Not that they should beat up boys or abuse them in any way, but to make them feel as though they have a place in the world outside of the kitchen and the bedroom. Not sure what's wrong with that message.

Edited to add that the word "rule" in teh slogan "Girls Rule" doesn't actually mean that girls are in control of the world. It means that they're cool. It's 90s slang. That's all.




Edited 6/25/2004 4:12 pm ET ET by jc1202

Avatar for jc1202
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Fri, 06-25-2004 - 4:18pm
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Then why the pending anti-choice legislation, lead by men?

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Okay, your choice. But why would you assume that someone would break into your home? And isn't that what burglar alarms are for?

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-18-2004
Fri, 06-25-2004 - 4:22pm
"It is absolutely amazing to me that you can feel so strongly about your right to *choose* what is best for your child, and still believe that a woman shouldn't have the right to *choose* what happens to her body. "

You see I don't believe a woman is making a choice about her body. I believe all her choices were made up to and including having intercourse. Once conception occurs I do not believe a woman has a right to choose to end the life of an innoncent child. Abortion is about the right to choose selfishness and disregard your own child's rights. It's unbelievable to me that someone can first dehumanize a child by calling "it" a fetus or zygot, etc which makes "it" easier to kill and then killing "it"

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-18-2004
Fri, 06-25-2004 - 4:31pm
What you didn't address was the increased objectification of women, etc the author brings up.

Such as this paragraph:

Sixty years ago, feminism rightly demanded women cease being treated as a collection of body parts and be accorded the dignity of an equally intelligent and capable member of society. But Madonna and her ilk have spawned a tragic world where, according to Time magazine, 40 percent of American teenage girls now wear thongs, many with the strap showing above their jeans, and thousands of college girls lift their shirts on "Girls Gone Wild" videos in exchange for a T-shirt. In other words, even women who pursue an education have learned that in order to get ahead they better get naked.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-24-2003
Fri, 06-25-2004 - 4:40pm
>>You see I don't believe a woman is making a choice about her body. I believe all her choices were made up to and including having intercourse.<<

Guys wish it that way, because that is in fact where their rights end - before they have sex. Not so with women, for a very good reason. It will never be the way you view it, even if the law is changed.

>>Abortion is about the right to choose selfishness and disregard your own child's rights. It's unbelievable to me that someone can first dehumanize a child by calling "it" a fetus or zygot, etc which makes "it" easier to kill and then killing "it"<<

It is the right to decide if they wish to be a parent at this point in time. It is the right to decide if another child should be carried, whether the risk outweighs the gain. Many women are at great risk from carrying, for a myriad of reason. And birth control can fail. Carrying a child for nine months is no easy task, and the demands it places on a woman's body is enormous. A foetus is created within and from a part of her body, unless you believe the eggs she carries are not a part of her, as ini some sort of symbiant relationship.

Most of us have family or friends who have had great difficulty with pregnancy, or even lost their lives as a result. It is a huge responsibility, and the toll it takes is heavy. To automatically say all women who become preggers should carry is simply... silly.

As has been said many times, but it is very valid... if men could get pregnant, abortion would be free and on demand.


iVillage Member
Registered: 03-24-2003
Fri, 06-25-2004 - 4:47pm
Do I wish to be objectified? No. Do I think Madonna has a right to make money taking advantage of it? Yes.

I see no reason why wearing thongs is a problem for young women... yeah, some studies show they can create problems, but overall... nothing wrong with them. I'd not wear thong underwear, but that is me, not them. Again, feminism isn't about becoming puritanical, it is about having equal choices in life, about basic respect. You cannot respect a woman that takes her shirt off? Why?

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-18-2004
Fri, 06-25-2004 - 4:56pm
"Guys wish it that way,"

Why would a guy wish it that way? That doesn't make sense.

"It is the right to decide if they wish to be a parent at this point in time."

You see that viewpoint doesn't make sense. When you decide to have sex both people must be ready to have children. That is a natural outcome of intercourse after all.

"It is the right to decide if another child should be carried, whether the risk outweighs the gain. "

Risks outweight the gains? It is a human life we are talking about.

"And birth control can fail."

Which is why you need to be prepared for parenthood if you choose to have sex.

"It is a huge responsibility, and the toll it takes is heavy"

So is sex. If you aren't ready for the responsibility of raising a child then you aren't ready for sex. This applies to both men and women.

"As has been said many times, but it is very valid... if men could get pregnant, abortion would be free and on demand. "

Sure...ok...issue doesn't change...I dont care who carries the child.

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-18-2004
Fri, 06-25-2004 - 5:01pm
"I see no reason why wearing thongs is a problem for young women... "

The issue is why young women/girls feel the desire or need to. Thongs are certainly more sexual in nature, are they not? I'd bust a gasket if my 14 year old girl wanted to wear a thong. Women have become more of a sexual object since the sexual revolution and feminism, not less. Doesn't that bother you?


"You cannot respect a woman that takes her shirt off? Why?"

She doesn't respect herself. You mean to tell me that this women has determined that the best use of her talents is to strip? Sad. I don't frequent strip clubs and have no interest in doing so but if it is a respectable thing to do would you mind if your daughter did? I suspect your answer is "yes, she can do whatever she wants" but how could you possibly be happy with men drooling over her shoving money in her pants.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-24-2003
Fri, 06-25-2004 - 5:11pm
>>Why would a guy wish it that way? That doesn't make sense.<<

My apologies for how it was phrased. Guys having a legal say in what happens ends with the act of sex... there are guys who can't stand the thought of having no say, and try like heck to find a way to have one. I've seen crazy proposals over the years, including giving him the option of agreeing to take a child before a woman is allowed to abort. Yeah, right... that will fly as well as my car would.

>>You see that viewpoint doesn't make sense. When you decide to have sex both people must be ready to have children. That is a natural outcome of intercourse after all.<<

In your point of view. It need not be a natural outcome of sex, but sometimes preventive measures fail. I don't believe it should be it failed and now we have a child. No way.

"Risks outweight the gains? It is a human life we are talking about."

People should parent when they are ready to parent. When they can take good care of their child. If they decide they cannot, if they feel the medical risks are too great, if a young woman is not prepared because she made a mistake at 14, 15, 16... etc. it is likely she will abort. That said... it is *her* choice, not her parents.



iVillage Member
Registered: 03-24-2003
Fri, 06-25-2004 - 5:24pm
>>The issue is why young women/girls feel the desire or need to.<<

They like them? Or shall we cover our heads and bodies head to toe? I see nothing wrong with them.

You would dictate to your daughter what her underwear looks like? I'd be more concerned if others were getting a look at it (outside of say... gym class.)

Sexual objectification is the problem of which sex? Shall I tailor my appearance because men can't control themselves? I've no such problem.

"She doesn't respect herself. You mean to tell me that this women has determined that the best use of her talents is to strip? Sad. I don't frequent strip clubs and have no interest in doing so but if it is a respectable thing to do would you mind if your daughter did? I suspect your answer is "yes, she can do whatever she wants" but how could you possibly be happy with men drooling over her shoving money in her pants."

I'm not advocating pulling shirts off, and sometimes people can act out of insecurity, trying to fit in... that is what we don't want happening. Would I want my daughter drooled over? Certainly not. No one is advocating such a thing. If a woman feels she wishes to do so, shall we lock her away forever? Once again... can't men control themselves? Isn't this really about *their* conduct? There are many nude beaches in Europe, but Americans are aghast at the thought of such things. Chillllllllllll...!



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