I thought this was similar to my view: Note this is not about being a bad or good critic, that one is different. A good critic will fight their own bias, try to empathize with different takes, look for unusual, interesting angles, and only then express and explain an opinion. A bad critic pushes their agenda even despite facts or reason.

The Catch-22 of Feminism

by Aurini ·

“I’m not denying that women are treated horribly in the Middle East – of course they are! But there’s never been a culture that treated women poorly, without subjecting the men to equal barbarism. There’s no such thing as ‘Patriarchal’ conspiracy countries that hold women down for the benefit of the men; wherever you find the abuse of women, you’ll find the abuse of men as well.”

I was channelling Karen Straughn when I said this; it was she who pointed out this obvious insight to me at the KSU Men’s Conference.

“Are you kidding? In Iran they stone women to death for being raped!”

“Yes, they do – and during the Iran/Iraq war they sent boys out in human waves to clear minefields! Have you never heard of “the hand that rocks the cradle”? Do you think that the Muslim men who abuse women had mothers who were saints?”

“Whatever, the system was set up by men for their own benefit.”

It’s at this point that I had to leave the conversation; the woman I was speaking with only saw the suffering of her own sex, and if you can’t admit that a fact exists, being informed of it simply won’t convince you.

This wilful blindness is at the core of Feminism, as well as her quieter sister Female Entitlement. I am dismayed by how prevalent it is. It is as if they are watching a 3D movie with only one of the lenses, in this case the rose-tinted one: the blue-lines of male cruelty stand out in sharp relief, while the pink-lines of female cruelty disappear into the background. All of the good men do – whether it be fighting in wars, fixing the car, or merely being her rock when she is emotionally distraught – is relegated to the background. “That’s just what those silly boys do for fun!” Ignore the bloodied knuckles and grime that come along with the masculine role. Meanwhile, female sacrifices are lauded and celebrated – their nurturing, their decorating, their sacrifices aren’t ‘just what women do’, they’re heroic!

Women and Feminists will accurately diagnose all of the male mistakes that feed into a scandal like the University of Virginia gang-rape¹, while denying any female involvement, whether it be the Women’s Studies department encouraging the hook-up culture, or the individual women who enable and abet the crime. They correctly diagnose the comically-exaggerated masculinity of the frat culture where ‘being a real man’ means acting like a barbaric lout. They utterly miss the equally-barbaric behaviour of the girls who drink with the intention of losing control, back-stab one-another for male attention, and refuse to take responsibility for their actions.

They correctly identify UVA as a ‘Rape Culture’; they fail to notice that the women were equally complicit in manufacturing it.

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Freud couldn’t have been more right when he noted the prevalence of ‘Penis Envy’ amongst his female clients. Women who envy the metaphysics of the masculine – the solar, the constructive, the active agent – in contrast to femininity’s lunar, fertile, passivity. It was envy in the sense that it wasn’t aspirational – he was not describing women who wanted to become great scientists, great musicians, or to earn the accolades which are largely won by the male sex – they wanted to take the accolades which they viewed as part of the male endowment.

In other words, they want to earn the same salaries as men, but they’ll allow us to keep the 99% figure for workplace deaths.²

Although individual women will occasionally achieve excellence in a temperamentally masculine field – and men will occasionally do the inverse – social institutions are what occur when the natural inclinations of the sexes go through multiple iterations, thus certain areas and fields become specifically masculine or specifically feminine, despite the innate differentiation between the sexes being relatively minor. Occasionally we wind up with an institution which is a bad fit – for example, the lack of male Elementary School teachers, or the lack of female programmers ten years ago (there is strong evidence that women make exceptionally talented coders). In some of these cases it is worth questioning the culture which led to the imbalance.

Other times, trying to correct this imbalance is folly: forcing the Orange County municipal government to spend tens of thousands of dollars retrofitting fire stations so that a handful of women can be ‘equal’ is an absurd and ineffective use of finite resources.

Elementary schools would benefit from having more men on staff; Computer Science departments would benefit from being welcoming to women who show a natural aptitude for programming; Fire Departments are harmed by mandating sex-inclusivity, partly because of the budgetary waste, but also because of the impact it will have on the masculine culture and male bonding which such a job entails.

Fire Fighting is too important of an institution for ‘Equality’ to trump effectiveness. Ironically, the very women who would have the moral fortitude to make great Fire Fighters would be the last ones to demand the ‘Right’ to be Fire Fighters: those who are self-sacrificing would never demand that an institution handicap itself for their own glory.

Thus we come to the Catch-22 which Feminists find themselves in: the fact that they are selfish enough to argue Feminism in the first place is the very proof that they are too morally immature to be treated as equals.

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The Baby Boomers were largely satisfied to proclaim the equality of women, while living by the standards of “gendered”³ institutions. They got to have their cake and eat it to: pretending to be equal, while embracing the institutional protections that were traditionally offered for both sexes.

Up until the modern time, it was well known that women were far more affected by the sexual act than men; women are more emotional about it, it affects their long-term marriage prospects, and it can even impact their mental stability. Men, for their part, will pathologize their ‘male disposability’. Just as the majority of women cannot help but be negatively impacted by casual sex, men cannot shake the psychological necessity of proving their usefulness to the world. A man needs to justify his existence, to sweat and bleed and achieve, and if social institutions don’t channel this equitably and productively, a whole generation of young boys could wind up feeding themselves into the wood chipper of an exploitative culture.

The men of the Baby Boomer generation were largely unharmed by paying lip-service to Feminism; women weren’t chomping at the bit to destroy social institutions, and divorce was more affordable during the economic boom-times. It’s with the Millenial generation that we see the damage being wrought. Young men who embrace ‘Blue Pill’ ideas of male disposability fail to demand fair treatment of their sex, as the women demand equality without responsibility – and the Baby Boomer men who are in charge of this system turn a blind-eye to any male complaints, since as men we’re supposed to sacrifice for the greater good of the group.

Which is true – but we were never supposed to sacrifice for free.

Up until recent times, Rights and Responsibilities were understood to go hand in hand. The Right of Citizenship (of voting, of directing society) came with the responsibility of maintaining it; of being willing to sacrifice for the greater good. These days ‘Citizen’ has become a slur amongst law enforcement and the criminal classes, because the responsibility has evaporated. The modern ‘Citizen’ is a peasant, begging for scraps from the table of their Lord.

To truly be a Citizen, one must respect the sacrifices of others; even the King must honour the life of his lowliest foot soldier. If women in general were truly the equals they claimed to be, we would see them honouring the sacrifices of the men in their lives. Mothers would quote Camille Paglia, cautioning their daughters that “If civilization had been left in female hands we would still be living in grass huts.” Rather than envying the male Nobel Prize winner they’d be honouring him, they’d either be aspiring to his level, or appreciating the sacrifices and dedication which were required for his great work.

They wouldn’t be challenging their male contemporaries by chanting “Anything you can do I can do better!” – they’d be thankful, reciprocal, and feminine. Chivalry goes both ways.

Were a Feminist to respond to this, she would concoct stories of historical oppression which fall apart under scrutiny, or point towards our current crop of ‘men’ in power who are exploitative of women (they’re also exploitative of other men, but the Feminist won’t notice that part). This is just further evidence of her inability to empathize with the sex that’s been dying and bleeding to protect her own.

In the light of this generalized insensitivity to the suffering of men, I can’t help looking back to traditional teachings: whether it’s Eve eating the apple, or Cinderella’s cruel step-sisters, the female sex has been suffused with envy since our race was young; and when you are envious you cannot empathize.

This is why tradition cautions against allowing women into positions of leadership. Far too many of them want the prestige, without the responsibility.

Not all of them – thank God! – there are some Viragos⁴ out there – but they’re few and far between.

Men have their own sins, of course, but we’re discussing governance, not the immortal soul. Perhaps one day women en masse will earn their seat at the UN – and what a wonderful day that will be! – but today we live in a world where Emma Watson feels the need to lecture the UN about how men can sacrifice even more for her sex, rather than thanking them for all that they’ve already sacrificed. Rather than thanking her future King for his service in Afghanistan, she spouted the same old tired nonsense about how difficult women have it in Western countries.

Until women as a whole grow up and stop embracing these petty feminist complaints, they cannot be trusted with the reins of civilization.

Notes:

1. This is understandably a contentious claim in the Manosphere; given the extremely high prevalence of False Rape Accusations, many of us have a knee-jerk skepticism whenever we hear about an incident that could be drunken regret. Furthermore, it’s quite frustrating that the Rolling Stone article uses pseudonyms for the accusers of this most serious crime. This does seem to be a legitimate case, however (though we should reserve judgment until this is proven in a court of law), and my sources inform me that there is a great deal of cultural toxicity amongst UVA frats.

Many have been questioning the administration’s actions in suspending all frat activities due to these allegations: my own opinion on this is informed by my military experience. If I were the Colonel of a military unit, and something like this occurred, I would be going on the warpath. I wouldn’t just shut down the ‘frat activities’ of the Junior Rank’s mess – I’d also be raking all of the leadership over the coals, and launching investigations into the civilian women who were complicit in all of this (in Canada, the military can charge civilian women when fraternization gets out of control).

The fraternity deserves to be tied down and have the boots put to them – preferably steel toed – but so does every individual working in the administration of UVA’s women’s services. A situation like this doesn’t develop overnight; it requires systemic failures in leadership in multiple sectors for it to get this bad.

I’d be prosecuting everybody responsible for bringing shame to my organization – including, but not restricted to, the fraternities themselves.

EDIT: I jumped the gun on this. She held on to this story for several years, and particularly interesting is the UVA’s official stance, stating that “…many details that were previously not disclosed…” At this point it’s unlikely that the truth can be determined.

2. The “70¢ on the dollar” statistic is a canard which disappears when you measure hours worked, and responsibility (in fact, some studies suggest that women earn more than men for the same work, due to Affirmative Action legislation). The reason women earn less than men as a whole is because they choose easier jobs, shorter hours, and less responsibility; women as an aggregate group have different interests than men, and this is reflected in their career choices and salaries.

3. Humans do not have ‘genders’, they have sexes. Only nouns can be ‘gendered’, applying this term to people and institutions destroys the meaning of the word.

4. The latin root for Virago is similar to Virgin, both mean (approximately) “A woman who has displayed the self-discipline and virtue of a man”.