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Those Dizzy Feminists
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 One
definition of a misogynist
might be a man who thinks feminists are typical of women. The
feminist movement seems to lack a thermostat: it keeps overheating madly.
 In
his new book, The End of Sanity (just published by Avon Books),
Martin L. Gross lists hundreds of examples of ideological lunacy, on race, sex,
religion, and other topics. But feminist examples surpass all others, in both
quantity and preposterous quality.
It
has been decreed, somewhere or other, that the sexes are not only equal but
barely distinguishable, so that any differences between them are due to
untold centuries of male domination. Of course the very fact that men have
dominated women so utterly throughout recorded history might be
considered prima facie evidence of male superiority, rather than a mere
refusal to recognize women’s equality; but maybe that’s just
phallocentric male logic speaking.
In
any case, enlightenment has finally arrived. We have the privilege of living in
the age where the insignificance of sexual differences has, at long last, been
not only established, but codified in law and manners, and even in the armed
forces.
Thus 350 women were sent into “combat duty”
aboard the USS Eisenhower (named for Mamie Eisenhower, one
trusts). Despite a rule against “fraternization” between the
sexes, Gross notes, six couples soon asked to be married by the captain,
while several “sailors” got pregnant and had to be removed
from the ship.
At newly nonsexist West Point, a female officer, In
the movie ![[Breaker quote for Those Dizzy Feminists: Claiming and avoiding competition at the same time]](2007breakers/070821.gif) Back
in civilian life, Gross notes, the stock brokerage firm of
Chivalry, though not dead, is well-nigh illegal. The U.S. Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission officially decrees that a “pattern
of complimenting a woman” can be grounds for a sexual harassment
suit.
Even the pettiest hurt feelings can be gussied up as political
causes. A student at the University of Minnesota, for example, accused a
professor of “sexual harassment” because (she said) he paid
more attention to the men’s term papers than to hers.
On the one hand, feminists insist that women are just as capable
as men, physically and intellectually. On the other hand, they, like other
claimants of official victimhood, always insist that existing standards be
lowered — or even that new double standards be adopted! — to
enable them to compete. Actually, it’s competition their claims are
designed to avoid.
Such claims of equality are really admissions of inferiority. Jewish
males dominate many professions; they weren’t given favors, and
they never asked that law and medical schools lower standards for Jews to
compensate for “past discrimination.” Black males dominate
professional sports, but not because anyone pitched underhand to Jackie
Robinson to atone for slavery and segregation.
Today the old culture of achievement has given way to a culture
of whining, in which achievement is actually suspect — interpreted as
evidence of privilege or unfair advantage. In this atmosphere, the only way to
get equality is to demand compensatory privilege (reinforced by silly
fictions).
But people who are really oppressed don’t want double
standards, because double standards are the very things that oppress them.
We’re laboring to solve problems that no longer exist.
Joseph Sobran |
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| Copyright © 2007 by the
Fitzgerald Griffin Foundation. This column may not be reprinted in print or Internet publications without express permission of the Fitzgerald Griffin Foundation |
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