It was in college that I first encountered feminism and realized it was not as it was portrayed. I had actually been somewhat sympathetic, believing then as I do now, in fairness. I did not find this “fairness” in feminism. Instead I realized it was founded by man-hating lesbians, and was dumbfounded to find they had conned straight women into feeling sorry for themselves and being hostile toward men. And, instead of it claiming that men and women were equals, it instead insisted women were the victims of oppressive men – of “patriarchy,” a word I still read even today among far leftists.
These claims, as it true for all such claims, are based on the idea that problems are the fault of someone else – never the person with the problem. It relieves them of self-responsibility, although it certainly does produce hostility and resentment toward innocent people.
I was mystified by these claims of oppression, because I had never seen them. For that matter, still don’t see them. But for the women who have fallen for them, it has been very damaging to them. These claims have damaged men, too. They have driven a wedge in between men and women and their relationships.
It didn’t take me very long in those days to become aware that the women's “liberation” movement was a noxious ideology of victimhood that preached hatred of men. The proposed cure was to change men or else claim they weren’t needed. Now of course among man-hating lesbians men are not needed, but for normal women the claim is not true.
In my entire life I have never encountered any of these women supposedly trapped in suburban hell by patriarchal men -- the Betty Friedan/Gloria Steinem dystopia that launched the women's liberation movement. Every bit of it, I realized, was a myth.
Women's real problem is not male oppression but a clash of two incompatible female ambitions: work and motherhood. Because this circle cannot be squared, some women blamed men instead because they were unable to realize these ambitions.
Try as I might, I have never been able to figure out a solution to the problem of women having a career and trying to be mothers at the same time. The closest I have come – the closest anyone has come – is to have nannies to raise the children while both parents work. This solution is for people with money. Those with less money have to put them into day-care centers as fast as possible.
Of course, the only way the nanny solution can work is with a never-ending supply of poorly-paid Third Worlders to raise the children. These children, raised in their dysfunctional families, not surprisingly grow up with a great many problems.
Lacking true family, i.e. community, in their lives, and meaning and importance (which all of us must have), they become the bored, anhedonia-plagued, drug-and-sex-soused nihilists of Brett Easton Ellis’ “Less than Zero,” or of Tom Wolfe’s “I am Charlotte Simmons” (both of which remind me of Ezra Pound’s observation that the artist is the antennae of the human race, and the purpose of art is to wake people up).
Then there was the “sexual revolution.” While I had encountered very promiscuous girls in high school, it was only in college that it became political. It was a deadly mix.
Even at 21 I was encountering 19-year-olds who had sex with 15 men, then were complaining to me they could not find boyfriends. In fact, men who knew them were warning other guys to stay away from them. What was I supposed to tell these women?
Apparently these women never realized that a woman who is excessively promiscuous is known by all the guys, and her reputation is never a good one. They talk about her. Since women talk about men, how can they not realize men talk about them? “Gentlemen never tell” has never applied to sluts.
As the years went by, I realized there was a paradox: some women became promiscuous while simultaneously declaring themselves the victims of male sexual predators, which I found bizarre because the women were the predators.
I knew one such woman, who had sex with over 30 men, tell me in all seriousness that men were responsible for all the trouble in the world. She never saw the irony, since in her mind the men were responsible for her being promiscuous. How? Apparently she thought they had to power to make her act as she did.
Disturbingly, many of these women are very intelligent and highly educated. Even with these qualities, they end up unmarried and left on the shelf – their biological clocks having quit ticking as they realized to their horror they would never have husband, home and children.
Instead, they attempt to fill their lives with their careers (and cats), yet still are somehow expecting the same men they had abused and insulted to give them what they lack. Exactly how they expected this to happen, in spite of their hostility and venom, is something I have never been able to figure out. They’ve never figured it out either, because there is no answer to it.
Some of these women still think they can have it all. I’ve met 50-year-old women with fantasies of being a princess – of having a gorgeous and wealthy Prince Charming sweep them off their feet. And they are enraged he never showed up when they were younger, to support them in their careers until they decided to quit and have kids, after which he was expected to support the entire family on his own. I have never in my life met a man like this, or one stupid enough to want to be one.
Both men and women and their relationships have become losers in this game. We have lost a lot of things, and one of them is courtship rituals.
I have told women that in college I preferred to walk women home and sit on their porch and talk to them, or else go to a park and talk. That was my courtship ritual. I have always found the dinner-and-a-movie thing excruciating.
Some told me going to a park with a strange man was an invitation to rape. I found that a little strange, since the women who told me this were the most promiscuous ones I knew. I suppose it would have been okay to ask them to my apartment and then have sex with them, but sitting in a public park talking to them would have been considered an invitation to sexual assault. Again, they never saw the irony.
These problems between men and women, which always exist and always will because people are imperfect, have been exacerbated by the interference of born-rich C students who have entered politics. Laws are supposed to help, and the ones they’re passed over the last 30 years have done nothing but hinder.
For one thing, these laws have taken away the role of men as provider and protector, and have favored women economically over men. Then, again, what we end up with are women with careers, an apartment, two cats, and no husband, home and children. This is a good thing?
What would happen if the government stopped sticking its nose into what is none of its business? This means not only repealing laws attempting to social-engineer the relationships between men and women, but also the economy.
Wages, contrary to the propaganda, stopped rising in 1973, and it was because of government interference in the economy. If the government had not interfered with inflation, taxes, and laws, wages would have continued rising.
Today we’d have a good economy with plenty of high-paying jobs. A man could support a family on his income alone, and women could have a husband, home and children – which is what most, if they are honest about it, really want. They wouldn’t be forced into the job market whether they wanted it or not.
Fortunately, the tide has been turning for a while on this pseudo-feminism (what else can I call it?). Since it goes against human nature, it will ultimately fail. Unfortunately, it has left a lot of wreckage along the way.