Tag Archives: Radical Feminism

Commentary

Men on strike: the social changes that caused men to opt out of marriage

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Painting: "Courtship", by Edmund Blair Leighton (1888)
Painting: “Courtship”, by Edmund Blair Leighton (1888)

I read and enjoyed Dr. Helen Smith’s book “Men on Strike” last year. The book explains a few of the developments that have led to men underperforming in school and in the workplace, and opting out of marriage and fatherhood.

Dr. Helen comes to this problem as a secular libertarian, not as a Christian conservative.

A review of Dr. Helen’s book appeared in Salvo magazine. The review is written by Terrell Clemmons, who has the best Christian worldview of any woman I know – I frequently rely on her advice.

Terrell writes:

While the feminist movement may originally have been about equal respect for both sexes, what it has morphed into, she argues, is female privilege. From rape laws that empower women but not the men they may falsely accuse, to divorce laws tilted in favor of the wife, to the feminization of the U.S. education system, men have become the sex under the gun, while women enjoy the status of a protected class.

But unlike their mothers or grandmothers, men today are not taking to the streets burning their undergarments and shrieking demands (thank God). They’re doing just the opposite, which is far worse. They’re going on strike. The strike zones are manifold:

Higher Education.In addition to the enrollment imbalance, which is approaching a 60/40 ratio of women to men, college has become, in the words of one professor, “a hostile working environment [in which] males increasingly feel emasculated.” Smith quotes a student named John, who had this to say about his college experience: “I had already been cautious around women, having grown up with Tawana Brawley in my backyard and daily stories of sexual harassment; I played it safe and passive every time. But it doesn’t matter. The only way not to lose is to not play. So I’m out.”

Work,including community involvement. With higher female graduation rates and salaries, men today are falling behind their fathers economically and professionally. Consequently, their efforts to prove themselves worthy mates through hard work and higher earnings don’t win female attention the way they used to. Discouraged, too many retreat to a man cave, and inertia sets in from there.

Marriage.Marriage rates are down, and honest men opting out will tell you why. Smith cites a Rutgers University study of single heterosexual men which turned up the top reasons they hadn’t married. They can get sex and the companionship of cohabitation without marriage more easily than in times past, and they don’t want to open themselves up to the risk of divorce and financial loss. It really isn’t that complicated a decision. In fact, it’s often not an actual decision at all. It just happens.

The simplest explanation for the difficulties that boys face in an education system that is dominated by women (teachers and administrators) is discrimination. And in the workplace, the government requires employers to report on male and female head counts, and promote women who are not qualified. I have seen receptionists with tattoos and no college degrees promoted to six-figure manager jobs in companies where I worked.

There is one more which to me was the most surprising one in the book – paternity fraud, and the laws that support paternity fraud:

Take the following cases of nonconsensual insemination: Nathaniel from California, age 15, had sex with 34-year-old Ricci, which, due to his age, was legally considered nonconsensual. Emile from Louisiana was visiting his parents in the hospital when a nurse offered him oral sex, if he wore a condom, which she conveniently offered to dispose of for him afterward. S. F. from Alabama passed out drunk at the home of a female friend and awoke undressed the following morning. In all three cases, including the one involving the minor, a woman got sperm and, nine months later, a child, and the man got ordered by a court of law to pay support for eighteen years.

Less devious, but similarly amiss, are those cases in which a man, having been betrayed by his wife or girlfriend, was nevertheless held financially responsible for a child genetically proven to be another man’s offspring. While not as sensational as sperm-jacking, it is another form of paternity extortion.

In each of those cases, the man was found liable to pay child support – including the case of the 15-year-old boy, who was forced to pay child support to his statutory rapist when he turned 18. This is how the court system works, and more and more men are understanding the risks.

I often encounter “pro-marriage” people while gathering stories for the blog. These pro-marriage people come in two varieties.

On the one end of the spectrum are people like Terrell Clemmons and Jennifer Roback Morse, who understand marriage, but who also understand the social changes that have made marriage unattractive for men. Both Clemmons and Morse have a background in STEM fields, so they are able to understand incentives and tradeoffs. They understand that society has to rollback the changes to education, divorce laws, etc. if they expect men to be interested in marriage again. They understand that men are not just accessories of women, but instead have their own desires, feelings and reasons for marrying.

On the other end of the spectrum are feminist men, who are not able to understand the changing incentives that face men in a world that has evolved under the influence of radical feminism. It is just simpler (less thinking) for these men to accept the radical feminism as a given, and then urge men to “man up”. I think a much better idea would be for the “man up” crowd to realize how marriage has changed, and how the schools and the workplace have changed, then make all of these things more attractive to men. It doesn’t do any good to try to “dare” men into jumping off a cliff. Men aren’t stupid, and they do what is in their own best interests. If the man-up crowd wants younger men to marry, then they need to change the incentives offered to men. And that means changing women first.

Commentary

Feminist and self-described “professional misandrist” explains what to look for in a man

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Do young women understand how to get to a stable marriage?
Do young women understand how to get to a stable marriage?

I heard about “Everyday Feminism” by listening to the Andrew Klavan podcast. Today, I wanted to link to an article featuring 10 questions that a radical feminist should ask the man on the first date.

Here are a few:

4. What are your thoughts on sex work?

You may scratch your head at this one, but much like racism and misogynoir, being pro-sex worker is a necessary pillar of dismantling the patriarchy. I don’t mean pro-sex worker in the sense where non-sex workers write op-eds and think pieces about how sex work is amazing and feminist.

I mean the kind where we pass the mic to sex workers because they know their experiences better than anyone who hasn’t ever engaged in sex work. I mean the kind of pro-heauxism where you understand the labor of sex workers of color, especially trans women of color who engage in sex work, because their experience and knowledge is crucial to understanding the oppressive structures of our world.

7. Do you think capitalism is exploitative?

Anti-capitalism, especially in the U.S., is imperative if you have an understanding of systemic racism, the prison industrial complex, the 13th Amendment, and exploitation. Capitalism, for one, teaches us that we are only valuable if we produce capital. That means that if you aren’t contributing to the system with your labor, your life means almost nothing.

If your date says they’re anti-fascist and part of the resistance but they’re cool with exploiting labor from communities of color and they support the school to prison pipeline, then there’s a good chance they’ll only value you for your ability to nurture them without any reciprocation.

8. Can any human be illegal?

We live on a tiny planet, with land and water within a galaxy surrounded by a universe with an inconceivable number of other galaxies and planets. Yet here we dictate where we are and who is allowed to be where we are. It’s mind-boggling that borders are even a thing, so to call people “aliens” or “illegal immigrants” is so inhumane and despicable.

White Americans stole this land, colonized this land, created so many borders, pushed out, killed and enslaved people of color and somehow they have the audacity to claim that this land is theirs and that black and brown immigrants are stealing their jobs, land, and homes? Miss me with that b***s***.

9. Do you support Muslim Americans and non-Muslim people from Islamic countries?

I can’t think of any other religion which has been vilified and lied about more than Islam in a cultural and systemic way. I am not Muslim, so I will stay in my lane, but I cannot imagine for a second even claiming to be a feminist if I didn’t stand in solidarity with my Muslim friends and family — especially now, especially after 9/11.

Don’t waste your time and energy on dating someone who thinks that Islam is inherently violent or misogynistic. Instead, read some Huda Sha’arawi or Mona Eltahawy to educate yourself further on Muslim feminism.

So, she’s looking for a man who doesn’t enough marketable skills to work in the private sector, who doesn’t believe in the rule of law, who thinks that his earnings should be taxed to pay for illegal immigrants to get free school, free health care, free entitlements, etc. (instead of paying for his own family and household), and who thinks that radical Muslims are doing great work by intentionally targeting innocent people for terrorist attacks. Is this man she is looking for someone who can do man-roles in a long-term relationship? It doesn’t sound to me like he is capable of doing the jobs a man does in marriage. Marriage-capable men protect, provide and lead on moral and spiritual issues.

I found a little bit of biography about this woman. I was shocked to find that she does not have a STEM degree. (not shocked!)

I am an intersectional feminist writer and freelance journalist. I was born and raised in Geneva, Switzerland and I moved to Philadelphia in 2010. I received my BA in Journalism from Temple University and interned at the Philadelphia Daily News as a full-time news intern and reporter. I wrote over twenty pieces covering court stories, crime and neighborhood events, including my own column and two front page stories.

Following my internship & graduation I became increasingly committed to writing freelance for feminist and anti-racist publications like BUST, Guerrilla Feminism, Rewire, Blavity and Philadelphia Printworks. I am currently the senior editor for Wear Your Voice Magazine and a freelance writer for publications like Teen Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, Allure and more.

I specialize in online editorial branding and communications for anti-racist, pro-feminist sites. I helped rebrand and re-focus Wear Your Voice to expand their readership and provide a platform for marginalized voices and those who wish to learn more about intersectional feminism.

I am available for speaking events and panels about anti-racism, feminism, journalism, freelance writing and activism.

Political science is one of the easiest and most useless degrees to get, and jobs for political science graduates pay far less than science and engineering careers. Writing feminist screeds is not a career. Petroleum engineering is a career. Intelligent people study hard things, so that they can get good jobs, and make real money by offering real value to customers.

Her Instagram describes her as a “professional misandrist”. Yet she’s looking for a man. Imagine that! Marriage requires a woman to embrace her feminine nature, and to affirm and cultivate her man’s male nature. None of her views are compatible with what a woman does in a marriage. And none of her views are compatible with keeping a husband engaged in a marriage. She just doesn’t have any ability to keep a long-term relationship together.

Secular men might find her useful for a quick hook-up or as a friend with benefits, but she would be an absolute nightmare to marry. And that ability to get hook-up sex will fade as her youth and appearance fade. Then she’ll have no value whatsoever, to any man – even the ones who just want to use her for sex. It’s sad. Her father should be able to convey some wisdom to her about how to live, but I suspect her father is absent – probably because her mother made poor choices about who to have babies with.

Ten better questions

You can find my list of ten questions for courting here. I don’t ask these questions all at once, on the first date. I just raise these issues and see if there is any interest in them. I think you’ll find that my list of 10 questions is a lot more relevant to the roles that a woman plays in a marriage than the radical feminist’s ten questions are relevant to the roles a man plays in marriage. But then again, I doubt that radical feminists are interested in a marriage that lasts – not enough to make choices to really achieve it. 

Finally, my friend Wes posted a response to the radical feminist questions by equity feminist Christina Hoff Sommers:

News

Can secular leftist men find any value in women apart from sex?

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Huma Abedin (left), Harvery Weinstein (center), Hillary Clinton (right)
Huma Abedin (left), Harvery Weinstein (center), Hillary Clinton (right)

So, lately we have had a lot of scandals in the media where secular leftist men have been accused of raping, sexually assaulting, and sexually harassing women. I have been getting increasingly concerned about how radical feminism’s sexual revolution agenda has destroyed romantic love and lifelong marriage for some time, and all these accusations coming out made me want to write something about it.

First of all, we can’t count on the secular left to stop this epidemic of abusing women. Secular leftists don’t care about women who are abused. As I mentioned in my previous post on the feminist defenders of Bill Clinton, feminists always circle the wagons to defend Democrat rapists and sexual criminals when they are discovered. Here’s another link for a different Democrat sexual assault apologist. This is what secular leftists do about sexual assault and rape. They make defenses for the rapists, and attack the victims’ character.

Matt Walsh has some helpful suggestions on how we can rollback the changes brought on by the secular left with their sexual revolution.

He writes: (H/T Dina)

I’m tired of talking about this sexual harassment thing. Let the victims come forward, let justice be done, but why are we spending every day talking about it? There’s no point.

There could be a point, but there isn’t. There isn’t, because we aren’t going to do anything to prevent these issues in the future. We aren’t learning anything. We aren’t coming up with solutions. We aren’t allowed to come up with solutions. The only thing we’re allowed to say is: “This is bad! So bad! Men are bad! So much badness! Very, very bad! Bad men! Bad!”

Matt’s article comes up with 3 solutions, and I’ll leave it to you to check them out. I only care about the third one for my post:

3) Emphasize chastity.

I mentioned this on Twitter and someone, who’s apparently a professional writer, asked me what the word means. That’s our culture in a nutshell. We literally don’t know what the word “chastity” means.

For anyone else who may be confused, chastity is the virtue which moderates our sexual desires. Basically, to be chaste is to practice restraint. A chaste person refrains from more than just sexual assault. He refrains, also, from pornography, vulgarity, sex outside marriage, and sex that is not in accordance with natural law. This all sounds downright archaic nowadays, I realize, but our outrage over sexual improprieties doesn’t amount to much if it isn’t rooted in a fundamental belief in the dignity of the human person.

Notice I say we should emphasize chastity, not that we are doomed unless everyone practices it perfectly. The problem is not just that people misbehave nowadays — indeed, people have misbehaved in the same ways throughout history — but that our culture has no real message and no real idea about how we ought to be behaving. We can say, “Don’t harass and assault,” but the message is not getting through because it’s insufficient on its own. People must be taught not to see each other as sex objects, but we can only teach them that if we teach them first about the sacredness of the sexual act and the inherent worth of all human beings. If we have ruled that out and abandoned chastity, then we cannot be shocked at the pigs who surround us.

First thing to say is that I don’t think that Matt’s ideas will be very attractive to a culture that is committed to an atheistic cosmos: random universe, no objective morality, purpose of life is happiness, no free will, no accountability when you die. Matt’s solutions require that people think that there is a design for human relationships with an objective right way and wrong way to handle relationships.

This sexual abuse epidemic is exactly what I would have predicted from powerful men who believe that they are machines made out of meat, living in an accidental universe with no objective moral laws, who will never have to answer to their Creator when they die. If God does not exist, then anything is permissible – so long as you can get away with it. If you want to know how secular leftist men treat women, look at how Harvey Weinstein treated women who were less powerful than he was.

On atheism, women are just animals – machines made out of meat. You can use them for your pleasure and then throw them away. There is nothing that women are “meant” to be, because there is no Designer. If you find a pretty girl who is fatherless, then by all means – take advantage of her but don’t get caught. This is rational on atheism. Atheism is the Harvey Weinstein religion. That’s what’s rational in a random, mindless universe with no free will and no accountability to an omnipotent moral lawgiver.

And if those nasty Christians disapprove of you, well you can just threaten them in court for refusing to celebrate your authentic atheist hedonism. That’s happening already – using the law to coerce Christians into approving of immorality. Weinstein himself donated millions to the Democrat party – the party that undermines sexual morality, and makes it easier for perverts to do what they want to do without being judged.

So what about Matt’s suggestion of a resurgence of chastity?

Chastity is a Judeo-Christian value that states that men and women who aren’t married to one another cannot engage in sexual activity. Chastity isn’t just abstaining from sex, though. It’s having opposite sex relationships in which you are actively seeking to set goals with a woman and help her to achieve those goals. So, let’s see what that looks like for me as a chaste man, then I’ll talk about whether this is even possible on any worldview other than orthodox Judaism or evangelical Bible-belieing Christianity.

In Christianity, women are equally made in the image of God as men, and they are made for the same purpose as men – to enter into a relationship with God through Christ. So, right away, I have a set of priorities for every woman on the planet that comes from my worldview. My goal with them is to help them to come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, and then after that, I want to lead and advise them to grow their skills so that they are able to live lives of influence and effectiveness. You can read all about Christian fellowship in Philippians, by the way. Fellowship in the work of the gospel is the business of Christianity and women are meant to be equal partners with men in that business. (Although they might have different roles at different times). Every woman is a potetional partner in the fellowship of the gospel, and so they all have value,

In my case, I have always tried to help women to study and find work that would prepare them to have an influence. For those who are too old to marry, I encourage them to have an influence through speaking, teaching or organizing events, for example. I have female friends who are too old to marry who I monitor. If they need support to get things done for God, then I give them encouragement and gifts to make their operations run smoother. Just today one of them e-mailed me her answer to an atheist who was trying to justify being moral on atheism. For a chaste Christian man, women don’t have to be young and pretty and sexually permissive in order to get basic care. They get care because they play for the same team as Christian men do, and they have the desire to get things done for the team.

There are other young women I mentor who are in other states, and/or are too young for me to marry. I try to get them to change their majors to STEM, to read books on apologetics and economics, to get jobs in the summer, to go to graduate school, to save their money by not wasting it on fun, and to keep an eye out for husband candidates by looking past mere appearances. The goal is to get them to have an influence, and that’s not going to be achieved with crazy emotional life choices made without any wisdom or experience. Again – they have value without having to be pretty or give in to my sexual desires. I don’t even understand what sex means outside of marriage. Sex is what married couples do in order to balance out the challenges of marriage and re-affirm the union. It’s a thing you speak about to your spouse who has committed to you for life. I wouldn’t speak about sex to someone I wasn’t married to, what sense would that even make? It makes no sense.

Is treating women well rational on atheism?

When you keep seeing stories of powerful secular leftists using their power to take what they want from women and then throw them away, remember that on atheism this is rational. If you want to get male-female relationships right, you have to get the worldview right.  Young women have a natural desire to dismiss rules and to pursue fun, without seeing the consequences of their actions in the long term.  There has to be some reason for a man to tell a woman the truth about what follows from her decisions. Men have to be willing to reason with a woman about what she should be doing today so that she reaches the goals she is aiming for tomorrow. Christian men have the capacity to put their self-interest on hold and say what needs to be said to treat women well. Atheist men don’t have any such restraint. We need to remember that ideas like atheism have consequences. It’s no use complaining about the effects when you put the causes in place yourself.