Cologne. Germany: Where Were the Men?

What happens to women when a nation gives itself over to feminist ideology? Women get more opportunity, more empowerment and more participation in business and government.

At the same time, women leaders in feminist nations like Germany and Scandinavian have opened their nations’ doors to a million Muslim immigrants. To say the least, these people come from a culture that practices the most brutal forms of misogyny on the planet today.

At the same time, a women-run, women-empowered culture also smacks of weakness and decadence. When gangs assaulted women in the central square of Cologne, the female mayor responded by telling women that they should keep their distance from men and walk around in groups. The other word for that is surrender; she was saying that her government could not guarantee the safety of citizens in the city’s centrally square.

Of course, the multicultural left, always willing to sacrifice a few women on the altar of political correctness, has suggested that we all need to guard ourselves against Islamophobia.

During the Bill Clinton impeachment brouhaha we saw that feminists cared more about their cause than they did about women, especially women rape victims. If the perpetrator was a champion of the feminist cause he got a pass.

Compare the treatment of Bill Clinton with that of Clarence Thomas, a half-dozen years earlier. Thomas was accused of making inappropriate and off-color remarks to his subordinate, Anita Hill. The outcry and outrage was so palpable that you would have thought that a new Holocaust had descended on America. Members of Congress from both parties were falling all over themselves to declare that sexual harassment in the workplace was the worst thing that could ever happen to a woman. A few years later, Bill Clinton’s assaults on women were laughed off by Democratic politicians and feminist leaders.

Nowadays, if accused rapists are white fraternity brothers, feminists are up in arms. Even if the stories are outright lies. If the accused rapists are Muslim immigrants, feminists turn their backs on the rape victims. Feminists have been expressing outrage over rape culture, but one suspects that they are less interested in the victims of rape or abuse than they are in using the meme to advance their cause.

How can you tell? The feminist reaction to the assaults around Germany is less about the horrors that were visited on the women than about a remark made by the Mayor of Cologne. These same feminists are not up in arms against the men who have committed these attacks. they want to change consciousness before they want to change behavior.

Kirsten Powers now suggests that the pendulum has swung and that today’s feminists are no longer willing to tolerate sexual abuse. Since Powers ignores the feminist attacks on Clarence Thomas we should assume that her views are ideologically driven.

Powers seems to believe that the best sign of outrage is that feminists are now willing to suspend the rule of law when a woman accuses a man of rape. Unsaid is the idea that this applies most particularly when the accused are white male fraternity members or other privileged males. Powers seems to think it’s fine that men can lose the presumption of innocence and the right to due process on college campuses. They also lose the right to confront their accuser or to a trial by their peers. Many other feminists believe the same thing. Do they care about how easily such a new legal system would be subjected to abuse? Not at all.

This means that ideology trumps the rule of law. It means that ideologues are willing to ditch the bases of our criminal justice system in order to demonstrate how outraged they are… and also to take the risk of persecuting a few innocent men. Of course, to be fair, from the feminist perspective men are never really innocent; they are all rapists and abusers beneath the skin.

Continuing her wrong-headed exposition Powers is thrilled to see that Bill Clinton and Bill Cosby are being taken to task, even indicted for their crimes. And yet, she does not notice that a large majority of the nation’s women still want to put Bill Clinton’s No. 1 enabler in the White House.

Feminists are attacking rape culture because they want to diminish and demean and punish men, especially white men. By the evidence of the feminist mayor of Cologne they are less interested in attacking the men who have committed the crimes. And they are unwilling to protect the victims. The same applies in Scandinavian countries where feminist leaders have been trying to show empathy for rapists.

As a result of the war on men, men have been so thoroughly weakened and that women have no protection against non-white predatory males. Rather than sending out Dad or brother to beat such men to a pulp, feminists want potential rapists receive more sensitivity training about how rape is wrong. Somehow or other feminist rage is not very much of a deterrent. It’s nice to have strong feelings. The real question is: what happens in practice?

Feminists should try to answer the question that commenter Marsh asked on this blog yesterday. When it was all happening in Cologne, where were the men?

Feminism notwithstanding men are instinctively inclined to protect women. If a woman is living away from home and is attacked by a man, her father will feel that he has failed to protect her. He might be living thousands of miles away but he will still feel responsible for protecting her. Men are normally willing to fight to the death to protect their wives and daughters.

And yet, feminists have declared that they do not want male protection. They do not even want men to signal their strength by opening doors for women or carrying heavy luggage. Feminists have taught that male courtesy toward the fair sex assumes that women are the weaker sex. Such assumptions are keeping women out of positions of political power where they could advance the feminist agenda by allowing more misogynist males into their countries.

Furthermore, feminists have taught that women are strong and empowered because every time you speak of a woman you are now obliged to say that she is strong and empowered. Since female weakness is nothing but a social construct once we intone—repeat after me—women are strong and empowered, then, presto, women will be strong and empowered.

As this was happening, men were becoming weaker and more ineffective. Witness the current American president, weak and whiny, trying to solve all problems with gun control and a carbon tax.

Throughout Scandinavia and Germany men are not out on the street protecting women. They are home washing dishes and changing diapers. Women have the freedom to go out at night on their own in these countries, but they have forgotten that the conceptual basis for this liberation is that they assumed to be protected by men. Remove that concept and it is open season on women. Being independent and autonomous, each woman is on her own.

In Cologne, one notes, even the police were not strong enough to protect women in the city’s central square. The central square is not some out of the way place. It is central. But, how did it happen that one of society’s most visibly manly organizations, the police has been weakened to the point that it can no longer protect people in its central square.  One of the reasons might be that in feminist cultures, it doesn’t matter how strong the police are or how well they can do their jobs. If women do not have the strength to pass the required exams, then they just change the requirements. What matters is whether or not the force is co-ed.

One notes, with chagrin, that the United States Marine Corps, as part of its self-weakening program--allowing more women to serve in combat units-- has chosen to eliminate all titles that denote manliness. That’s what the nation really needs, a more sensitive, a kinder and gentler military. Surely, that will deter ISIS and other Islamist terrorists.

With men in retreat, in societies that disparage and demean all traditional notions of masculinity, women are fair prey. It began in Scandinavia and is now moving to feminized Germany.

The New York Times reported on what really matters for German feminists:

Last year, Parliament passed a disputed quota law requiring leading companies to give at least 30 percent of the seats on their supervisory boards to women.

Christine Kronenberg, Cologne’s commissioner for women’s affairs, who attended a meeting Tuesday called by Ms. Reker, said the mayor’s comments were “unfortunate.” She said they did not reflect her attitude toward women, or the victims.

“Sexual assaults are aimed at humiliating women and an expression of a male desire for power,” Ms. Kronenberg said in a telephone interview.

“Until now, we have encouraged women to defend themselves through resistance tactics, but these are all aimed at individual attackers.”

The New Year’s Eve mass-scale assaults, the police said, involved groups of several men taking advantage of the crowds to target young women by surrounding them. While several perpetrators groped the women, others picked their pockets, stealing wallets and cellphones.

Keep in mind, this woman is a public official. More importantly, she does not understand that these assaults are efforts to humiliate men, to show that they have become so thoroughly unmanned that they are no longer capable of protecting women. The assaults occur on a front of the culture war between Islam and the West. Muslim men molest Western women in order to show that the West is weak and decadent. It cannot even protect its women, and is willing to sacrifice them to stronger men. This means that it is losing the war.

Then again, what do you do when women insist that they do not want your protection because they are strong and empowered?

Outrage will not do it. Impotent rage is called impotent rage for a reason. Feminists can use the bureaucracy and the university system to deprive men of their rights, but, when push comes to assault, they can do very little to stop the rapists in their midst. Unless, of course, they are armed. But feminists are against all guns, for their manifestly phallic implications.

Without a strong male presence and the cultural assumption that men will stand up for women and beat down anyone who dares hurt them, what we saw in Cologne and other German cities will continue. Count it as the consequences of a civilizational decline into decadence. Count it as the price of the feminist revolution.