The Feminist Man Problem

Once upon a time relations between the sexes were regulated by unwritten contracts. Contracts defined courtship behavior according to specific rules. Contracts divided household labor in gender-specific terms. Contracts made it that some professions and some jobs were more often filled by men and others more by women.

Several decades ago feminists decided to breach these contracts. They refused to be constrained by what was called feminine behavior. They rejected, with some considerable fervor, the role of housewife. Many chose to place career before family and ended up without the latter. Women would take power in society, to become more prominent in more professions, to rule the world. To imagine that this could have happened without women making any trade-offs is absurd.

Now, we have a fanatical feminist named Jill Filipovic telling us that men who do not accept this new state of affairs have not evolved. Oh, really. Yet, if women decided unilaterally to breach a contract and to redefine relations between the sexes, surely they bear responsibility for the consequences. Recall the old principle: You broke it; you own it.

If Hillary Clinton wins the presidency tomorrow one feminist wish will have been fulfilled. A glass ceiling will have been broken. If the Obama presidency is an indication, relations between the sexes will quickly get worse.

Being a fanatic Filipovic only sees the good in female advancement. She does not mention and does not seem to care that many women have paid a price for the advancement. Is there more rape on campus and more sexual harassment in the workplace than there used to be? I leave it to you do decide? Has fertility become an issue for women who have postponed childbearing in favor of career? I leave it for you to evaluate the facts. Does it become more difficult for women who have postponed marriage to find a suitable husband? I leave it for you to decide. And what about the wave of divorces that befell the nation when second-wave feminism arrived on our shores? Filipovic has nothing to say about the fallout from feminism. Blinded by the light she sees only good things.

To imagine as she does that it’s been all good for women and that when it hasn’t been good for women, the fault lies with men is to engage in an advanced case of what the psychologists call confirmation bias. Ideologues are especially attracted to this condition. It allows them to see what they want to see and to ignore the rest.

Filipovic believes that the Donald Trump candidacy is a remnant of a dying male culture. She fails to recognize that the particular kind of man that Trump represents is indigenous to a female-dominant culture. The word “machismo” was not produced by an Anglo language. It was produced in a culture where men have been rendered ineffective and where women are the ultimate authorities.

As the old saying goes, be careful what you wish for.

Of course, Filipovic trashed white men. She writes:

For all of American history, white men have been both the dominant group and the default one: It was mostly white men in charge, and it was white male experiences and norms against which all others found themselves contrasted and defined. 

And these white men blocked women from the workforce and from law school. Since she does not seem to know very much about history Filipovic does not distinguish between living conditions in 2000 and living conditions in 1900 or 1800.

When lifespan was far shorter than it is today and when infant mortality was far higher than it is today, women’s lives were different. True enough. But that does not mean that white men constitute an organized criminal conspiracy designed to keep women chained to the kitchen.

And while we are trashing white men, let’s look at the record. In all the rants about white privilege you will never find an objective assessment of what white men have accomplished in the course of history.

When it comes to white American men they have won wars and have built a great democratic republic. Apparently, this occurred without very many Hillary Clintons going to law school. White men, in particular white Anglo-Saxon men invented liberal democracy, the Magna Carta, free enterprise, the Industrial Revolution and a massive amount of scientific discovery.

Doesn’t this count for something? Have other groups and other civilizations done as well? For their achievements and for their sacrifices, and for all the achievements and sacrifices of their ancestors, white men are now being subjected to constant contempt and ridicule. The current president seems to believe that everything white American males have achieved is a fraud, a failure, a product of oppressing non-white males.

Thanks for the ingratitude, many white males are saying. They are angered at the disrespect and many of them are returning the disrespect.

Filipovic believes that women have evolved and that men have not. How does she know that women are in the right and men are in the wrong? What if women went too far and forgot to negotiate a new contract with men. Does she think she can force men to do as she wishes? Does she think that she can bully them into doing so?

So, now women suffer a new form of oppression, the duty to home, to children and to job. As it happens, most women whose unevolved husbands can support their families do take time off from work to raise their children. Others feel oppressed by the weight their new obligations.

Women do as they please. They are perfectly independent and have the right to do so. But, they might also be alone. Filipovic does not mention the salient point, point that many women do not like. Women might have left men behind. They might have uncoupled from men. Yet, since men never agreed to the new regime, they are not in any way obliged to function the way women want them to function.

For feminists like Filipovic their problems would be solved if men did more housework. But, when a man does more housework he will do less work in the marketplace and will do less well. If he does less well he will not be able to offer his wife the option of staying home to raise her children. So, having unilaterally broken the contract that defined relations between the sex, women now want men to bail them out of their sinking ship. Good luck with that.

If Filipovic thinks that a Hillary Clinton presidency is going to show men the way to the kitchen she is delusional. Strangely enough, women do not find Hillary to be likable enough. Many of them do not like her at all. There you have it. The great role model for modern feminism is a woman that most women would not want to emulate. How many women would really want to have Hillary's marriage?