by Connie Chastain*
Have you ever encountered the feminist claim that gender is a social construct and doesn't exist naturally?
The differences between individuals is greater than the differences between male and female, the claim goes. Here's an example of this propaganda put out by the Department of Education: http://www.campbell-kibler.com/Stereo.pdf
Except for minor physical characteristics, feminists say -- for example, women can give birth and men can pee their names in snow -- there are really no differences. They'll tell you this with a straight face, evidently expecting you to believe they really believe it.
They don't. Of course they don't. There could be no such thing as "rape culture" to anyone who believes gender difference does not exist.
Because who rapes, according to feminists? Men. Why do they rape? Because they are men. Women do not rape, because they are not men.
I believe the differences between male and female exist, but not the way feminists do. For them, the point of not recognizing gender differences is to elevate women; and the point of recognizing them is to trash men.
Why? Aside from simply expressing the hatred of men that underlies all feminist thought, the point is to give women an advantage in the classroom, in the office, in the home. But because men and women really are different, the advantage has to be an unfair one.
If there are no differences between men and women, why the VAWA? Why the "Title Nining" of college sports? Why reconstruct education in this country to be friendly to how girls learn, and hostile to how boys learn? If male and female are the same, what's the objection to single-sex classrooms? If there are no differences in the genders, wouldn't a classroom full of boys be exactly the same as a classroom full of girls and boys?
The blatant double standard of feminism is one of my strongest objections to it. It is illustrated many ways, but the cognitive dissonance of claiming no gender differences exist while proclaiming that we live in a "rape culture" is is one of the most conspicuous.
*Connie is a regular contributor to FRS. Her principal blog is http://conniechastain.blogspot.com/
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14 comments:
One of the things I love about Connie is her ability to ably deconstruct in a few paragraphs some dopey tenet or other that is a core belief of radical feminism.
Anyone not infected by Womyn's Studies courses knows that what Connie writes is true.
Well said!
Did you see the dates on the references? Check the bibliography:
Clark, 1873
DeBeauvoir, 1964
Hall, 1905
Gould 1981
Mullis 1992
Reed 1975
Richard W. Riley was Sec'y of Educ under Clinton from '93 to '01
Very well done Connie.
Back when I was a young, chivalrous, white-knighting, captain-save-a-ho, I decided to get married. A good friend of mine gave me the following advice about marrying and marriage which suggests a bit about the differences between genders:
To sum up what he said: "Marry a grown-up woman. While it's true that many men die of old age in the throes of a mid-adolescent crisis, lots of girls will be girls until they finally decide to be postmenopausal women. For some girls post-collegiate life in the big city is just paid graduate work. They are like campus dwellers:
* The serious ones join the urban-professional equivalent of a sorority. They run the school newspaper and work on the campus radio station. They organize pep rallies and marches. They form odd cliques, travel in groups, go nuts for fads and play follow-the-leader.
* The not-so-serious ones cultivate their social standing in the cafeteria, got to lots of dances and still see drugs as a metaphor for the smartness of youth.
Both types of women mistake this extended adolescence for adulthood. Alas, they are often unhappy. Their unhappiness ultimately becomes an issue they explore in focus groups and seminar-type settings, until they have an epiphany: The decide the problem is the men in their life.
So, unless you want to live a 'back-to-school' lifestyle, marrying an adolescent woman is a sure disaster, since she'll never grow up enough to have real-life competence."
I realized after many years that the women he was referring to are gender feminists (think of a man, and take away reason and accountability).
Men and women are not the same.
Viva la Différence!
Men and women are not the same. Indeed, the differences between men and women are far greater than the differences between white men and black men.
We're not the same, but we are capable of the same evil, and are equally likely to abuse the system when provided with incentives to do so.
OT - I read this in the comments section at Salon:
http://letters.salon.com/politics/war_room/2010/06/23/al_gore_sex_assault_story/view/
He is a man
And we all know about men's rapist male sexuality.
Guilty.
Rape apologists in this letters column should be ashamed of themselves.
—Parson Jim
Read Parson Jim's other letters
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No kidding. That piece of shit thinks that Al Gore must be guilty, because he's a man, and "we all know men's rapist sexuality."
Nicely done, Connie. You still have to do your own work and pay your own bills, though. I suggest you get cracking on that immediately.
lol --- you make her sound desperate!
Nice work connie in further de-constructing the Gender / Raunch.."construction".
Hey, Shrug,
Help me out. Buy my book.
Connie
Anonymous at 7:18:00 PM, here's how I visualize it. We've all seen the astrological symbols for male and female (male, Mars, circle and arrow; female, Venus, circle and cross).
Sometimes you see the circles linked, but I think the depictions of them overlapping, perhaps 75% of the circle, illustrate it best. The area where the circles overlap illustrates how men and women are alike (i.e., the human characteristics we share) and those parts of the circle outside the overlap are how we are different.
I don't think we can even understand each other in those areas. But there's plenty enough commonality within the overlap for us to get along; and the differences, frankly, are what attract us to each other.
That is one way I drastically part ways with feminism. I love men; I respect and admire how men are different from women. I believe it is supposed to be that way.
Connie is a wise woman.
When I hear that "toxic" maleness is culturally learned and instilled, I always think of the farm next door to where I grew up. There's a reason they kept the bull separate and handled him with much greater care than the cows.
Too simplistic? This stuff isn't rocket science.
OT- What does this mean for our society?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/25/AR2010062500188.html
"I certainly think it's notable that there is such a large increase in the share of women who do not have children for whatever reasons," said D'Vera Cohn, a coauthor of the study. She said that some women were childless by choice; others wanted children but could not have them. A "very, very small number" would go on to have children, she said.
"The fact that nearly one of five women does not have a child of her own -- that's an enormous transformation from the past," Cohn said.
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