There is something terribly wrong with me… I’m not so frightened of women that I’ll deny wage inequalty. I’m not so intimidated by strong women that I feel the need to imply that they are less than women, imply that they ‘slept their way to the top’ or ascribe their strength to a genetic condition. The idea of females being equal before the law does not so fill me with terror that I refer to them as ‘Feminazis.’ I don’t expect a woman to be subservient or that my opinions, desires etc. are paramount just because there is something dangling between my legs. I am not convinced that I am the best person to make decisions about their bodies, lives and health.
Some feminists are over the top. Some are abrasive, caustic and annoying. So are some football players, rock stars, liberals, conservatives, mechanics, engineers, office workers. Because they are all people, and people are different. Some of them are nice, some of them are dicks.
I get that some women are angry. They really have been oppressed; less than a hundred years ago they weren’t even allowed to vote in national elections- or local ones in most places. After World War 2 many women that did not wish to return to their traditional roles were committed to insane asylums, drugged and even lobotomized. They were subjected to therapies that amounted to torturing them to get them to ‘act like natural women.’ To crush and defeat them.
Yeah, World War 2 was a long time ago. But in many places police had to be held legally accountable before they would take spousal abuse seriously- and most spousal abuse is directed at women by men. Not all, but most. In some places this has been shockingly recent. The best information available to me suggests that women are still, on average, paid less than men in a comparable job. Not always, but too often.
Then we have the politicians on the far right that have introduced the concept of ‘legitimate rape.’ In absolutely stunning ignorance one claimed that women can’t get pregnant from ‘real’ rape. Some have said that a baby conceived in rape was a ‘gift from God.’ I know a lot of women and I have yet to meet one that appreciates that sort of ‘generosity.’
Some of these same politicians have suggested that birth control is the equivalent of abortion. They have slut-shamed women for wanting birth control, and for wanting equality in their health insurance and health care while seeing nothing wrong with the same sources providing drugs to allow men to maintain an erection. Uh… what? They obviously have no problem with men having sex, so who are they supposed to have it with? Not other men, that’s for sure. One particularly nasty fellow has suggested that we abolish the idea that a husband can rape his wife.
Yeah, I get why some women are pissed.
Men are angry too. They are angry that they can no longer treat women as their inferiors. They are angry that they can no longer use their position to compel their employees to have sex with them without risking a lawsuit or even criminal prosecution. They are angry because they can no longer use sexual intimidation in the work-place to keep female employees under their thumb. They are angry that they have to act like decent human beings and treat women with the same respect they accord to one another. It’s the anger of a bully whose victim has been removed from his power. I am unimpressed with their anger
In all fairness I’m a dinosaur. I grew up in an era where most women were stay-at-home moms. I grew up in a gender-biased culture and I have gender-biases. But I do try- and occasionally succeed- in not letting those biases make me stupid.
It’s the freaking twenty-first century for heaven’s sake- yet there are still men so threatened by women that they foam at the mouth at the idea that half the human race wants to be treated as well as the other half.
To those individuals I can only say, “Man up and get over it.”