Feminist: Devaluing men has “negative effect on the world”
One of the current popular video trends on YouTube consists of men going through simulated labor. It’s an interesting concept and the men have some funny reactions. But when you read the comments underneath the videos you start to wonder if women get a little more pleasure out of them than simply for curiosity or humor’s sake. It seems as if the videos are being used to back up an accusation, a popular accusation—the accusation that goes like this:
Women are stronger than men. Women suffer more. And men will never, ever, EVER understand.
Women say this kind of stuff all the time. About how men “don’t understand.” We complain about the stretch marks that babies give us but don’t give them. We insist that the father cannot ever know best for the child simply because he didn’t birth the child….
And why do we say all this? Because it builds us up. It makes us feel stronger. And a lot of this is a reaction to the many ways in which the strength of womanhood has been overlooked or taken for granted throughout history and today. We want to be appreciated, and rightfully so. But… [w]e aren’t content knowing we are strong, and so women fall into the trend of delighting in a man’s weakness – delighting when he doesn’t fully understand, or better yet, can’t fully understand….
There was a time when it was standard to consider women not worth understanding — to consider the woman’s task and life frivolous and easy. We’ve seen the damage this outlook has inflicted, not only on women, but on the whole world. So how dare we test our luck by turning the vice around?
How bold we are to assume that devaluing men won’t have a negative effect on the world at large. How bold we are to assume that it won’t hurt all of us, not just men.
~ Elizabeth Hanna Pham, “In Defense of Men,” New Feminism, June 15
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
“Women are stronger than men“- this bit I agree with.
The rest is pretty much boondoggle.
Just because women are finally getting some measure of equality doesn’t mean that men are losing anything.
That’s like saying that gay peoples marriages destroy heterosexual peoples marriages.
There’s a level of truth in this article in that the way women were often viewed in the past is the way some women view men (note, I said SOME, not all).
I think both genders have strengths and weaknesses, and I believe these strengths and weaknesses are some of the ways the two sexes complement each other. Instead of women or men crying that the two sexes should be completely equal/same somehow, we should learn to work together to make our differences work together so that each person has a chance to bring something unique in the effort to making the world a better place.
I think it is great for women to be proud of our ability to get pregnant and give birth in a time when this is often considered a handicap. It is never ok to sneer at and mock males in the process, though. One can be patriotic, for instance, without bashing and belittling people from other countries. Would people want their sons to be devalued and mocked simply because they are male? I really hope not.
““Women are stronger than men“- this bit I agree with”
That’s simply sexist Reality. It’s annoying. If men and women are equals then junk like this shouldn’t be said against either gender. Some people are weak, some people are strong, I haven’t noticed it depends on gender at all.
Men made a rule: “Women and children evacuated first.” Because of this man-made rule, the majority of women aboard the Titanic survived and the majority of men died.
What does it say about men that they create rules requiring them to sacrifice themselves so women can live?
““Women are stronger than men“- this bit I agree with”
Anytime we make a statement about a group of people (women, men, Jews, lawyers, African Americans) as a whole, it may make good material for a politically incorrect joke at best or a racist/sexist bigoted world-view at worst. Society tends to work best when we consider people as individuals first, then whatever race/class/gender second.
Women and men are equal in dignity as human beings. We lose when either the masculine or the feminine are devalued. Ironically, feminists have done a lot to hurt both – by making men out to be superfluous and by hinging women’s success on our ability to take the place of men.
I guess when you think women should have the right to have their children killed as long as those children are vulnerable enough, there has to be a reason in your mind women should have such a right in the first place. Some sort of supremacy which should give them the power over the life or death of their children. That’s one heckuva rationalization.
I don’t think ribbing the opposite sex after they get a taste of what the other commonly goes through is bad in itself. But using it as a tool to demean is wrong. That goes for both genders. No one gender is better or worse than the other. We are all just human beings.
So many abortions per year show how much radical feminism has failed. If it succeeded, fewer women would be intimate with men — and that is, after all, what leads to abortions.
After over 100 years of a successful suffragette movement it is time to close up shop. The goals of the suffragettes have been achieved, and the only thing left for feminism is to breed a divisive philosophy of hatred which says of men: ”Thou art Other.”
Before this shameful version of feminism continues its decline into hatred and lingers on as a pathetic shadow of its great past it should close shop so that society can celebrate the advancements that have been achieved for women. Otherwise feminism is going to become more embarrassing than it already is.
With that said, it must be acknowledged that most of the loud voices of feminism have begun to whisper but unfortunately the concept that our gender and sexual identities are socially constructed has lingered on and is trying to bring down more fundamental institutions. New groups have taken over the old feminist theory of “gender” equity.
Anyway, this is not a rant just an observation.
I have often said that my older male relatives are blessed not to be kids today. Boys have a tough time. Though standardized tests don’t hurt them, subjective grading does. I read an article earlier this year that described the bias that teachers have against them, from early grades school on up. Sure, girls in general can sit longer in a chair and please the teacher, but boys, in general, are more active and the result is too many kids on Ritalin and other drugs. These drugs are OFTEN being used to make grown-ups lives more convenient, without regard to what the effects are in the long run.
Why don’t feminists, in their supposed “war on men,” tell girls and women to avoid being intimate with men?
Why don’t they decry the common practice of abortion as symptomatic of male sexual exploitation of the female?
You’ve never spoken to a radfem have you Denise? Lol.
“I have often said that my older male relatives are blessed not to be kids today. Boys have a tough time. Though standardized tests don’t hurt them, subjective grading does. I read an article earlier this year that described the bias that teachers have against them, from early grades school on up. Sure, girls in general can sit longer in a chair and please the teacher, but boys, in general, are more active and the result is too many kids on Ritalin and other drugs. These drugs are OFTEN being used to make grown-ups lives more convenient, without regard to what the effects are in the long run.”
Well, yeah, there’s this kind of stuff. That’s really the issue I have with feminism in it’s modern incarnation. I think the main ideology of feminism is solid (obviously, besides the abortion stuff), but the way people completely ignore things that effect males negatively is just… unscientific and ridiculous. In the seventies one of the first women in the UK to set up domestic violence shelters made the mistake of saying that in her experiences women were sometimes the domestic abusers, and they sometimes abused their children as well, and something needed to be done about this as well as protecting those women who were victims of male abusers. She received death threats and eventually had to move. This deliberate framing of domestic violence as male violence towards females still carries on today. You get the same thing with male rape and sexual assault victims being ignored and tossed aside.
You also get that the homeless are overwhelmingly men (though more low income families are headed by women, of people who don’t actually have a home the vast majority are males). The criminal “justice” system routinely punishes males harsher for the same crimes (and black males definitely get the worst of that inequity). Single mothers get a lot more social and governmental support than single fathers. What’s frustrating is that if you bring any of that up when people are telling you that you have automatic easy life privilege, you get “well women have it worse and it’s all patriarchy anyway!!!!” Well, be that as it may, it doesn’t mean these issues aren’t important just because your white, middle class butt is sad that someone made a sexist comment to you.
I wouldn’t have an issue with feminism at all (well, except the abortion thing), if they stopped pretending being a dude is the ticket to an easy life and no matter how many stats you show them about some particular issues, it’s all “well that’s guys faults!!!”
Women are great….feminism not so much.
The article was nice…. and kind enough but why was it even needed? Isn’t it obvious that all human beings should not be devalued? Why did the writer even feel that other feminists needed to hear this. If I knew how to insert an emoticon I would insert the face palm yellow circle.
“There was a time when it was standard to consider women not worth understanding — to consider the woman’s task and life frivolous and easy. We’ve seen the damage this outlook has inflicted, not only on women, but on the whole world. ”
This outlook was invented by feminists in the 20th century. Feminists told us that.
GK Chesterton spent a lot of ink trying to help us remember just how powerful and valuable women are, especially in the task of raising children. But women wanted to be wage-slaves like men, because they were told that this gave them more freedom.
As Chesterton put it: “Ten thousand women marched through the streets shouting, ‘ We will not be dictated to,’ and went off and became stenographers.”
My mom always told me women’s lib has ruined a lot of good women and men
ninek, I noticed that many of the teachers in school when I was growing up had less patience for boys. My mother was outraged when the school advised I be checked and think about prescribing me Ritalin. I had to be “more like the girls.” There’s a constant feeling that people don’t care as much about you and that you are unwelcome. It’s like some a subtle exclusion of your sex as you watch the girls being given attention and favored and loved.
And the women…so many of them feel self-entitled and treat you like your existence is solely to please them as if you’ve no personal goals of your own. Upsetting a woman in any way nearly ruins your public face, but it is never the other way around. The women can have their way with you and toss you aside when they’re done with you. Hurting a man is empowerment; his humanity or innocence is of no concern. However, that empowerment is a false sense of empowerment and it is temporary.