Prologue
Here is an article I wrote under a pseudonym in 2010. It comes at the issue from a slightly different direction, but it still has many examples of women's narcissism and delusion.
Men Give, Women Take
By David Johnson
"All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others." -- George Orwell in Animal Farm.
Men are in many ways, second class citizens. And they are quickly becoming third and fourth class citizens. There is a very good explanation for this: biology, coupled with social evolution. Our species developed very large brains, which unfortunately caused a problem: the brains were too large to fit through the birth canal. As a result, much brain development had to occur after birth. This left human infants nearly totally helpless for the first few years of life. This put a tremendous burden on mothers---so great a burden, that the species was unlikely to survive without a drastic change. That change came in a deal mothers and fathers made with each other. Basically, mothers gave fathers sexual access and fidelity in exchange for protection and support from the fathers. In short, if a little less accurately, women demanded help from men, and men gave it to them. This allowed two adults to work together to raise the nearly helpless children, thereby dramatically increasing the chances that their genes would survive to subsequent generations.
This helped to make the human species a very successful one. But it also bred into men and women some traits that are causing some trouble now. Women were looking for men who were protective, generous, and able to provide. Men without these traits were ignored and shunned by women. And the genes of these men were less likely to reach future generations. This put evolutionary pressure on men to develop traits of generosity, competence, and protectiveness. Men became chivalrous, offering support and help to women. At the same time, women were developing the complementary traits of asking and demanding help from men. This put evolutionary pressure on women to become demanding, self-indulgent, entitled, picky, critical, and nagging. In short, men gave and women took. Although not in all men and all women all the time, these traits are certainly still evident in people today.
Even though this situation helped with the survival of the species, it hardly resulted in an egalitarian human society. Women demanded to be put on a pedestal and men put them there. Evolution is hardly fair. But certainly people can be. Both men and women need to realize that even though evolution may have given them these undesirable traits, they are free to consciously reject them in order to form an egalitarian society. There are certainly many traits that evolution has encouraged in us, yet as civilized human beings we have explicitly rejected: violence, rape, murder, larceny, bullying, etc. And now we can add the "men give/women take" traits. We must realize that women demand more than equality, and that men are likely to give it to them. Both men and women must demand absolute equality of opportunity for an egalitarian society to exist.
Up until recently, this "men give/women take" dynamic was expressed more in a personal manner, one person to another. But with the advent of feminism, women now demand a larger political dimension as well---a macro version of putting women on a pedestal. And men are allowing them to have it. This is resulting in men's second class status---or worse. In this area too, women are demanding more than equality and men are giving it to them. Feminists say they are all about equality, but feminism is really just a wider example of women taking. This aspect of feminism adds new meaning to the phrase "the personal is political." All must understand that it is natural for both sexes to see equality between men and women when the situation is really skewed in women's favor and to men's disadvantage. Both men and women must be conscious of these tendencies and fight to be completely egalitarian.
That's it, that's the premise of this article. If you accept it, you do not have to read further, since the rest of this article is just supporting evidence. You may now continue with your life, all the while being careful not to participate in the "men give/women take" dynamic. But if you do not accept my premise, please read on. I will present many examples of the second class status of men, but where both men and women refuse to acknowledge and change them. Instead, the attention, sympathy, help, and focus are going to women.
Probably the biggest example of men's lower status is actual length of life. Men die on average 5 years earlier than women in the United States . (Most of these examples will be from the U.S., but I'm sure comparable examples exist elsewhere.) That's 7% less life. There is no big outcry, no attention, and no concern. Those all go to women, who we value more.
Some would argue that this shorter longevity is due to men's risk-taking. Certainly this is true to some degree, but please consider this: of the top 15 causes of death in the U.S., 14 have higher age-adjusted death rates for men. Here are some of the male to female ratios: heart disease 1.8, cancer 1.4, stroke 1.2, pneumonia 1.5, diabetes 1.2, accidents 2.4, suicide 4.2, and homicide 3.8. The one exception is Alzheimer's disease and its female to male ratio is only 1.1.
Let's examine some of these. In the past, the medical establishment did focus more on heart disease in men. But that does not seem to be true today. Women and feminism apparently cannot accept men getting more attention or help than women. So now, the battle cry for heart disease is that more women die of it, even though the numbers are very close. In 2003 the death rates were 236.2 women versus 235.0 men per 100,000. Missing in this battle cry is the fact that men generally die about 10 years younger, which is why the age-adjusted ratio is 1.8 men versus women. But still the "Go Red for Women" campaign, which focuses only on women, is getting nearly all of the public attention concerning heart disease.
One aspect of the accident ratio is work-related deaths. Roughly 95% of people killed at work are men. Certainly employers and government could do much better at providing safe conditions for all workers. Perhaps they do not because so few women are employed in the death occupations. This "glass cellar" is the flip side of the "glass ceiling." If more women died on the job, perhaps men's chivalry would force more safety provisions. Or perhaps, the women workers would be more demanding of safer conditions. But because the vast majority of deaths are men, there is little concern. Another way to see this lack of concern is to pay attention to the language used. Recently 29 men were killed in a mining accident in West Virginia. Most of the news reports hid their sex by referring to them as "miners" or "workers." However, when women are killed, on the job or otherwise, the news reports emphasize their gender. The most glaring recent example of this effect was Neda Agha-Soltan, killed during the election protests in Iran . Thirty-three other people (I'm guessing nearly all were men) were killed that day during the protest, but the pretty woman became the "Angel of Iran" and received all of the attention. This is another example of men's lower value.
(Update. Here is another example from Iran. Mahsa Amini was arrested for wearing her hijab improperly and died while in custody. This sparked protests across Iran starting in the summer of 2022. All of the news reports on this subject that I saw made it appear that the protests were, for the most part, by women and about discrimination against women in Iran. These reports always mentioned Amini and the gender discrimination, and implied that all the protester deaths were women. However, a CNN report https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/12/middleeast/iran-protests-death-toll-intl-hnk/index.html
noted that a Norwegian human rights organization found that at a minimum, the protests had resulted in 326 deaths, which only included 25 women and 43 children. This implies that there were at least 10 men killed for every woman killed, and that the protests were about more than discrimination against women. Yet, the American news media and American political leaders only focused on the "women" aspects of the protests. To confirm this point, Time Magazine chose the Women of Iran as the Heroes of 2022.)
Military personnel also illustrate this lower worth. Men make up approximately 98% of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq . I suspect we would be much less likely to start wars if we knew more female soldiers were likely to die in them. And even though we have not had a military draft in over 30 years, we still require only men to register for the draft and suffer the penalties for failure to do so.
Prevention of suicide is another area where government and society do far too little. Even though women attempt suicide twice as often as men, men succeed about four times as often as women. (But again, women receive all of the attention. Phoebe Prince recently committed suicide after being bullied at high school. Her death dominated the media for weeks.) Women's suicide attempts seem to be more cries for help. But perhaps, with the constant degrading that men receive in life and in the media, they do not feel they can---or deserve to---receive any help. This is an example of just how powerless men really are.
The age-adjusted homicide ratio of 3.8 is just one example of the broader problem of men being victims of crime two to three times more often than women. But one would be hard-pressed to realize this given the far greater attention female crime victims receive. For example, our legislators have instituted a Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), where female victims receive billions in government aid not available to males, and feminist groups are paid to "educate" (I would say "propagandize" ) the public. Also, the news media (e.g., Nancy Grace and Jane Velez-Mitchell's War on Women) are constantly highlighting a missing or murdered woman. Sometimes I think the media get together to designate a female victim of the week---usually a young pretty white woman. And heaven help those women who are designated but turn out not to be dead or in real trouble. How dare they embarrass the media and female victimhood by not being real victims! Recent examples of these non-victimized women include runaway mom Tiffany Tehan, runaway bride Jennifer Wilbanks, Crystal Mangum who falsely accused members of the Duke lacrosse team of rape, Audrey Seiler who faked her own abduction, and Susan Smith who murdered her two sons but blamed it on a black man who supposedly carjacked her car.
What disease gets more attention, more funding, more donations, and more sympathy than any other? I do not think there is any question that the answer is breast cancer. Is it just coincidence that this most-attention-getting disease is one that, for the most part, affects only women? As I said before, men lose more years of their lives than women to cancer, yet breast cancer, specifically in women, receives most of the attention. Susan G. Komen For the Cure has more than 184 corporate sponsors including 3M, 7-Eleven, Ask.com, Belkin, BMW, Coffee-Mate, Cross Pens, Dell, Dove Chocolates, Dr Pepper/Snapple, Energizer Batteries, Evian, Frederick's of Hollywood, GUESS, Hallmark, Hanes, Hewlett-Packard, Huggies, Kitchen Aid, Kyocera, LPGA, Lowe's, Microsoft, NAPA auto care, NBC Today Show, Purina, Nordstrom, Oreck, Payless shoes, Pepperidge Farm, Perdue Farms, Pier One, Princess Cruises, Quilted Northern, REMAX, Clorox, Tracfone, Victorinox Swiss Army, Chapstick, Yahoo, and even the Zeta Tau Alpha Fraternity. Komen also has 15 sponsors that contribute $1 million per year, including American Airlines, Bank of America, Coldwater Creek, Ford, General Mills, Holland America, Lean Cuisine, Mars, New Balance, and Yoplait. It is not just Komen; other organizations are devoted to breast cancer awareness including the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, Avon Foundation Breast Cancer Crusade, BreastCancer.Org, and National Breast Cancer Foundation. But it does not stop there. There are countless events, fun runs, men wearing pink ties, college basketball teams wearing pink uniforms, federal research money of around $840 million, pink skyscrapers, everyone wearing pink ribbons, pink ribbons on products, pink ribbons on return address labels, pink ribbons on fenders, breast cancer research developments in the news, a postage stamp that donates to breast cancer research---breast cancer awareness is absolutely everywhere. Even Major League Baseball, the NFL, the NBA, and the NHL have jumped on the bandwagon. Yet, I do not recall the WNBA promoting prostate cancer awareness. This is all part of "men give/women take."
One would think that since men live shorter lives and have worse health, that society would be focusing on men's health. But again, women seem to be getting most of the attention. Women have two medical specialties, men have none. Women spend twice as much on healthcare as men do. (Health care reform now dictates that insurance companies must charge the same amount for men and women---i.e., men will be subsidizing women's healthcare.) A google search of "women's health" on government websites gets 657,000 hits, while "men's health" only gives 41,100 hits. Many hospitals now have Women's Centers, but few have Men's Centers. Many hospitals also provide community classes of interest mostly to women.
The focus on breast cancer is part of a broader phenomenon of giving more charity to women than to men. CBS recently aired public service announcements called CBSCares. Here are the gender-specific topics that I found on their website: Breast Cancer, Menopause, Ovarian Cancer, Osteoporosis, Domestic Violence (I do not consider this woman-specific but most people do), Women's Heart Disease, and Prostate Cancer. Obviously, CBSCares much more for women than it does for men.
Many charities focus on women or have special programs just for women. For example, examining the partners of United Way of Greater Los Angeles, I found thirty-five that helped substantially more women than men, or offered special programs only for women. Only one partner slanted its aid substantially more to men. Large Charities show a similar pattern. CARE originally helped the poor, now it is more for poor women. Vital Voices (started by Hillary Clinton), Global Fund for Women, Catalyst, and Women For Women International focus only on women. Amnesty International, American Red Cross, American Lung Association, ACLU, Human Rights Watch, Catholic Charities USA, and Habitat for Humanity have major special programs just for women but none just for men.
Governments also focus on women. Perhaps the main reason for this is that there are generally more female than male voters. (In the 2008 Presidential election, approximately 8 million more women voted.) This has given women tremendous political power to institute their demands into law above and beyond normal "men give/women take." A politician, male or female, must pander to his or her female constituency in order to be re-elected. This has resulted in much bureaucracy favoring women, even while most of the legislators have been men. None of the following have comparable bureaus, initiatives, or websites for men: The Women's Bureau in the Dept of Labor, The Office of Women’s Business Ownership, Women Owned Businesses, The National Women's Business Council, WomenBiz, The Office on Women's Health, The National Women's Health Information Center, The Office of Research on Women's Health, The Women's Health Initiative, Smokefree Women, Bright Futures for Women's Health and Wellness Initiative, National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, The Office of Global Women's Issues, The Center for Women Veterans, The Women Veterans Health Strategic Health Care Group, Women in Development, Women of NASA, White House Council on Women and Girls, International Women of Courage Awards, Women in Science and Technology, and The Office on Violence Against Women which enforces VAWA, which I mentioned earlier. Federal government websites for women include: Women in the Senate, Women in Congress, Women's History Month, Women's Cancers, History of Women and the Environment, Women in Physics, Women in Agriculture, Women's Resources (at HUD), and Women in Ichthyology. State and local governments similarly focus on women. Our governments---made up mostly of men---are doing a lot of pandering to women.
Legislation and the courts also focus on women. I mentioned earlier the Violence Against Women Act. There is no Violence Against Men Act even though men are victims of violence more often. The Women's Educational Equity Act promotes education for women and girls even though men and boys are doing worse. Title IX forces quotas on the one extra-curricular activity dominated by boys---sports---and ignores all the other activities where girls dominate. Gender Bias Task Forces were formed to examine bias against women in the legal field, even though men are given longer prison sentences for the same crimes and men are more likely to receive the death penalty if they murder women than if they murder men. The "reasonable woman" sexual harassment standard punishes a man, not for his actions, but for how a woman perceives his actions, or how much she dislikes him. The Battered Woman Syndrome Defense allows women to get away with murder. Domestic violence aid goes almost exclusively to women even though about one-third of those injured are men. Protection orders, rape shield laws, and indefinite detention of sexual offenders are protections for women that violate due process.
Non-governmental organizations exhibit a similar pattern. There are numerous women's organizations stretching from mainstream subjects to the bizarre. A subject search of "women" on the Associations Unlimited website lists 835 national and regional women's organizations. A similar search for "men" only gives 23 groups. Some of the women's organizations listed are National Organization for Women, American Association of University Women, White House Project, Camping Women, Women in Toys, U.S. Women's Curling Association, National Peach Partners, Feminist Teacher Editorial Collective, Museum of Menstruation and Women's Health, Professional Football Players Mothers' Association, and Women in Wind Energy. The ironic thing about these women's groups is that they were forming at the same time that women were attacking and integrating the few major male organizations (e.g. Jaycees, Elks, and Rotary Clubs.) And even more ironic was when Martha Burk, the head of the National Council of Women's Organizations demanded entry of women into the all-male Augusta Golf Club---"hypocrisy" does not seem to be in her vocabulary.
And as with charities, many general groups pander to women. For example, the Sierra Club has outings just for women but none just for men. The National Rifle Association has a subgroup for women. My local Trek bicycle shop sponsors two weekly bicycle rides, one for everyone, and one for women only. A local outdoors store sponsors outdoors-type classes, some of them just for women. It appears women prefer their own company, whereas men are fine being around women.
Probably the most telling example of this is the Y's. Both the YMCA and the YWCA were originally sex-segregated. But in the last thirty years, they have gone in very different directions. The formerly men's YMCA is now about as gender-neutral as it can get. As a matter of fact, it now has slightly more female members than male. The women's YWCA, on the other hand, still has a strictly female membership (although males can join as "associates" with no voting rights), and in a political sense, perhaps even more segregated than it was originally. After all, it was once headed by Patricia Ireland, the former President of NOW. This is an example of women's self-indulgence.
Colleges show this pattern as well. Most all-male colleges changed to coeducational by 1970. Two stragglers, VMI and The Citadel, received much attention when they were forced to admit women. Univsource.com lists only 5 current all-male colleges but 65 all-female schools. Three of the women's colleges listed are public schools. Douglass is basically a women's college inside Rutgers University . Although Texas Woman's University and Mississippi University for Women are technically coed to satisfy federal law, in every other way, they are public women's colleges that admit a few men. Their mission statements, coursework, and gender-specific names are evidence of this. Again, there has been a concentrated effort to end all-male colleges even while all-female schools have flourished.
Another area where women have tremendous power on top of their "men give/women take" power is in advertising media. Women often complain that they only make 80 cents for every dollar men make, and that this discrepancy gives men economic power over women. However, people do not get power from making money; they get power from spending it. And women determine where 80 cents of every consumer dollar is spent. (The fact that men make most of the money while women spend most of it is more proof of "men give/women take.") Because women spend most money, advertisers aim their ads at women. In order to get more women to look at these ads, all advertising media also necessarily aim at women. As a result, television, magazines, newspapers, radio, websites, etc. necessarily slant their content toward women. Men are not going to get a fair shake in any of these media.
Let's examine television. Television commercials are notorious for presenting nearly all negative characters as male. Any rude, stupid, obnoxious, incompetent, insensitive, or mean people in commercials are almost always men, even in ads aimed at men. Also, people slapped, kicked, hit, or hurt in commercials are likely men. This shows how biased and slanted television is. Advertisers do not want to risk offending women. And apparently, women are easily offended. For example, after the most recent Super Bowl, some women complained that some ads showed anger toward women. I found this odd because I counted 61 acts of violence against men in the ads, but only 7 acts of violence against women. And there was a qualitative difference in the violence as well. The violent acts against women consisted of 4 head slaps, two tackles, and a playful punch in the arm. But the violence against men included being punched in the groin, zapped by an electric dog collar, head slammed on a car, a clubbing, a stabbing, an electrocution, decapitations, and historical footage of two actual men being shot. On top of this, quarterback Mark Sanchez did a CBSCares spot on women's heart disease. But even as imbalanced as the ads were, women still "took" offense, and men "gave" a pass on complaining.
Television content follows a similar pattern. Most programming is aimed at women, with sports being the main exception. The morning news shows have constant features for women. The daytime soap operas and talk shows are obviously aimed at women, as are the evening gossip, singing, dancing, and bachelor programs. Sit-coms are all basically "men behaving badly," where superior women are laughing at bumbling men. Dramas are becoming, more and more, chick shows. Even cop shows are mostly "damsels in distress" with men doing the distressing- --a description which also applies to the Nancy Grace and Jane Velez-Mitchell shows. Olympic Games coverage is more and more about human interest stories instead of actual competition. Channels for women include Lifetime, We, Oxygen, and coming soon, Oprah, as well as Food, Home and Garden, and Hallmark. Even the evening news shows are becoming women's programming with only a few minutes of hard news followed by human interest stories, women's news, gender war segments (in which women always win), and breast cancer updates. (I'm betting Brian Williams will be the last male news anchor on the big three networks.)
I am amazed at how the media can always find women to heighten a news story's human interest value. For example, in the recent exposure of mismanagement of 200 graves at Arlington National Cemetery , one of those involved was an Air Force nurse whose remains were moved without notification of the family. I am guessing that the rest of the graves involved were of male soldiers. But guess who was highlighted in all of the news stories? In the four reports that I saw on this, three mentioned her by name and the fourth discussed her situation. No men were discussed or named. What are the chances of this occurring by coincidence? Even if a tragic news story only involves male victims, reporters will focus on the victims' wives, mothers, or sisters to make the story personal. We do not value men.
There is some research (Rudman and Goodman) indicating that women are biased toward women, while men do not show a bias toward either gender. That is, women prefer and like women better than they like men, while men have no preference. This gives a new perspective on which gender is the chauvinistic one. This has always been obvious to me. Women's best friends always seem to be other women, who they can talk to on the phone for hours, sharing secrets that their husbands do not know. Women always need to go to the restroom in packs. And as I mentioned earlier, women tend to form groups with other women, while men have no problem with mixed groupings.
This bias also shows in voting, where 5 to 10% of women will vote for women candidates just because they are women. Some of these candidates then show an extreme bias toward women once they are in office. Hillary Clinton is quite up front with her advocacy for women. It has been speculated that she accepted the position of Secretary of State so that she could better continue her promotion of women. Ruth Bader-Ginsberg has long been a legal advocate for women, and now is on the Supreme Court. Many women who were influenced by women's studies courses in college are now obtaining power in government as well as industry. I think that male politicians' favoritism toward women has been bad enough, but what happens when female politicians get the power to "take" what they want without going through a middleman? Will it be worse?
Perhaps Sweden, which has nearly equal numbers of men and women in Parliament and as ministers, could inform us on this. In Sweden domestic violence receives special punishment. Prostitutes receive social-service aid while johns receive jail time. Affirmative action for college admissions is being terminated even though 60% of university students are women. Gender quotas have been instituted in government offices and in the arts. Female genital mutilation, illegal since 1982, is punishable even while performed with the patient's permission or performed legally in another country. Male genital mutilation has some restrictions but is legal. Parents receive up to 480 days of paid parental leave with penalties if each parent does not take at least 60 days. Government-run day care is available for children at age one. Businesses must charge the same rate for services regardless of gender (e.g., haircuts, laundry services.) Tax rates are among the highest in the world at nearly 50% of GDP---this is an indication that women are also "taking" from the government as well as from men.
The following measures have been proposed and are being contemplated in Sweden: comparable worth, polyamory, fathers forced to take equal parental leave, gender quotas on the members of boards of publicly-traded companies, a man tax, Antioch College-like dating rules where men must ask permission for all sexual activity, gender quotas for day-care workers, and gender-neutral names. These were being seriously considered. But three incidents occurred that caused a backlash, which put these proposals on the back burner for now. A government official said men were animals. A government shelter network published portions of the SCUM Manifesto. And a song at a political party convention contained the lyrics "Fucking men, we're going to chop you to bits." These proposals will probably seriously be considered again soon. It seems that if Sweden is any indication, men should be concerned about women abusing their political power. And men should also be concerned with how much of feminism is plain bigotry.
Of course, relationships also exhibit the "men give/women take" dynamic. Men must initiate relationships, pay for dates, open doors, and then beg on one knee with the bribe of a diamond to initiate more giving during the marriage. This is another area where women make exceptions to their demands for equality. But there is another aspect to men's and women's give and take during marriage. Men must "give in" while women "take control." Psychologist John Gottman, the marriage therapy guru, has stated that "the biggest revelation we've had about how conflicts are best resolved in successful marriages" is if husbands yield to their wives. That is, the key factor in whether a relationship will be happy and successful is whether the husband listens to and obeys his wife. In a statement that shows women's demanding nature, Gottman also says that women bring up over 80% of marital conflicts while men tend to avoid these stressful discussions---it's no wonder, if the men have to "give in." It appears there is some truth in the old saying: "If Mama's not happy, nobody's happy." (To be fair, it is evident in a deeper reading of Gottman's research that both men and women must listen to their partners and yield to some degree for successful marriages. However, both Gottman and the media presented men as the bad guys who need to change.)
Consider other aspects of male/female relationships. Women often demand major changes in their husbands after the wedding. And if the husbands do not change enough, please remember that two-thirds of divorces are initiated by women---people who are more demanding are less likely to have those demands met. And wives are encouraged to divorce since they usually receive child custody, half of the community property, and continuation of many aspects of the husband's responsibilities (e.g., alimony, child support, house payments, lawyers' fees) while the wife's marital duties end. Also consider that women usually marry up, that is, even wealthy women tend to find wealthier men---the "men give/women take" dynamic is not going to work well if she has more than he does.
I mentioned earlier that women now have more economic and political power than men. But women have always dominated in sexual power. This potent power has been responsible for the demise of many, many men. Just think of some of the powerful men recently who have risked everything because of this compelling force: Tiger Woods, Kobe Bryant, David Letterman, Hugh Grant, Jesse James, George Rekers, Jim Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart, Ted Haggard, Bill Clinton, John Edwards, David Vitter, Eliot Spitzer, Mark Sanford, Bob Packwood, John Ensign, Jim Gibbons, Larry Craig, and Mark Souder. And again, at the same time that women were demanding that men give up their economic and political power, women have been hypocritically augmenting their sexual power over men. Women have done this with tighter clothing, more skin exposure, breast implants, fat lips, other cosmetic surgeries, better cosmetics and hair dyes, botox, tanning beds, exercise, etc. Women's sense of entitlement is unbounded.
(The odd thing about marital fidelity is that studies indicate cheating wives are almost as numerous as cheating husbands. So why do we only hear about cheating men? Is it because of women's control of the media? Or is it, as Whoopi Goldberg said recently, that women blab more? Or is it women's self-indulgence and chauvinism? Think of the 15 women who voluntarily came forward to admit to affairs with Tiger Woods---all received fame and/or fortune and little public ridicule.)
At the same time that women were increasing their sexual power, women were demanding laws to also increase protection of that power. Sexual offenses get special treatment. For example, Sexual Offender laws impose special restrictions on offenders for their lifetimes which are not seen in any other types of crime. Offenders also risk continued imprisonment even after serving their sentences. Sexual harassment laws are rigged to punish only men's behavior. This allows women to be sexual at work. Also, rape shield laws exclude an alleged victim's personal life from the trial, something not seen in other types of trials. And the media do not identify alleged victims of sexual crimes. Prostitution laws are becoming more and more like Sweden's, where johns are punished and prostitutes are helped. Men's pornography is shunned and restricted, while women's pornography---bodice rippers, romance novels, magazines like Cosmo, etc.---is perfectly acceptable.
It is a woman's world. Here are a few more quick indications of that.
A lot of books are aimed at women. A subject heading search for "women" in the Los Angeles Public Library catalog resulted in 14,962 items. A subject heading search for "men" only gave 1,753 items.
It is similar for magazines. The 2009 News Media Directory lists 11 pages of magazines for women, but only 1 page of magazines for men.
The women's department in almost any department store will be right inside the front door. The men's department is likely to be in the basement. Department store catalogs and flyers also usually have women's items in the front, while men and kids may get a page and a half in the back.
Mother's Day became an official holiday in 1914---Father's Day waited until 1972.
Why does menopause get so much more attention than the other change of life, puberty? Perhaps menopause is more complicated and serious than puberty. Perhaps. But I have to think that we focus so much more attention on menopause because only women experience it.
Here is a portion of the mission statement for WAPC. “Women Against Prostate Cancer (WAPC) is a national organization working to unite the voices and provide support for the millions of women affected by prostate cancer, and their families.” Even when talking about prostate cancer, the concern and focus is on women.
One way that women receive more aid is by portraying themselves as victims. But women in the United States have very little left in which they can claim victimhood. So women and their helpers in the media show us female victims in third-world countries, where we are less likely to know that men are just as victimized if not more so. This encourages women here to continue to be perceived as victims.
This is not to say that women in the United States do not portray themselves as victims every chance they get. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recently made recommendations concerning screening for both breast cancer and prostate cancer, based on the idea that the drawbacks of screening may outweigh the benefits in certain circumstances. The USPSTF recommended that women in their 40s should consult with their doctors to determine if screening were necessary, and then receive biannual screening from age 50 to age 75. The USPSTF also recommended that men under 75 years old should consult with their doctors to determine if prostate cancer screening would be beneficial for them. The USPSTF recommended that screening end at age 75 for both men and women. These recommendations were controversial, but the mammogram recommendation caused a media firestorm. Women accused the USPSTF of sacrificing women's lives to save money. There was no such firestorm with the prostate cancer recommendations.
This may also be related to women's intrinsic value. Feminist Simone de Beauvoir had it wrong in her famous quote: "One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman." Instead, women are valued just for being. They receive worth and men's chivalry just for being women. They are put on a pedestal just for being women. Men must earn their trip to the pedestal. And as a result, men's pedestal is a little higher. This results in 3 levels. Nearly all men are in the lowest level---no pedestal. All women occupy the middle level. And just a few high-achieving men make it to the highest level. It is men who must earn their value, by being the best, richest, highest status, etc. All women have doors held open for them, but only a few men earn that privilege. This three-tiered system allows women to be shameless opportunists. If they want to play the victim, they can point to the few high-status men and complain of the unfairness that women are seen as inferior to men. But when it suits their purpose, women can also assume superiority by looking down on what they see as those callous, violent, rude dogs that are the vast majority of men. This is why the books The Second Sex (by de Beauvoir) and The First Sex (2 separate books, one by Elizabeth Gould Davis, and the other by Helen Fisher) are about women.
Here's another look at the double standards of sexual harassment. Women are very sexual. Muslims acknowledge this with severe restrictions on women's dress. We in the West have few restrictions but do not see women's excessive sexuality because we have become accustomed to it. However, consider that we do not allow 5 year-old girls to wear makeup because it is inappropriate for them to be sexual. But if makeup is sexual on a 5 year-old girl, it is also sexual on an adult woman at work. If a woman's dress is sexy, that is just a euphemism for sexual. Why do we allow women's sexual appearance at work, but penalize men if they do anything sexual at work? (Consider the recent case of Deborahlee Lorenzana who is suing to allow women to be sexual at work.) Here is another approach. Traditionally, women's power base has been sexuality, while men's has been economic. It is now unacceptable to tell a sexual joke at work (because women do not want their power denigrated), yet it is perfectly acceptable to tell an economic joke at work. "Men give/women take" allows women to get away with much hypocrisy.
It is natural for an oppressed group to overreact and develop a "super pride" when coming into equality. For example, blacks did this in the 1960s with the expressions "black pride" and "black is beautiful." This super pride lasted a few years but eventually died down to a realistic level. However, women's super pride has not died down after 40 plus years and does not look like it will. Any accomplishments by women receive more attention than deserved, and women exhibit exaggerated pride. Examples include Billie Jean King, Danica Patrick, Jessica Lynch, Kimberly Munley, Beardstown Ladies, Xena Warrior Princess, "girls rule" slogan, referring to God but not the devil as "she," and Helen Reddy's "I am woman, hear me roar." Also, images of Rosie the Riveter seem more prevalent now than during World War II. It seems like almost every year is another "The Year of the Woman." And we constantly hear in the media about the "first woman" to do something. The first black or first Hispanic rarely gets any attention.
Here are a few quotes showing women's super pride. Sally Field while accepting an Emmy said, "If mothers ruled the world, there would be no goddamn wars in the first place." Former Governor of Texas, Ann Richards, borrowed from a Frank and Ernest comic strip when she said, "Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, only backwards and in high heels." (Rogers was a fine dancer, but even I can tell she was not in the same league as Astaire.) Dee Dee Myers in her book, Why Women Should Rule the World, advocated for more women in power positions in government with this, "We'd have more representative government; a stronger economy; and a healthier and more sustainable planet. We'd be better able to resolve conflicts and keep the peace. We'd have stronger families." And later she said, "Women are just more practical than men." These expressions of super pride show women's self-indulgence.
Many products of a general nature are promoted, explicitly or implicitly, as only for women. Why would companies exclude half of the population from buying their products? I guess this panders to women's exaggerated pride---if the product is for men too, then it is not good enough for women. In the olden days it was Ice Blue Secret, Special K, Virginia Slims, and Gerotol. More current examples include Activia yogurt, Curves cereal, Crystal Light, Correctol laxative, Hemorid hemorrhoid cream, Living Well Lady fitness, and most all hair coloring and skin creams. Protein bars are a telling example of this phenomenon. PowerBar and Clif both had protein bars for everyone, but then introduced Pria and Luna bars just for women. They have no bars just for men.
Pandering to women's pride carries a risk. Because of women's sense of entitlement, it appears women are more likely to sue for any bad results, real or imagined, and may be more likely to win because of the chivalry and entitlement of judges and juries (e.g. Activia, Victoria Secret, Fen Phen, Vioxx, Fosamax, Bendectin, Yaz, Norplant, and McDonald's hot coffee.) Probably the best example is breast implants. Even though there was no scientific evidence that silicone breast implants caused any major diseases, manufacturers still paid $3.4 billion into the largest class action settlement up to that time.
In a time of overpopulation and dwindling resources, it is imperative that we reduce our consumerism. Certainly women reign when it comes to extravagant consumption. As I said earlier, women spend 80 cents of every consumer dollar. They are more likely to go shopping for fun, and throw away items just because they are out of style. Of course, men also need to stop any consumption which only shows off their ability to provide for women.
Some are complaining that men are becoming just as whiny, extreme, and self-indulgent as feminists. Although true in a few individual men (me, perhaps), it is certainly not true in general. Because of chivalry, men will never be as demanding and whiny as women and feminists.
Women often use shame to control men. Be warned that some entitled women and chivalrous men may try to shame anyone who believes any of the ideas in this article. But shame is not a valid argument, it is an ad hominem. Do not respond to it. (Secretary of State Madeleine Albright used this tactic a few years ago by questioning Fidel Castro's cojones. Is shame the kind of diplomacy we can expect from women?)
Feminists have relied on distortion and outright lies to accomplish their goals. One quarter of women are victims of rape or attempted rape, women are paid 80 cents per dollar men make for equal work, domestic violence is almost exclusively men battering women, battering of women increases during the Super Bowl, battering causes most birth defects and miscarriages, spousal abuse is responsible for 20 to 35% of women's trips to emergency rooms, hundreds of thousands of women die of eating disorders each year, and men were able to legally beat their wives with sticks the thickness of their thumbs, are all examples. Feminists make little effort to correct such myths which are then often used to influence public policy.
But the big lie of feminism is that it is for equality of the sexes. As I have shown in this article, feminism has little to do with equality---the word "feminism" itself proves this. (It is a little like saying that we should use the word "catism" when we want to show that cats and dogs are equal pets.) But because most everyone believes the lie, men's side of the issue has been totally ignored and closed out. Besides, feminism can no longer promote equality by fighting for women since women are now superior.
The result of this big lie and the "men give/women take" dynamic is that our sons are second class citizens, at best. Both men and women must be vigilant to stop men's chivalry and women's entitlement. We must do this for our sons and an egalitarian society.
