The Campaign to Diminish Men’s Social Status to Slave Class in Western Culture

Author’s note: This is not intended to be an attack on women. I am friendly with women, some of whom consider themselves feminists. This is an analysis of what I and others have identified as a disturbing trend throughout society. As a career artist, teacher, and divorced father, I have always shunned New Age jargon, paranoid conspiracy theories, or any cultish group mentality. I had very little awareness of or regard for the organized Men’s Rights Movement before writing my first draft of this essay in virtual isolation. My assumption was a common one that men’s groups were comprised of a few ragtag misfits who got together in the woods to bang bongos, whine about their lives, and atone for the perceived sins of their fathers.

Since then however, I have found an impressive collection of intelligent work by some very well-informed and accomplished authors who write with great clarity and objectivity about these disturbingly overlooked men’s issues. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I was not the only man (and even a few remarkable women) to draw similar conclusions about the organized campaign to denigrate and subjugate men in Western culture. In this piece, I touch on many facets of the subject that will be well-known to readers who are already familiar with the MRM. However, I probe a little deeper than merely identifying the symptoms into some informed speculation about the sinister origins and ultimate goals of this insidious trend.

–Gabriel Raphael, 2012

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It’s A Man’s World?

All women’s issues are to some degree men’s issues and all men’s issues are to some degree women’s issues because when either sex wins unilaterally both sexes lose. –Warren Farrell

We have lived for so long with the cliché that it is a man’s world that we rarely question what it means. So I’m asking. Does it mean that a disproportionate majority of men enjoy freedoms, advantages and benefits that women are denied? If that’s what it means, then it is one of many absurd fallacies regarding men’s and women’s status in this day and age here in the Western world. It has been anything but a man’s world for most of my lifetime since the late 1960s and I know for most men of my generation here in America, whether or not they have the awareness or nerve to admit it. Like a hapless frog boiling to death in a slowly heated pot of water, we never saw it coming. The apparatus of feminism has seen to that. In the politically-correct-osphere, it has become taboo for anyone, male or female to even question the motives, tactics, or ultimate consequences of the feminist agenda. However, as a man to whom it would never occur to question the notion that the sexes deserve equal rights, I definitely do question the feminist agenda. In my lifetime of experience, I must objectively conclude that true gender equality and the goals of feminism as it is practiced are anything but synonymous.

My beautiful daughter attends a successfully integrated public school where we live in Northern California. She has never witnessed racial discrimination but is taught about it in school, especially around the time of MLK day. When she was only about eight, I asked her if she understood what it was all about. She innocently replied, “Yeah but it isn’t like that anymore, so why do they still have to make such a big deal about it?” Hesitantly, I answered her that some people think that it’s the only way to prevent it from happening again. And yet while offering this explanation, I had misgivings about how it felt disingenuous. Even though it was the stock answer, didn’t really make much sense to me or to my daughter. Contrary to its intended purpose of being preventative, it instead seemed more likely to perpetuate the resentment. They are teaching children about a time of hate to whom it would never otherwise occur. I’m not suggesting that we should deny historic facts either, but such sensitive subjects must be kept in proper perspective. I mention this as a parallel to what I now see happening in the so-called battle of the sexes.

With the same paradoxical logic that would put the American Cancer Society out of business if a cure for cancer were found, I submit that the apparatus of feminism actually reinforces and depends on the fallacy that it’s a man’s world in ways that actually diminish the dignity of both sexes. In science, including social science, any good theory or procedure must withstand the test of objective scrutiny. So let’s put feminism to the test. In this case, as simple thought experiment. Like most men of my generation, I can’t even imagine having the motive or power to oppress women. It is an empty accusation. And yet feminism depends on that premise. Therefore, I must conclude that feminism fails the credibility test— catastrophically. Why? Not because men are threatened by the idea of gender equality or “strong” women, a familiar accusation so often claimed by feminists. We’re not. Really. Yet most men become baffled by this accusation just long enough to lose their focus. That is a typical ad hominem logical fallacy that effectively obfuscates the real problems and usually derails any meaningful conversation before it begins.

Feminism Knows Best

It would be futile to attempt to fit women into a masculine pattern of attitudes, skills and abilities and disastrous to force them to suppress their specifically female characteristics and abilities by keeping up the pretense that there are no differences between the sexes. –Arianna Huffington

Another reason that feminism fails is because it has rampaged far beyond its alleged goal of gender equality and spawned some other very hostile and inequitable conditions for men, women and children. It has elevated women not to equal status but to special status, while promoting a universal perception of men as clueless buffoons or violent criminals by a grossly disproportionate measure. Hand in hand with the self-righteousness of “therapy culture”, feminism has diminished the quality of life for everyone by destroying the values that once sustained the stability and bonds of the American family. This is no accident or side effect, nor is it good for anyone including women. It can’t be denied that this brazenly indefensible objective is at the core of feminism’s purported nobler goals of equality. Yet radical feminists will still try to defend it with the absurdly paranoid assertion that the traditional family is nothing more than a male invention designed to oppress women. This theory is even hostile to women who find fulfillment as wives and mothers as being naively brainwashed by a tyrannical patriarchy.

If a tenet of feminism is that women have choices, then this is yet another example of hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance. What feminists are really saying is that women are free to do whatever feminism says they should do because feminism presumes to speak for all women and that it knows what’s best for them; better than they even know for themselves. Amazingly, too many Americans have already accepted such rhetoric and readily ignore the fact that the family unit is our greatest asset and source of strength as individuals and as free citizens. Without the support and strength of the intact family, we are weakened and reduced to proletariats of the state. This, I believe is no mere coincidence. Women— the so-called nurturers and caregivers have been the unwitting foot soldiers this destructive campaign; and men— the proverbial protectors and providers have passively stood by and allowed it to happen. We are all equally accountable for allowing our natural instincts as protectors and nurturers to be so easily perverted.

What began as a seemingly honorable movement to insure legal, financial, and social equality between men and women when war widows were left with no means of support, has now degenerated into a grotesque caricature that backfires far more than it accomplishes any true gains toward its presumably virtuous purpose, or as other authors have identified it: feminism’s “cover story.” A minority of angry, vocal women have hijacked and franchised the feminist movement into a disturbingly destructive force while sheltered under its original banner of righteousness. Yet we dare not question their rhetoric lest we are branded as hostile to their seemingly noble cause, so most men comply or assume the obsequious role of championing the feminist cause.

Even if some women really do have legitimate personal grievances with specific men, I would point out that these exceptions to the rule are personal and unique; and not justification for a universally hostile social trend. Thousands of people are killed in car accidents every year but we don’t outlaw cars. I love dogs even though I’ve been bitten once or twice in my life. In fact, I love women despite all of their shortcomings and ways that I have witness few of them have behave with depravity or unjustifiably extreme cruelty toward me and other men. Most young women are now systematically taught that there is a sinister conspiracy among all men against all women with nothing more than a tiny percentage of isolated transgressions to justify this claim. This is mobilizing a political agenda through fear and loathing of the proverbial boogeyman which most women have never personally experienced.

And yet despite the finger pointing, the vast majority of actual men have been anything but unsympathetic. On the contrary. Millions of men just like me have done as much or more to support and abide by the demands of feminism as the women that it is supposed to benefit. In an effort to be deemed as “acceptable” by the feminist sensibility, a whole generation of men spend most of their lives bending over backwards to suppress their better judgment and male instincts while apologizing for simply being male (which ironically further incurs women’s contempt.) It begins and ends with this militant faction and their unrelentingly vitriolic characterization of men as their oppressors or abusers. It may seem counterintuitive, but the explanation is that like so many human institutions, feminism would have no cohesion without a scapegoat. I will therefore submit that feminism’s raison d’être is a phantom— but that its effects are dreadfully tangible.

A few so-called “moderate” feminists may attempt to distance themselves from these radical extremists, but their voices are drowned out by all the noise. And even they can’t evade the truth that feminism even exists at all because of a contrived fallacy that a hegemony of men opposes their freedom. Here in America in the 21st century… really? By that definition, any feminism is akin to radical fundamentalism. Eliminate that unjustified core theory and feminism has no unifying meaning or purpose. For a little perspective, all we need to do is look at some Arab and African countries to see what it really looks like for women to be oppressed by men. Despite enjoying advantages and freedoms above almost any other class of people in the world, American women, like spoiled children, aren’t embarrassed to keep right on complaining. Yet perhaps they should complain— not for anything that they have been denied, but for the tragic consequences of what they themselves have wrought: the unmitigated betrayal of their men, their children, and ultimately, themselves.

Plunder and Slander

I remember Nazi election propaganda posters showing a hateful Jewish face with crooked nose. –Jack Steinberger

All of this may come as no surprise. Any social trend that gains enough momentum will always attract a few fanatic extremists who undermine its true spirit. They are to feminism what suicide bombers are to Islam. These “squeaky wheels” always opt for a rage-fueled tirade over logic against their manufactured adversary. Such fanatic hyperbole inevitably becomes the manifesto for the whole movement. Declare war and then justify it by accusing the identified enemy of initiating aggression for displaying the slightest hint of defense at the attack. Assassinate character instead of seeking accord. Rather than graciously recognizing the willingness of the other party to be reasonable, they default to the most adversarial position possible and employ the same strategy as price bantering in a Cairo street market: aggressively demand more than is reasonable, take as much as they can get, demand more still, give nothing back, and never apologize. This strategy may achieve some petty gains, but the net result is a severely diminished quality of life for all concerned from an increased atmosphere of antagonism and distrust between men and women. The strategy being, “screw him before he screws me.” It is the equivalent to the short-sighted greed of corporate raiders who plunder the assets of an old beloved company and lay off all of its loyal employees rather than reinvesting in its long term potential. A small minority benefits while most suffer. Starting to sound familiar?

Radio pundit bullies like Rush Limbaugh and Tom Leykis have been called out for making the regrettable comparison of feminism and Nazism: “Feminazis”. In so doing, they undermine their own credibility by stooping to the same low level of inflammatory name calling, and yet I believe the core point that they clumsily make is how feminists demonize men just as Nazis demonized Jews so as to justify their hostility. If so, then I’m afraid to say that even they got that part right. Of course, these are rare examples of the kind of man that feminists love to use as poster boys for what’s wrong with all men. They depend on each other to define themselves. Such polarization is inevitable. Like a law of physics, for every radical feminist, there must be an equal and opposite male “pig” to serve as a yardstick by which they measure their own limits. If the moniker “feminazis” is going too far, then it may not be going too far to compare feminism to McCarthyism. At least McCarthy didn’t massacre millions of people that he falsely accused of communism, but the similarity is that he did foster an unnecessarily antagonistic atmosphere for a period of this country’s history based more on a personal paranoia than on any legitimate or widespread threat.

“Displacement” is a well-recognized psychological phenomenon in which the subject redirects their rage toward any convenient target while repressing awareness of the true cause. If they can justify their antagonism by indoctrinating as many others as possible, then they feel validated in their delusion.

And so, in the last 40 years, men in America and a few other Western nations in the northern latitudes have been the target of one of the most insidious slander campaigns ever waged against any minority, and it hides in plain sight. It is not just against the tiny minority of genuinely “bad guys”, but toward all men through guilt by association and the questionably paranoid logic of always erring on the side of caution. In many cases, the easiest targets—the proverbial “nice guys” are the recipients of the most egregious injustices. Why? Because they offer the least resistance. They are the weakest link.

So, if women aren’t really oppressed by men in this country, then why all the sound and fury? All we need to do is look at the effects. Skyrocketing divorce rates, children raised in broken homes and daycare, and the “ghettoization” of the middle class. Nothing is an accident. What we may dismiss as a collection of unfortunate side effects is the purpose. Who would possibly benefit from such social devastation? I’m getting to that.

Riding the Civil Rights Bandwagon

We live in a society of victimization, where people are much more comfortable being victimized than actually standing up for themselves. –Marilyn Manson

“White guilt” became part of our vernacular since the civil rights movement as whites began to have a collective awakening of conscience about the centuries of black suffering in America. Jumping on this bandwagon, comfortable, well-educated, middle and upper class women sought to extend this sentiment to include “male guilt” by comparing their situations as wives and mothers to the conditions of black oppression. And thus began their campaign to demonize men— all men, in exaggerated ways that even exceed the animosity that blacks expressed toward whites for incomparably more legitimate reasons. Thus, the “victim culture” was born and suddenly everyone had a new tool for manipulating the system to their favor. However, unlike our new found sensitivity to racism toward ethnic minorities and sexism toward women, this reactionary form of bigotry toward men is regarded with nothing more than a chuckle during any romantic comedy or primetime sitcom.

Men are the one minority that is banned by definition from playing the “victim card”. If a man complains, then he is not a real man. However, I submit that as real men, we can set a better example for improving our station than by resorting to the same crybaby strategy so overused by other groups. No more crying wolf. You can’t get respect by whining for it. Being a man is not something that requires a feminist’s permission or approval.

The implications are much farther reaching than these venues. Substitute the word “woman” or “black” or any other minority for the word “man” or “dad” in any derogatory joke commonly made at men’s expense and then see if you still think it’s funny or inconsequential: “It’s so simple, even Dad can do it.” Harmlessly funny, right? Now try: It’s so simple, even a woman can do it.” Still laughing? We usually shrug off “male bashing” as a relatively trivial footnote in daytime talk shows and women’s studies college courses. And yet, regarding the latter, the editorial board of the Canadian newspaper National Post has argued:

The radical feminism behind these courses has done untold damage to families, our court systems, labour laws, constitutional freedoms and even the ordinary relations between men and women. Women’s Studies courses have taught that all women — or nearly all — are victims and nearly all men are victimizers. Their professors have argued, with some success, that rights should be granted not to individuals alone, but to whole classes of people, too.

Justifications for Male Discrimination

The anger that appears to be building up between the sexes becomes more virulent with every day that passes. And far from women taking the blame… the fact is that men are invariably portrayed as the bad guys. Being a good man is like being a good Nazi. –Dave Thomas

The rationale goes something like this: Men have always had all of the advantages, so now it’s OK to level the playing field by denigrating any man, anywhere, anytime, in any situation. What this logic conveniently ignores is that only a tiny percentage of men at the very top of the social pyramid have these mythical advantages. The rest of us are all in the same boat. And yet the remaining ordinary, hard-working men who do dutifully work difficult or dangerous jobs that women don’t want to do in order to support their families are vilified as oppressors, predators, or as immature buffoons, making it open season on the proverbial boogeyman. In any conflict, men are almost always seen as guilty until proven innocent, while women’s virtue is always given the benefit of the doubt, even when evidence to the contrary is irrefutable. Where exactly is the oppressive patriarchal system that I have been hearing women complain about my whole life? I don’t see it. Not here in America— at least not in my lifetime. This is the classic cognitive dissonance that many men live with every day. Is it any wonder that a few snap under the stress? How much hand wringing are we doing in the hope of understanding them compared to when a woman snaps?. Men are held 100% accountable for their actions regardless of extenuating circumstances while women are infantilized, analyzed, coddled, and excused under identical circumstances. The fact that so-called “empowered” feminists insist upon this is hypocrisy in the extreme.

It has already been demonstrated that statistics regarding earning disparity are misleading due to the failure to take into account the fact that men tend to work longer hours and more days per year at many jobs that women simply don’t want to do. And yet, feminists cherry-pick the final tally of their own choices as the prime example of discrimination against them. And we’ve been buying this nonsense for a generation now.

The news media is insidiously complicit. Every leading story on the eleven o-clock news begins with some atrocity committed by a “man”, while the feel-good human interest stories refer to men merely as “personnel”, “coalminers”, “soldiers”, or any other gender-neutral euphemism.

Others have already written at length about exaggerated or fabricated statistics on atrocities like rape and DV perpetrated by men against women. In a nutshell, the fact is that violence is initiated equally by men and women and that women abuse children (including sexually) at more than twice the numbers than men. And yet, we behave as if only men are perpetrators and only women are victims. Once again, acting as if things are the way we think they should be instead of how they really are.

All of this amounts to being the ultimate straw man fallacy, and the true cause for such widespread insistence upon it goes even deeper than almost anyone really understands.

Of course, there will always be some bad eggs among any demographic group that deserve the scrutiny that they receive, but that includes both men and women. Neither gender owns the monopoly on virtue. However, for the same reason that racism is wrong, condemning an entire category of people for the shortcomings of a few is ultimately far more damaging than the behavior that it presumes to denounce.

Propaganda

This idea that males are physically aggressive and females are not has distinct drawbacks for both sexes. –Katherine Dunn

This phenomenon has its tentacles in every important aspect of modern life including education, the job market, retirement, health care, the economy, the media, journalism, literature, the arts, law enforcement, criminal courts, dating, marriage, raising children, family courts, and divorce. In all of these arenas, there is a profound pattern of discrimination against boys and men, and preferential “kid glove” treatment or portrayal of girls and women— which is only possible because of a baseless but persistent myth that the bias favors men.

We say that women can do anything men can do, but then force men to pay alimony to women in the vast majority of cases when it is awarded in a divorce. The assumption of course, being that the poor, helpless woman can’t fend for herself without a husband to support her— even if she left him. Suddenly, pride in being a strong, independent woman is conveniently set aside. In such cases, it is presumed that life with him was so unbearable that she had to “escape”, which is something that doesn’t require any proof. She is then “owed” compensation for the excruciating ordeal of having to sleep with her husband for the years that they were married as if she were a prostitute or sexual slave with no choice in the matter. If it is an insult in the extreme to call a woman a whore, then you’d think that more of them would be embarrassed to behave in a way that invites such characterization.

In any case, the man is expected to continue supporting the woman; an outdated vestige from the time when most men worked and most women stayed home to raise the children. While feminism has ravaged that traditional model, they have staunchly defended the disproportionate alimony and child support awards in family courts that originated in a time when most women didn’t work. The legalese is: “in the lifestyle to which she has become accustomed”. In higher income cases with children, outrageous amounts of child support are granted that far exceed what is required to comfortably raise a child. As “discretionary” income, the custodial parent (the mother) is free to spend this jackpot on anything she wants. This stunning hypocrisy is still boilerplate practice in divorce courts. The spectacularly insulting double standard goes unnoticed, dismissed, or rationalized as “evening the playing field”. And yet, it can be demonstrated that we have grossly overcompensated for something that was never as far out of balance as it has now become. It happened only after the natural differences in gender temperament and predisposition became falsely branded as inequality and injustice. The implications of all this are much farther reaching than a few hurt feelings.

Boys Taught Early

The differences between the sexes are the single most important fact of human society. –George Gilder

In subtle and sometimes not so subtle ways, boys are now taught from an early age that their maleness is a flaw to be suppressed or punished. Anyone who has observed young children play can easily see the obvious natural differences in the temperaments of most children of each gender. There are always some exceptions but most boys are naturally more competitive, active, and fascinated by things that can be thrown or ridden, while girls tend to more often sit quietly and “pretend” play. These are not learned behaviors— they are instinctive. However, in many experimental new educational environments, young boys are deterred from their more naturally boisterous instincts by hyper-sensitive adults who deem boys’ natural behavior as disruptive and sometimes even going so absurdly far as to deem it oppressive of the girls’ well-being.

We’re talking about politicizing children’s natural behavior.

A whole generation of boys are now being chemically castrated with Ritalin and other drugs, presumably to curb their so-called “hyperactivity”, or what was once called, you know, “being a boy.” In some “progressive” educational environments, young boys are even directed to play quietly with dolls along with the girls. The message is that the educators are attempting to break down natural gender behavior under the insane theory that it is unnatural— before the children can possibly understand why they are being discouraged from behaving normally. This symbolic gender reassignment goes far beyond the need for a reasonable degree of discipline and order when children really do behave disruptively.

The fact that girls often enter puberty a little earlier than boys has spawned a myth that they mature intellectually sooner as well, and yet there is no evidence at all to support this belief. In fact, girls’ school performance sometimes drops sharply at the onset of puberty, with far less of this effect observed among boys. Statistically, it’s no surprise that girls’ aptitude skews a little more toward verbal and language skills while boys skew a little more toward analytical and math skills, but there is no significant difference in overall performance except when one group is favored over another, which is exactly what’s been happening in the last 30 years. Boys’ tendency to assert themselves a little more than girls has been branded as damaging to girls’ self-esteem. So, instead of dealing with each child according to their innate temperaments, boys are admonished for their natural enthusiasm. Being born male has taken the place of “original sin”, and boys learn to feel guilty just for being boys, especially when most elementary school teachers are women who consider themselves feminists.

Boys see their own fathers marginalized in their lives and fathers in media portrayed as inept buffoons instead of the stable, wise heroes that they once were. No longer is the protector, the provider, the decision maker respected or even acknowledged. In domestic disputes, the man is almost always arrested even when the woman was the aggressor, which is far more frequently than reported, for the same biased reasons. Men are blamed for all the evils of the world with a naïve dream that all problems would be solved if only women ran the world. None of these biases are absolute, but they are now commonplace enough to have a cumulatively negative effect on how boys learn to see themselves. This far exceeds the seriousness of any complaint about how women are portrayed in the media. Once again, all of this reinforces the absurd and dangerous idea that the only way to “empower” girls is to emasculate boys, even at very young ages.

In the Workplace

The sexes in each species of being… are always true equivalents – equals but not identical. –Antoinette Brown Blackwell

In the professional world, women often complain that their male colleagues don’t take them seriously. Having worked for several large companies, I have often heard the complaint but never actually witnessed the alleged cause. On the contrary, I have seen many women in positions of authority, surrounded by mild-mannered beta males who would never dare question them even if they had good reason— out of fear that any challenge whatsoever to a woman would be misinterpreted as the deadly sin of sexism. These are the young men who were raised in the generation of feminism.

Nevertheless, even if it still sometimes happens that a few old-school men don’t take their female colleagues or subordinates as seriously as they’d like, one very important reason for it is rarely acknowledged: women actually have more options than men, despite a common assumption to the contrary. Every working man knows that he has no choice. He has no safety net. He must work, period.

For men, working for a living is not a privilege, group therapy, or a liberating expression of his individuality, creativity, and freedom, as feminists have been taught to see it and envy it. For men, work is merely an inescapable and necessary burden whether he likes it or not. A man must work his whole life because he knows that no one is ever going to take care of him, and he will have to work extra hard, long hours that most women won’t if he is going to be considered successful enough to attract a woman and support a family.

A woman in the workplace on the other hand has many more choices, especially if she’s attractive. Whether we care to admit it or not, she can flirt or screw her way up the ladder if she wants. She can threaten to sue for sexual discrimination pretty much any time she is challenged for any reason by a male colleague or superior. That is not to say that every woman does these things, but some do. That is a fact, and everyone knows it. Every man in the professional world knows that even if a woman doesn’t do these things, the threat that she could always looms, while he will never have such options. It’s not difficult to see how this knowledge could influence even fair-minded men to begin seeing working women as mere career dabblers or hobbyists who are exploiting unfair advantages compared to their more serious male colleagues who have only their hard work and dedication to earn credibility.

Also, most women can still opt-out and revert to the traditional role of housewife pretty much whenever they want, if they want, unless they wait until it’s too late. There should be no shame in this option, but it is there. In such cases when they do wait too long, only then do some women begin to think that the grass is greener on the path not taken. They then long to be wives and mothers often long after the optimal time to start a family has passed. Like men, such women finally realize that being responsible for themselves is not a mere test of self-esteem to prove like a precocious child, but after a certain point, it becomes a hard, inescapable reality. Some even admit to feeling as if they had been “suckered” into pursuing careers that they only later realize that do not bring them the fulfillment that they were promised by their women’s studies professor in college. So until that day of reckoning, no matter how hard a woman works to prove herself equal to her male colleagues in a professional environment, the unspoken knowledge that she has a safety net that he lacks has an unavoidable affect on her credibility as a serious employee compared to her male colleagues.

If there is one attractive woman sitting in the boardroom at a meeting with her male colleagues, then everyone including her is acutely aware of the proverbial pink elephant in the room that no one dares to talk about. Everyone is uncomfortable and she can use that fact to her advantage. While this may not seem fair, it is foolish to pretend that it’s not true. But we do pretend. We pretend that things are the way we think they should be, instead of how they really are. This head-in-the-sand reflex does not bring about positive change. It only fosters more tension and distrust. Consequently, the workplace has become a minefield of hyper-vigilance against the slightest perception of harassment, which stems more from a fear of lawsuits than from any actual behavior that rises to a reasonable interpretation of being genuinely offensive. Talk about a hostile work environment!

An attractive, successful business woman that I once dated told me that as an artist, I was a refreshing alternative to the stodgy men in suits that she worked with all day. She actually complained to me that they didn’t take her seriously even though she was just as competent and hard working as any of them. Without hesitation, I told her why I thought that was so, and her jaw dropped. Not in offense, but to her credit, in recognition of the truth. She replied, “Oh my god, you’re right. I never thought of it like that.” We eventually parted on good terms but I know that she will remember that conversation.

Sex and Drugs and Rock & Roll

No one will ever win the battle of the sexes; there’s too much fraternizing with the enemy. –Henry A. Kissinger

Before the 1960s, the American male archetype was admired for being strong, and stoic, with grit and moral fiber. Women chose men carefully based on these qualities— with good reason. In the time before the pill and legal abortion, unwanted pregnancy was a serious concern, so a stand-up man was valued and appreciated. Strong, smart, heroic men were a staple in literature, television and movies.

Enter: JFK’s assassination and the Viet Nam war. Suddenly, all bets were off and a new young generation dared to seriously challenge the status quo through an explosion of creativity in music, literature, film, and personal exploration of new ways of thinking and living. This posed a far more serious threat to the incumbent establishment than most people realize. In ancient Rome, the powers of the time realized that they couldn’t stop Christianity, so they co-opted it and formed the Roman Catholic Church in order to maintain power over a growing population of Christians. This is not a discourse about religion but a similar thing happened here in America in the wake of the 60s. The hippie movement was completely derailed with the pacifying temptations of sex and drugs, courtesy of your friendly CIA. Contrary to popular belief, the sexual revolution was actually part of the arsenal to sabotage a movement that could have otherwise had a real chance of overthrowing the corrupt establishment. Like giving smallpox-infected blankets to Native American tribes, hippies were given unrestricted sex and recreational drugs with the idea that these were expressions of their rebellion, when they were actually the elements of their demise. Indeed, my parents’ generation naively and eagerly partook of these temptations without having any idea of the intended consequences. An entire generation of rebels was anesthetized into docility with very little bloodshed except for isolated incidents like Kent State.

The pill was developed and Roe v. Wade legalized abortion. One of feminism’s dictates was that women should no longer be ashamed to be single mothers if they chose not to terminate their pregnancies. The lid blew off sexual restrictions. Promiscuity was no longer shameful, women no longer needed to be coy about their sexuality, and men no longer needed to be strong or responsible. The androgynous rock star replaced the chiseled leading man. We invented absurd new euphemisms like “polyamory”, to legitimize behavior that was once taboo, which of course has nothing to do with real love. Qualities like commitment, responsibility, character, and virtue became synonymous with the rigid, oppressive establishment of the previous generation. Motivated by the temptation of easy sex, most men eagerly adapted to these new mores. The American male archetype transformed from stoic and masculine to the non-threatening man-child anti-hero. As a friend suggested, men went from “pull out artists” to “pick up artists.” This may all seem like good fun, but at what cost? Skyrocketing statistics of single mothers, uninvolved fathers, broken homes, and tension between the sexes.

Like trying to live on a diet of nothing but hot fudge sundaes, all this non-committal sex eventually led to an inevitable breakdown of trust or respect between the sexes. “Free love” was anything but free. Sex as recreation demands the suppression of the natural intimacy and bonding that normally accompanies it. But suppression begets perversion, jealousy, resentment, disillusionment, and rage. By the 80’s, the AIDS epidemic struck, rehab clinics became commonplace and the party was over. Having forgotten any sense of the traditional values and respect that once existed between the sexes, it was too late to turn back. All we were left with was animosity, distrust, and a tidal wave of blame.

Fast forward to today and sexual relationships have come to resemble tense diplomatic negotiations during a temporary cease-fire between warring nations that are considering the benefit of temporarily lifting a trade embargo. People are torn between their natural instincts and the legacy of a generation of promiscuity. Confusion predominates; consumerism and convenience prevail. With absurdly oversimplified theories like “The Rules” and “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” gaining traction among most of the population spoon-fed on pop culture, men and women have abandoned their own common sense and decency. Instead, they have come to see each other as alien specimens to be analyzed and manipulated through a scripted and choreographed series of disingenuous interactions, or as disposable consumer products to be traded in at the first sign of boredom or imperfection. Relationships and marriage are more frequently than ever based on short-sighted whim and superficial convenience more than on genuine love, trust, respect or devotion. No commitment is deep enough to withstand the opportunity to “trade up”. The slogan “I want it all now” from Cyra McFadden’s satirical book “The Serial” has lost its irony and become the mantra for a whole generation. Scratching the surface of these trends reveals some interesting underlying causes.

We are now surrounded by overt sexual imagery everywhere in the media. Despite our professed abhorrence toward child pornography, we allow our children to become inured to sexualized imagery, attitudes, and styles at increasingly younger ages. Worldwide pornography industry revenues are now far in excess of $100 billion annually, which is more than double that of Microsoft and more than the NFL, NBA, and MLB combined. When natural sexuality becomes unavoidably confused with the caricature of pornography, it is not unusual for men to be ridiculed as pigs or perverts merely for expressing any sexual desire at all, whereas women’s sexuality is seen as almost a divine sacrament, even when it really is perverted.

The mixed messages are enough to drive anyone mad. Men are bombarded with the admonition that they are supposed to be kind, honest, chivalrous, respectful, and gentle, but men who are naturally like this find themselves rejected time and time again, only to watch women run into the arms of thugs. Why? Because most women now resent the non-committal dandy that they invented. They instinctively revert to their desire for a strong, stand-up guy, but there are very few good models for this type of man left these days. So, women settle for any superficial display of strength or power as the next best thing. Of course, attraction to wealth never went out of style, but good character is seen as weakness and usually ignored, despite protests to the contrary. Actions do indeed speak louder than words. The exceptions to this rule are the relationships comprised of a domineering woman and her male lap dog. These men either lack or have suppressed their natural male traits in order to be deemed worthy of the woman’s acceptance. These variations tend to be regional but the net effect is a profoundly diminished quality of life for all.

Parenthood

I could not point to any need in childhood as strong as that for a father’s protection. – Sigmund Freud

Loving fathers are systematically torn from their families, branded as deadbeats, and treated like criminals in family courts. We accept this as if it’s just the natural order of things. It isn’t. And yet we still hold the notion that papa was a rolling stone, when in fact a much larger percentage of women actually initiate divorce than men, forcing the fathers of their children out of his own home. In the minority of cases when men leave their marriages, we assume that he’s a jerk for abandoning his wife. When the woman leaves, we still assume that she had no choice because, once again, he must be a jerk. All of this is accepted with absolutely no evidence; just an automatic assumption that flatters women and insults men. Men are the targets of this “damned either way” bias in almost every kind of situation. Even more shockingly, more than twice as many women than men neglect, harm and even kill their own children, especially after moving in with a man other than the biological father. Yes, you read that right.

Despite these facts, we do not err on the side of caution by systematically taking children away from the majority of decent mothers. Instead, we ignore the statistics and do the reverse, because we mistakenly assume that it must be the reverse. Why? This is justified in part by a baseless theory about the breastfeeding bond between mother and child superseding any possible bond between fathers and children, even long after children have long since moved on to solid food. It is also regarded with a nod and a wink as a kind of ad hoc reparation for perceived injustices against women elsewhere in society, such as the aforementioned debatable wage discrepancies. And so children become the bargaining chip, with the insulting justification that such decisions are made in the children’s best interest. Wink, wink.

However, reverse the genders and there would be riots in the streets. Take children away from a mother simply because the father decided that he needed to leave his wife to go “find himself” along with his kids in tow? Laughable, unless the mother is caught selling crack on the schoolyard— and even then we would wring our hands trying to understand what unbearable stresses could push a poor woman to do such a terrible thing, when even a good man would receive no such consideration. Instead, decent, loving fathers are forcibly removed from their children every day without as much as a shrug, often for no better reason than the woman’s whim. Ask any man who has experienced this if it is any less heartbreaking than it would be for a woman and you are likely to see a grown man break into tears, not to mention his children. This is how callously and systematically the family court system not merely permits, but is actually geared to goad already fragile families into devastation, and is really at the heart of the whole matter.

Also, birth control options for women far outweigh the options for men. Choices in birth matters is regarded as the woman’s alone; and yet still the man’s burden depending on the choice that she makes without his wishes carrying any weight whatsoever. Yes, it is her body that will or will not be pregnant for nine months, but his desire to be a parent or not for the next eighteen years and to bear the financial burden or not is completely disregarded depending on her whim. When a sperm bank becomes an equally viable or even preferable alternative to an involved father, then clearly no one any longer takes the consequences of raising fatherless children very seriously. But the results are in and the naïve social experiment that elevated single mothers from shame to glorified sainthood can be declared an unmitigated disaster.

There was once a good reason why it was considered shameful for an unmarried woman to get “knocked up” and raise children on her own. Now, women should never feel shame for anything they do, however careless or selfish. Where single motherhood was once considered a tragedy, it is now considered a perfectly viable or even admirable choice. However, the epidemic rise of drug use, teen pregnancy, gang violence, depression and suicide all correlate precisely with the increased absence or marginalization of biological fathers from the lives of their children. Once again, this is not a coincidence or an unintended side-effect. I assert that it is undeniable case of calculated and predictable cause and effect, and raises the disturbing question of who really benefits. I’m still getting to that. In the meantime, I contend that the system is critically broken and that we can do so much better.

Rite of Passage

Ah, yes, divorce… from the Latin word meaning to rip out a man’s genitals through his wallet. –Robin Williams

As mentioned, most children are raised in broken homes because far more women than men are abandoning their marriages. I can almost hear the feminists cheer at this “victory” but, but the noble cause of equality is just a decoy and the ramifications are much farther-reaching. The devil really is in the details. Of the aforementioned majority of divorces initiated by women against their first husbands, only a very small percentage of those are for serious reasons like abuse or infidelity by the man. In most cases, “irreconcilable differences” is a meaninglessly vague euphemism for “she’s liberating herself from the institution of patriarchal oppression.” But is that really what she’s doing?

It has instead become a rite of passage for women… an initiation to womanhood. You’re not really a liberated woman until you’ve abandoned at least one devastated beta male in the dust to either “trade up” or go “find yourself”, with or without kids in the picture. Even if he was the most loving, supportive husband in the world, simply claim that he was “controlling” and that you felt “trapped”, or that he left the toilet seat up, and the sisterhood will all nod in unison, “just like a man.” I guess it just wouldn’t be as satisfying or meaningful to find herself before ruining a few other people’s lives in the process. This is accepted and even encouraged as the woman’s prerogative to change her mind without moral accountability to anyone that her almighty whim might harm. The fact that she never thought of this before willingly entering the marriage is ignored or explained away as her having been too young and naïve to know what a terrible trap she was getting herself into… you know: stuck with a hard-working man who loves her and provides for her. She can’t execute the symbolic act of liberating herself until she has first willingly entered a union that she can only then vilify as her prison. The fact that she may cause irreparable harm to others in the process is an acceptable casualty at best; or perhaps it is even a badge of honor at worst.

However, the question has never really been whether a woman has the right to choose. The real question is (or should be) how well she chooses. If women truly want to see themselves as equal to men in society (as they should), then they must be held to the same standard of accountability for the choices they make as men are held, and not expect to be forever coddled like children taking their first baby steps into the real world.

Pop Culture

All propaganda has to be popular and has to accommodate itself to the comprehension of the least intelligent of those whom it seeks to reach. –Adolf Hitler

There are countless examples of propaganda in the media that reinforce these skewed views. Despite feminists’ complaint about unrealistic images of thin, sexy women in the media, every romantic comedy is about some immature rogue who can’t commit until he meets the right woman. Every sitcom (and commercial) is about an overweight idiot married to a beautiful, mature, intelligent, sophisticated woman who treats him like a child. Practically every Disney movie since the 70s has been about a plucky, independent young heroine proving herself in some way.

Recently, the bestseller book “Eat, Drink, Pray” and subsequent 2010 film starring Julia Roberts was lauded as a landmark of feminist aspirations but what was it really all about? An attractive, successful, married, middle-aged woman abandons her perfectly decent, loving husband to go on a year long quest to “find herself”, only to ultimately learn that she has selfishly pushed away every man who ever loved her. At least she had a great time in the process while her poor ex was left in anguish— but who cares? It was her adventure and a vicarious fantasy for every married woman in the audience who ever felt a twinge of restlessness. Now, reverse the genders and make the main character the husband who does what Julia did. He would be seen as an irresponsible, selfish villain and everyone would sympathize with the ex whose part is pretty much over after the first 20 minutes.

In the blockbuster 2012, John Kusak asks his ex-wife Amanda Peet if she really loves her new husband. She answers, “I love him enough”, which clearly means that she tolerates him because he’s a better provider than the father of her children, whom she left. This is considered to be a perfectly reasonable answer. Now reverse the genders. If a man gave the same answer when asked if he loves his wife, then that would not definitely not fly with modern audiences as an acceptable reply for a likeable guy. He’d be a real jerk for admitting that he married a woman for convenience. Like so many double standards that give women a free ride that men are denied, it is accepted as a small retribution for some other contrived offenses.

These are only a couple of examples that recently caught my attention out of countless others. For anyone interested, I suggest counting how many television commercials for a wide variety of products and services follow this formula. Apart from selling products, what’s the overarching message?

The Rhetorical Trap

Anger is never without an argument, but seldom with a good one. –Indira Gandhi

Like a religious devotee suffering from a crisis of faith when exercising a bit of common sense, any man who raises these questions is immediately attacked for challenging the politically correct status quo. He is branded a chauvinist, or as a whining, humorless crybaby who can’t take a joke and doesn’t know how good he has it compared to women, or as a loser venting his sour grapes. After all, if you are presumed to have all of the advantages, then you should be able to take a few hits and have no reason to complain, or so the reasoning goes. And if you do complain, you are not being “manly”. Men should be stoic. Men should take their lumps. Men’s feelings don’t get hurt, or at least don’t matter compared to women’s feelings. Men are the oppressors, and so have no credibility to complain. There’s no vacancy in the victim hotel, and men are to blame. It is the classic ad hominem logical fallacy designed to keep men silenced about any injustices they endure.

Instead, you have the occasional hard working quiet family man who just snaps one day and shoots up the post office. Now let’s do a little soul-searching to really understand what terrible stresses could push this poor guy to the edge: Perhaps if he only had the opportunity to voice his frustrations just once in the way he heard the women around him do every single day, then such tragedies might be averted. Just a thought.

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

All I ever seek from good deeds is a measure of respect. –Walter Annenberg

Despite being the target of all this hostility from women, most men silently nod and continue to say and do whatever it takes at all costs to appease women’s bottomless well of demands. They will go along with the common platitude that “she’s always right”, even with all the derogatory jokes about what clueless pigs men are. They will not question the notion of how much more sensitive, nurturing, intuitive, intelligent, and spiritually enlightened women are compared to men, who are always presumed to be inept, immature, knuckle-dragging goobers who lie, cheat, and need to be treated like one of the children by their flawless wives— if they are lucky enough for a woman to tolerate them at all. And so, in either ignorant bliss, the desire for acceptance, or fear of ridicule, most men play along with the burden of trying to impress women, while women maintain their posture of trying to remain unimpressed without even the courtesy of showing up on time, or at all. And which men get the shortest end of this stick? The ones who offer the least resistance… the “nice” guys who least resemble the negative stereotype.

Women often seem to do this with smug, almost perverse satisfaction as if they are cashing in their retribution chips against men— against any man, and yet for exactly what offenses, and to what end? Such small victories ring hollow. There are a lot of bitter, divorced, middle-aged women out there who have never once let down their guard to show genuine appreciation for the decent men in their lives. Let’s not underestimate how much they are suffering too— not because of how awful men are, but because of how awful they think men are. This myopic view becomes their own personal hell. Unwittingly, a woman who believes that she is justified in “getting one over” on the men in her life ends up suffering just as much, if not even more in the long run, and worse: causing her children to suffer too. No one wins. Well, almost no one.

Life Out of Balance

There is more difference within the sexes than between them. –Ivy Compton-Burnett

All of this preferential treatment toward women on the surface would seem to be with good intentions. But if you really think about it, the message actually undermines everything that feminism would logically advocate. Rather than women being able to do anything men can do, it actually reinforces the message that women are helpless victims who need to pressure men into feeling guilty so that they will grant special concessions to women— presumably because women are incapable of succeeding otherwise. The false message is that men’s power is the only power, so women should feel inferior unless they can pilfer men’s power and become more like men. This is actually the opposite of “empowerment”. It negates women’s true feminine power and natural dignity as women, as well as attacking men’s masculine power. It’s like a social short circuit.

Paradoxically, men are now also made to feel guilty and inferior for the very same traits to which women now aspire. So, the bizarre logic is that it is a virtue for women to be more like men, but it is shameful for men to be like men or like women. This is obviously no good for men, but it really doesn’t help women either. They may claim some petty victories, but this ultimately keeps women dependent, in a childlike fantasy world where they can get whatever they want (or what they think they should want) by being aggressive, whining, manipulative, or insisting on changing the rules; and it keeps men in a constant, weakened state of guilt, confusion, and contrition for their natural instincts to be manly. If women can’t compete successfully with men in arenas where men excel, then we must rig the game.

In conversation with women friends about men’s frustration about never knowing what women want, some of the more sympathetic ones have admitted to me, “I don’t blame men for being frustrated since we don’t even know what the hell we want most of the time.”

The hidden message in the jargon of “empowerment” is that you are powerless until someone else rigs the game for you. It’s like affirmative action and special Olympics for women. You’d think that any self-respecting woman would see through the insulting condescension of this, but they don’t because it offers the path of least resistance toward an artificially contrived goal, under a banner of false righteousness. It’s like the trifecta of manipulation. Madison Avenue would be proud (or should I say is proud?)

The net result of all this actually undermines both men’s and women’s dignity, strengths, self-awareness, and autonomy over their own lives to follow their true nature as long as they accept the fallacy that each gender should suppress their natural instincts and strive to be more like the other. Sure there will always be some exceptions to the majority, which is fine for them, but we now act as if the exceptions must be the rule for everyone. As far as we may think we have “evolved” intellectually or socially, we are still biological creatures operating to a great extent on instinct. This is not a bad thing. It is a supreme conceit of human ego to think that gender is an arbitrary contrivance to be methodically altered based on some passing social trend. Rather, it is our nature; it is DNA, hormones, biology, and instinct. We are suffering by attempting to suppress it based on some misguided social theory.

As Jeff Goldblum said in Jurassic Park, “Nature finds a way.”

Acknowledging Skepticism

Do not let yourself be tainted with a barren skepticism. –Louis Pasteur

So, as a man who believes that this subject is in dire need of closer examination, how can I present my case without inviting the same kind of derision directed at every man who has ever attempted to voice similar ideas? I’m not sure that I can. But I can anticipate the ridicule and point out what I believe really motivates it. This extends far beyond my personal experience with a sympathetic view toward all concerned: men, women, and children alike. My purpose is not to complain or to make an appeal for sympathy. It is to shed some light that I believe will benefit all concerned.

Why?

Why shouldn’t truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense. –Mark Twain

If you begin to even consider the validity of this entire premise, then the next question to ask is: why would a presumably enlightened, modern society that has made such great strides against racial discrimination so systematically undermine the natural dignity and respectability that both genders once took for granted? A militant feminist will predictably assert that men have brought this upon themselves and declare that the end of the argument. Now, let’s look at it from a non-dogmatic perspective. My theory is not for the faint of heart. In fact, it is rather chilling and based on well-documented historic facts. It may seem at first like a long leap of logic, but the parallels between past and present are uncanny, so please bear with me.

Historic Precedent

Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty. –Plato

Back in 1712, a man named William Lynch gave a seminal speech to a coalition of Southern Plantation owners on the bank of the James River. The speech was titled, “The Making of a Slave”. In it, Lynch described in explicit detail a systematic approach to psychologically “breaking” a population of people so that they will remain obedient and docile.

The simple premise was “divide and conquer” at the level of the most intimate family bonds.

The first and most important step was to weaken the strongest link. Remove the father from the family unit and brutally humiliate him in front of his woman and children. We’ve all seen “Roots”. Remember?

The next step was to give the woman more decision-making power than the man, especially regarding children, yet always under the control of the master. Children raised under these conditions were deprived of any strong male influence except the master. Women learned to despise their own men’s weakness and consequently form a stronger allegiance to their captor, the master. Sex between masters and female slaves was commonplace. Whether it was forcible or consensual was ultimately usually irrelevant under the circumstances. Much later, this phenomenon was recognized as the Stockholm syndrome in which a group of kidnapees grew to identify with their captors. The first generation of male slaves were killed or maimed beyond any ability to fight back, but the next generation of boys grew to be more compliant, usually through brutal “whippings” from their own mothers, inflicted to avert even worse beatings from the masters.

This became a mindset and a way of life so deeply instilled that it persists in black American culture today, 300 years later. How many African American women really respect African American men, even in this day and age? Very few. This is the legacy of Lynch’s system that he actually predicted. And now, this malignant mindset has spread far beyond the descendents of African slaves throughout all of society in America.

The Conspiracy

Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe. –Frederick Douglass

Fast forward to the Civil War, emancipation, and then further to the civil rights movement. Slavery is abolished. The economic system that built this nation and depended on slavery was on the verge of collapse. Bankers and wealthy land owners needed to think fast. They figured out that they could continue a form of legal economic slavery as long as they didn’t call it that. Just employ the same techniques that Lynch taught, but in more subtle ways throughout the whole society, not just against a single minority group. Open Ellis Island to the largest influx of poor, immigrant worker classes in history with the lure of a chance at a better quality of life in America. Undermine the dignity of the father in the family unit, if not through torture, then through industrial mechanization, economic oppression, and seductive propaganda. Make the ordinary man obsolete as an authority, even in his own family and useful only as an obedient worker… all legally. The dystopian visions of Orwell and Huxley were not that far off the mark. The only subtle but important difference is that we have replaced the chilling bleakness Orwell’s cautionary tales with Huxley’s placebo of banal consumer comforts and dream of a shot at the glamorous life. “You can never underestimate a population’s appetite for distraction.”

And yet the ultimate irony and insult to women is that much of the feminist agenda that they so religiously espouse is really part of a sinister plot devised by a very small group of very powerful men to control the masses by undermining the family unit. They simply planted the seed, and let it play out. Divide and conquer, just like prison guards maintaining their authority by fueling hostility among the inmates. So yes, the real oppressor probably really is male, but it is a very small, elite group of powerful men whose existence and directives are far below most people’s radar. The rest of us ordinary men in women’s lives however, are not the enemy. We’re really all in the same boat.

The Cost

It is the logic of consumerism that undermines the values of loyalty and permanence and promotes a different set of values that is destructive of family life. –Christopher Lasch

The scheme is working. A vast population of the working class is keeping the top fraction of a percent of the wealthiest elite in power, with the recent exception of the Occupy movement. We are the 99%. However, the general public is usually too docile and distracted by consumer media to recognize their own plight or to ever consider a revolt. Instead, most wave their banners in blind allegiance to the powers that be. At what cost? At the cost of the most basic and fundamental social unit upon which the pursuit of happiness depends: the intimate bonds of the intact family. The only difference now is the vast scale and that the “master” is now the faceless godlike entity of corporate capitalism and consumerism. In contrast, husbands and fathers who were once the heroes of their families are now reduced to a punch line.

We believe in things more than we believe in each other. We cheer for our sports teams, for our armies, for our movie stars, for our politics, for our religions, and for our precious cars, fashions, and gadgets— but not for each other. We are allowing our greatest asset— our families— to be sabotaged from within. This is undeniably the brave new world that we live in today. It has not always been this way, nor must it remain so.

As Krishnamurti said, “It is no measure of mental health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”

Conclusion and Prediction

The sexes were made for each other, and only in the wise and loving union of the two is the fullness of health and duty and happiness to be expected. –William Hall

Now, here we are in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the great depression, an epidemic of foreclosed homes, broken homes, and a general atmosphere of malaise and mistrust between the sexes. None of this is an accident. We have been led like sheep to this much weakened place. How can anyone with a merely average sense of decency look around and fail to see that something has gone seriously wrong?

Now, the question is whether it is possible for us to gain the collective awareness to recognize it, to see the bigger picture, and as a population of intelligent and decent men and women, reclaim our dignity and the family bonds that once made us strong as individuals and as a nation? The present course is clearly unsustainable. I predict that the pendulum must start swinging back. There will be a shift in coming decades back toward a healthier respect and appreciation for men’s strength, dignity, wisdom, and roles as beloved husband, father, provider, protector, wise authority, and hero, at least in some sectors. When critical mass is reached, then this reawakening will become universal.

Just like the apologetic state that men are in today, there may even come a period of female atonement in which they will express contrition for their formerly misguided hostility toward the men in their lives. Mutual empathy, compassion, and respect between men and women for our strengths as well as for our differences will become the norm and families will once again become strong and stable. This is the true source from which social and economic recovery will “trickle down.” Of course, there must always be acceptance for alternative family models including blended families, single parent families, and gay couple families. However, the standard prototype of husband, wife, and children will resume its rightful status in the pantheon of stable family models. Feminism will dissipate and be replaced by the more inclusive “humanism.”

For all the die-hard feminists who will misinterpret this as some veiled attempt of reinforcing their imagined shackles of female subservience, please. You were never a slave to men and certainly no one is forcing anything on you now. Are you so insecure as to think that any positive relations with men must be synonymous with oppression? Is that what you call empowerment? If you are really happier alone with your cats, or at least without any positive relationships with men, then that’s always your choice. But as the minority, you don’t have the right to speak or choose for all women. In your own philosophy, women more than anything else have the right to choose what’s best for them. Those many choices must include the choice to take the most natural path in the world: to become truly invested in creating a healthy, happy, strong family… to know the contentment of finding herself right there, without shame, and to stay, for better or worse.

We have mustered the collective mobility to occupy Wall Street. It is now time for the 99% to turn that collective focus back to our homes and families.