Although feminism and conservatism share some characteristics in common, such as dogmatism and an almost obsessive fixation on symbolic issues, it often appears at first glance that their interests are inimical and that they are engaged in a running gunfight in the halls of power. However, what seems obvious on the surface often masks a murky, dark intimacy in matters of closely held prejudice, and to borrow a geographic metaphor from my hometown, a closer examination reveals frequent liasons on the Aurora strip of policy-making.
In my last post, I questioned the result of rape shield laws, which are designed to limit criminal defense. One might think that this is a strictly feminist issue, but when you study the history of the laws, it is clear that conservative politicians also favored restricting defense during the 1970s, during which violent crime was rampant. Think of the “Dirty Harry” movies, and you can get an idea of the general mood at the time. The idea conservatives had in mind was that of the no-nonsense man crusading in fealty to innocence. Despite feminist proclamations of women’s liberation, the familiar pattern of casting women as entirely innocent victims of depraved men emerged in full force during this era, and feminists, never ones to decline an advantage, endorsed with their silence the image of the tough avenger shooting and imprisoning the archetypical “bad guy” who preyed on women. This image is still with us today, and is still used to justify appalling treatment of men unfortunate enough to be portrayed as the “bad guy.”
So today we have this strange parallel fantasy of the hero-protector defending the fragile, innocent woman coexisting with the liberated woman who, herself, wields a gun or a gavel to throw hapless guys in the grave or prison. What this says is that we have a misrepresentation, or more plainly spoken a lie, that guides our treatment of the besieged man, who is the bad guy if only someone says so. It is an engine of incrimination that the typical man cannot withstand, so he generally gives up and accepts his miserable fate. There is really nothing more tragic than to see men imprisoned due to false convictions biding their time passively behind iron bars, but this is a very common occurrence. Neither the bible thumping right nor the feminist ideologues have a shred of pity for such men. Broken eggs, indeed.
However, there may be a lifting of the fog of war – a real war on men and fathers – that condemns so many innocents to the charnel house of bleached and shattered dreams. Where in the 1970s Clint Eastwood was the killer-champion who carried out extra-judicial executions of maligned men, he is now the mentor to a confused boy in Gran Torino. Where people bayed like hounds for executions in the 1980s, governor Ryan of Illinois suspended the death penalty because so many men slated to die were actually innocent.
What we can hope for is that our sons will be seen for the human beings that they are, and will not be marched through life at the end of a gun, taught to view gender-based slavery as the only alternative to ignominy or death. Perhaps the recent cases of conservative hypocrisy so poignantly displayed by philandering Senator Evan Bayh – infamous persecutor of fathers – and the adulterous Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina, will play some part in exposing what is really going on in the corridors of power. It may be that we can only hope at this point, but the shackles are already beginning to rust, and the walls are quaking. It is time to stop the passive acquiescence to injustice, and to recognize that American men, too, are entitled to seek fulfillment, and even happiness — a long-forgotten concept that was nonetheless enshrined in the creation of our country.
9 responses so far ↓
1 sestamibi // Jun 25, 2009 at 10:09 pm
How true this is, as has been pointed out repeatedly by Prof. Stephen Baskerville.
The sordid alliance between feminists and conservatives of the variety that blame men for all family dissolution really needs some sunshine disinfectant.
The dirty little secret of the above alliance is that the alpha men who are part of it are using it for their own ends–that is, to keep large numbers of betas out of the market for pussy by shaming them.
2 Lukobe // Jun 25, 2009 at 10:48 pm
I do wonder if that isn’t what’s going on, when all is said and done — no matter what things look like, there really is a cabal of old white men running things.
3 AnonymousGhost // Jun 25, 2009 at 11:28 pm
There may well be a cabal of old white men running things, but you can be sure they are married to old white women – and I have yet to see an old couple where the wife wasn’t the power behind the throne without thinking “now there’s a rare thing! A man in charge of a marriage!”.
To tell the truth, I have never, ever seen a marriage where the man was in charge, outside of fiction and TV dramas. Perhaps they exist – but until I actually see one, why should I be so gullible?
For some clarity on this, have you ever noticed that the wives of Presidents and Prime Ministers have profiles of their own in public matters, and take it as given that their husbands are not elevated in their eyes for something as trivial as being the nation’s leader, but that when that leader is a woman, the husband is a shadowy ghost-like figure who wouldn’t dare comment on public affairs for fear of encroaching on his wife’s territory?
Any man who claims to be ‘alpha’ in this day and age is no more than a boasting fraud. Good luck to him for putting a brave face on a losing situation, but for intelligent guidance, take your cue from real life.
There are no secret alliances between feminists and conservatives. Just the same characteristic weak-kneed submission to women that is common to all outwardly loud and masterful men, right across the political divide.
4 Welmer // Jun 25, 2009 at 11:34 pm
Well, old white fools with their heads firmly up their rears maybe.
Actually, I don’t think there’s any conscious conspiracy, but there is definitely a lot of willful ignorance for the purpose of preserving special interests.
Whatever the case, I’d caution against making it sound like a racial thing — too many young white guys will feel that they’re being attacked in that case. For example, the anti-death penalty cause has been harmed by casting it as a racist conspiracy. When it is portrayed as a racist plot to kill blacks, white guys think that is BS, and they’re right (white guys are actually more likely to get it for the same crime), but if you show that it is actually a result of a general disregard for men’s lives, it gives them pause because you can’t really argue that point away.
5 Welmer // Jun 25, 2009 at 11:37 pm
Good point. It isn’t really secret, but for some reason it is never revealed as a matter of course.
6 novaseeker // Jun 26, 2009 at 7:15 am
I see it as more unwitting behavior on the part of conservatives.
The trap conservatives find themselves in is that many of them want to overturn the social revolution that happened in the 60s and 70s, and so they personally favor embracing values and attitudes that pre-date that revolution.
The problem with that is that some of those attitudes — particularly the chivalrous ones which tend to elevate concerns of women above those of men — actually serve to advance that revolution rather than overturn it. Yet the conservatives are not willing to abandon those attitudes, because they are fond of them, they are nostalgic of them, and — as conservatives — they think that this is the *right* way to think about and treat women. Treating women as equals (throwing away the favoritism of chivalry) feels to conservatives like capitulation to the revolution, when in fact it is nothing of the sort.
The revolution was never about equality, and by now has pressed well beyond equality towards matriarchal supremacy in almost all areas of life where men and women brush up against each other. Insisting on equality, under the current circumstances, is not furthering the revolution, but is a fallback position which insists that women be taken to account for pursuing female advantage, rather than equality among the sexes. Under the current circumstances, insisting on equality *is* conservative relative to where the mainstream is, because the mainstream is female supremacy now.
But the word “equality” is anathema to many conservatives precisely because it was a revolutionary slogan, because it doesn’t seem conservative, and because they have a deep nostalgia for the olden days — days which they are very reluctant to admit are not coming back anytime soon. In a way, falling back to the beachhead of equality is something of a come-uppance for conservatives, because it emphasizes to them just how badly they have lost the cultural warfare in the last few decades, such that even a fallback position is now in a place where the revolutionaries set their initial goal, but which has long since been moved past by them in their march towards supremacy for their own sex.
The culture — men, mostly — is slowly beginning to recognize that men are basically becoming social untertans. Whether conservatives will wake up, swallow their pride, and adopt a more pragmatic and less nostalgic position remains to be seen, but I am not optimistic that they will, given their general preference for ideology over pragmatism.
7 Niko // Jun 27, 2009 at 3:59 am
So true Welmer.
Authority ultimately rests in who wields the coercive power of violence (direct and indirect).
Authority was once vested in the husband (the historical reality of domestic violence), the conservatives took the moral high ground and the state became the wife’s advocate thereby vesting the power of violence with the wife.
8 miles // Jun 27, 2009 at 9:32 am
Niko // Jun 27, 2009 at 3:59 am
So true Welmer.
Authority ultimately rests in who wields the coercive power of violence (direct and indirect).
Authority was once vested in the husband (the historical reality of domestic violence), the conservatives took the moral high ground and the state became the wife’s advocate thereby vesting the power of violence with the wife.
SO TRUE……………..A phone call from a woman will get a man arrested with no evidence whatsoever. A woman long married to a man will easily take half his fortune, and he will pay her alimony till the day she dies. They literally own half your carcass if you have been married to them for many years.
Anonymous Ghost,
There are a few *real* alpha males out there, but they are childless playas’ who make good money that can endlessly lead women on and pump and dump them.
To be a real ALPHA male with our legal system the way it is, a guy has to have a good job or business making lots of money, and then would have to have a surrogate mom give him a few kids that were his ALONE, and then he could play the field with a vengance———telling women lies until old age pumping and dumping them while getting to raise HIS kids the way he sees fit. That guy would NOT be in submission to the matriarchy the leftists wish to impose. There probably aren’t 500 of such men out there in the U.S. tonight though, but it could be done.
9 Lukobe // Jun 27, 2009 at 11:06 pm
“a guy has to have a good job or business making lots of money, and then would have to have a surrogate mom give him a few kids that were his ALONE…” — sounds like the late, great Michael Jackson!
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