THE WAR ON MEN
In the
fantastic movie “Osama”,
the image of Afghani women in burqas was haunting. The blue sheets, more
apparition-like than human, seemed to float. The Taliban’s oppression was total,
complete, devastating. And supposedly, if Republicans have their way, American
women will be in burqas too. Of course, that’s asenine. But the Democrats are
hanging their hopes on the Republican “War on Women” meme. The damning
evidence? Republicans are against forcing the Catholic Church and all health
insurance plans to provide “free” birth control. This “war” was first uncovered
when ABC’s George Snuffalupagus questioned Romney and Knights Templar Crusader Rick
Santorum about his thoughts on birth control. Rick should have said, “That’s a
ridiculous question. Let’s move on”. Instead, he got sucked into making a
philosophical argument that only celibate priests and 10% of Catholics believe
in. The free-thinking, unbiased media wouldn’t let it die.
The Beaver State, Oregon, recently banned
public schools from using Indian names or mascots for their athletic teams,
saying they disparage Native Americans and reduce them to caricature. If even a
small majority of Native Americans were actually offended, I would say this
isn’t so outrageous. But they aren’t! Over 80% of real Indians (as opposed to fake ones seeking a Senate seat) don’t see the big deal. Why would activists
disagree with most of their “misguided” compadres? What is so dang offensive? I
don’t think Monty Montezuma makes brown people look bad. No school is nicknamed
“The Pine Ridge Drunks” or “The diabetes-prone welfare moochers”. They are
given names like “Warriors” or “Braves”. The nicknames evoke toughness,
endurance, prowess, all positive traits you would associate with athletic
competition. What does this have to do with a war on men? Plenty. The names
evoke masculinity and it is this that liberals hate.
Liberals
abhor war and violence. “Militarism”, a stupid word that simply means
aggression, is a favorite of the left. Liberals also loathe competition. We are
the generation where everyone gets a trophy so no one gets their feelings hurt.
You can also see their hatred of competition in their discomfort with its
ultimate form: capitalism. In free markets, there are always losers and this
burns the heart of a liberal. Are not competitiveness and aggression simply
forms of masculinity?
A professor of mine once asked the class why there are so
few men in the (ultra liberal) field of social work. I remarked that many just
don’t view nurturing and talking about feelings as particularly manly. To her
eternal credit, she said, “No, I think it’s because there are a bunch of man haters
in this field”. To some extent, she was right.
Adam Corolla in his book, “In Fifty Years, We’ll All Be
Chicks”, laments that what was once settled with common sense or a fist, we now settle with hand sanitizer
and lawyers. Largely a vehicle for toilet humor and the F word, the book
actually gives serious social commentary about the blurring of gender lines.
Gender roles have indeed become more confused. Intentionally.
Think of
a small boy running a race against his classmates. He falls and skins his knee.
The mother wants to run and hold him and say “poor baby”. The father spurs him
to be tough and finish the race. Is this not a metaphor for the two great
political philosophies? The battle so often is between compassion and
standards. Both are a form of love, one feminine, one masculine. And when you
focus this through the lens of politics, you begin to see that “Left” and
“Right” is, more broadly, a simple gender construct.
The
problem is that, while the right understands the left for the most part, the
left doesn’t seem to understand the right. At all. Conservatives see
competition as simply a medium for creating greatness. And, in a way, is not
war itself merely the enforcement of “standards”? (Respect my boundaries. Do
not steal from me, etc.) But if you have a narrow view of love and compassion,
if you think that the only way to help the poor and the downtrodden is to say
“poor baby”, then you will view the other way as simply evil. How could it not
be? Liberals despise manliness because they think it crude, thuggish, violent,
and worst of all, uncaring. It must be the cause of so much hurt and pain and
it must be banished.
So goes
the war on men.
