Since the beginning of Civil Rights for women, blacks and other special classes, we’ve seen an explosion of new special classes with special rights and privileges not given to other classes.
With Gloria Steinem’s version of feminism came a movement that not only sought to bring equality, but to actually diminish other groups, white males, in particular. Over the decades, white males have seen their place in society diminish. Privileges, based usually on merit, were given to others based on special class. Men were denigrated, as many women felt that women needed men like a fish needed a bicycle (Gloria Steinem). With the off-putting of men, came a decline in their self-esteem, determination, role as father and husband, and key bread-winner. There are more women graduating from college and high school than men. Single mothers often are the norm, rather than traditional families with two parents (M/F). Many young men today find it easier to find escape from the role confusion by spending their lives in video games, porn, and other “safer” relationships.
In the last couple years, we’ve seen a new special class rocket to the top, which suddenly gives some men the opportunity to beat women at their own game. For those who watched the Growing Up Kardashian tv show, you saw lots of pretty women that did pretty much what they wanted, while Bruce Jenner stood in the background frustrated. No longer is this the case. With changing his sex and name to Caitlyn, Jenner now has as many photo ops as Kim Kardashian. Caitlyn was named “Woman of the Year”, something natural born women were used to winning in the past.
Recently, transgendered (M2F) have been excelling in women sports, dominating in many areas that biological women cannot compete in, because they lack the muscle and testosterone. Homeless transgenders in some areas are given preference in housing.
Could it be that in the future, many men will choose to be transgender, because it will give them an advantage over other special classes – women, blacks, gays, hispanics, etc.? Imagine a man claiming to be transgender, so he can obtain scholarships and grant money for college – money that currently goes to women. Women’s sports will eventually be dominated by transgenders that would not be fit enough for men’s sports. Transgenders will get the best jobs that women now seek after.
No longer will they be the lower class sneered at by feminists. Instead, we will replace men, by making them a special class of women, reducing women again to a lower class, where they can no longer compete. Of course, a woman transgender will have disadvantages – as real men are diminished by society.
I wonder if this is another giant step toward destroying mankind’s ties to God? If we are not sons and daughters of God, but are something else, how do we anchor ourselves in that holiest of relationships? Instead of being equal in God’s sight, we will continually seek to be unequal in the sight of mankind, always trying to be one up on others.
Nephi’s warning of people digging pits for their neighbors and thinking themselves in good standing with God, comes to mind. So does the divisions people make, such as expensive clothing – a clear sign of a people in apostasy. For us today, it is not only clothing, but all of our expensive toys and our personal attitude that the world owes us a living (and government handouts).
It is time we stop dividing ourselves into classes and special groups, and begin to see all as children of God. This must be true regardless of how many see themselves or us. They cannot find their way back to a proper relationship with God, if we shun those who are now lost. Let us stand firm on moral principle, but then open our arms to all others and invite them in. Perhaps then, no one will have a need to create a special class, diminish others, or put their own group on a false pedestal (or great and spacious building). We must destroy the false images of ourselves that we create, and taken upon us the true image of Christ.
New Post: Special Interest Groups: Since the beginning of Civil Rights for women, blacks and oth… https://t.co/PCkH6qDUMp #LDS #Mormon
TheMillennialStar: Special Interest Groups https://t.co/L15KEpA2pI #lds #mormon
Jenner changed his sex to Caitlyn? Really?
Alas, I know young women who are changing themselves into males. Therefore I think the matter is more complex that is being portrayed here.
Even though it sucks to be a white male in today’s society, it still sucks to be a woman.
RT @Millennialstar: New Post: Special Interest Groups: Since the beginning of Civil Rights for women, blacks and oth… https://t.co/PCkH6q…
@Meg:
Jenner got some cosmetic, surface work done (facial “feminization”, a few other things), but still has the “male” parts. However, legally Jenner had his/her gender changed to female, even though Jenner has not had sex reassignment surgery.
I’m surprised you hadn’t heard of this. It was all over the news and internet for days and weeks and even months. On social media, people were posting “Men are so awesome, a man even wins Woman of the Year.”
If being a man is so great, why are there so many male to female transsexuals and transgenders?
This piece is ironic, right? You’re not actually arguing that White Man’s Privilege has been seriously, unfairly impaired by bringing a handful of girls, colored people, and non-english speakers onto the team, right? You’re not arguing that non-White, non-Men who graduate summa cum laude from Harvard are intrinsically less qualified than the White Man supervising the staff at McDonalds, right?
No he is not Mary. What he is arguing is that in the race for everyone to have an advantage, the white male is getting trampled on as some kind of revenge. At the same time these civil rights claims haven’t made anyone equal, only created class and stereotype divisions where everyone is trying to step on each other to get to the top. White males are not stupid (no matter what the liberal media portrays) and have decided to either get out of the game entirely or become one of the new protected classes. Even women know that blacks trump white women and therefore are changing their race association to black. The end result is not equality, but social upheaval and new kinds of disrespect for one’s neighbors.
I am the head of a college career services offices, so some of this is in my wheelhouse. At a national conference 3 years ago they talked about a resent study where the exact same resume was given to employers with only one change. The name. It was altered to reflect different genders or races (i.e. John Smith, Juanita Lopez, etc.) Even though the content was identical, the applications were perceived differently with white men always being considered the smartest and most competent. In another experiment musicians trying out for a major symphony were shielded behind a screen so that you could not tell gender. The rate of selection was 50% male, 50% female, as would be expected. When there was no screen that males received most of the spots with the claim that they were “better musicians.”
Please don’t tall me men are being trampled on and that in the “good old days” things were done on merit. That is just factually not true.
Tall, fit, slightly silver haired at temples but not elderly, white males are at a real advantage for administrative openings, and apparently for other positions as well. I find this to be true in art where women artists, however talented, are more likely to be viewed as hobbyists. Short, chubby, ethnic, old, female, are characteristics which are relatively disadvantaged when ordinary people choose without imposed guidelines. There are special rules which are supposed to erase or ease disadvantage for females, ethnic and sometimes elderly, but short and chubby people still have no special protection. Oriental people do not enjoy special ethnic privilege, in fact college admission statistics seem to demonstrate a handicap for those with oriental names. A sad fraction of the population are mutilating themselves and claiming handicapped status. There are historical reasons for choosing fit, tall individuals as leaders, mostly based on military needs but contradicted by a few such as Napoleon and Alexander. Most white men are disadvantaged compared to tall, fit men. It would be interesting to see how height, fitness and gender operate according to ethnicity. It is really harsh when a tall, fit, white man with intact genitals is chosen ‘Woman of the Year’.
I personally don’t think white men are disadvantaged, tho some groups are trying to diminish them, and are succeeding among some groups of men.
That said, I do see many white males, who feel society is against them, and so seek whatever advantage they can get. What better way to get ahead than to be transgender and get the benefits of both male and female?
When you can use either bathroom in Target, you know you’ve put one over on women. When Jenner, with male parts wins Woman of the Year, suddenly being female is no longer a special class. It is now open to all.
I wish those throwing around the word “feminist” would define the term. I consider myself a feminist: I expect to be paid the same for doing the same job for the same length of time, I expect to have access to education and career opportunities and to be judge on my abilities, I expect to be able to vote, I should be able to decide who to marry and to divorce them if they abuse me. All these things are the direct result of “feminism.” If you are suggesting that these things diminish men, then I guess I have to say “too bad”.
Lily, there are various forms of feminism. The form you note is not a problem for most of us, and I consider myself such a feminist. However, I noted the form pushed by Gloria Steinem, which is not just equality with men, but a war on men. She is famous for a statement I mentioned above: that a woman needs a man, like a fish needs a bicycle. That is not a statement seeking equality, but a statement diminishing men. I suggest you read some of the writing of Camille Paglia on the forms of feminism, and how the Steinem and some modern forms of feminism actually hurt both men and women.
Rameumptom, Sorry if this is too much of a thread-jack.
Defining Feminism.
Feminism is not about comparing men and women, but rather is a paradigm for comparing women to each other, a sort of status socialism. Under the feminist paradigm, a woman who sells herself for money should have the same social respect as a woman who personally sacrifices to share herself with husband and children. This is an aspect of feminism that is often opaque to men, who are less interested in social regulation and much more tolerant of true pluralism (white men particularly have carried a tradition quite enamored with pluralism, which makes it all the more ironic that they should now be seen as the bad guys who need to ‘confront their privilege’ and surrender.)
Women, on the other hand, desire to enforce rules of social conduct within their society and often act as direct enemies of true pluralism. Of great importance for social structure is agreeing upon who gets respectability. Feminism can be understood as an equalizing of status among women regardless of their value to the continuation of the whole society, and because of the natural value of certain women, particularly chaste and nurturing married mothers, the exertion toward equalizing must be so intense that it often becomes an outright denigration of virtuous motherhood and celebration of whorish-ness.
There is a difference between the motivations for status between men and women. Men seem perfectly fine with status in the form of money or access to other personally valuable goods, which is why men spend more time thinking about economic paradigms, such as socialism versus free-market. Women, on the other hand, desire agreement about their ‘respectability’ and rules of socially-approved conduct.
Men see what men are up to: male-to-femaling in order to get benefits, such as fame and fortune. But men have a harder time seeing what motivates women because they assume the women are after some kind of concrete benefit. But when women say they want equal pay, what they mean is that they want to be valued for being paid workers who sell labor rather than being valued as wives and mothers .
Ultimately feminism fails most women in the same way economic socialism fails most men. Men do not actually want to become unproductive, but they often will when the economic price of being productive gets too high. So too, most women do not actually want to become un-reproductive, but when the social price gets too high they often will delay motherhood until it is physically high-risk, as well as neglecting the creation of a successful relationship with the father. Feminism creates serious barriers to convenient motherhood, despite the fact that the vast majority of women wish to become mothers as a priority goal in their life. Feminism actively hinders this central aspect for most women.
For this reason, an understanding of feminism rooted in a women-versus-men mentality misses the point, though it has been a very good smoke-screen that has shamed many-a-gentleman out of criticizing feminism. Feminism attacks anti-feminist men as a way of diminishing the virtuous, devoted, nurturing, self-sacrificing women those men support or wish to support. Feminism pushes for redistribution of ‘respectability’. Those who naturally possess the greatest ability to (re)produce (not talking about numbers here, but about quality rearing of children with loving mom and involved dad) must ‘share’ their respectability with those not so blessed with natural respectability. And, as with economic socialism, while there are many who suffer poverty through not fault of their own, the perverse incentive made by a re-distributive paradigm means consumers begin to out-number producers.
As for the various women’s rights many associate with feminism, those actually came from Western Civilization, a tradition carried through the generations from father to son, primarily among people of European descent. It is a tradition abundant with respect and honor for women, particularly as mothers, and so it is not surprising that it should have given rise to the freest generation of women in history.
It is too bad so many of these women use their freedom to be exceptionally ungrateful and destructive of their own happiness.
Lucinda, your comment bears echoes of Camlle Paglia, and also reminds me of this essay by David Warren on Progressivism and reproduction:
http://www.davidwarrenonline.com/2014/02/15/breeding-instructions-revisited/
It’s a very touching piece, putting economics, women’s rights, feminism and reproduction into perspective.
Lucinda, good statements. There are good forms of feminism, as well as bad forms (just like there are good forms and bad forms of Christianity). As Camille Paglia, a classical liberal, notes – Steinem and others hijacked the efforts of classical feminism (Susan B Anthony and others), and went on the attack against men. Sadly, this form of feminism is warped and inconsistent, as they attacked Clarence Thomas for allegedly harassing one woman, while not saying anything about the alleged rapist and philanderer Bill Clinton, who may have bedded 2000 women.
You are a sick person.
Whether or not the article portends the extinction of the European/North American white male, may I suggest, that the current rate of budding special interest groups is untenable. Truth be told, just because you claim you are different, that does not mean you are special. It is chic to want to stand outside of the circle, but just because I want my German Shepherd to relieve himself in the men’s room, that does not mean he should.
Kay, could you tell us who is the sick person and why? Add to the conversation, don’t just make ad hominem attacks.
I would venture to say that part of the reason we are struggling so much with special interest groups is because of a destructive feedback situation happening between men and women, who truly are different.
Women are suited toward creating common standards and understandings, and catering to various individuals and their needs, because these are the things that make good mothers. Mothers really do need to be exceptionally tolerant and capable of making room for minority concerns (or “special interests”) despite the fact that children have limited productivity, especially as babies. Women make houses into homes, and collections of individuals into families by their work in tying hearts together by creating traditions and inculcating manners and other shared standards of behavior.
But extending these same domestic strengths beyond communities with shared values has been disastrous. Mothers are wonderful to help individuals feel loved and accepted, even when they are making terrible self-destructive decisions, but when we effectively demand the universe similarly tolerate every destructive behavior just because everyone is someone’s baby, that is tyranny.
Personally, I would prefer men recognize that strength for women is weakness for men, meaning what makes a good woman (a person capable of helping a cute but helpless infant survive) is her ability to be non-judgmental and uncritically accepting, and those are not reliable ways for men to perform their posts as guardians and protectors. A man absolutely must judge and critically examine others to ascertain probability of harm to those under his care.
In a gospel context, men go out and invite others to join our community and adopt our standards as they are. Women’s perspective is often in the opposite direction, of rearranging our community and changing our standards to be able to include others as they are.
It is frustrating the way that modern men and women are so focused on changing each other toward their own image. Men seem continually hopeful that women will learn how to rationally discriminate, and women are continually hopeful that men will learn to soften their standards and accommodate. It might be a good time to relearn what our ancestors knew, that men and women work best together when they understand which roles they are best suited for as well as their natural limitations.
I talk a lot about the relationship between men and women, and my brother once told me that fixing the problems between men and women was just one problem, among very many, to be solved in a civilization. But I tend to think that if you don’t effectively fix the problems between men and women, your civilization won’t have much of a future, and besides, it’s present won’t feel much worth preserving.
Lucinda:
I will admit I am simply not smart enough to follow your lengthy discussion, but it strikes me that you are saying nothing more than “women that have babies are better than women that don’t.”
Lily,
Do you have any babies? They are really great. And they are the future.
For what it’s worth, I was mocking the implication that “Caitlyn” was a gender, though I suppose if Jenner still retains original male parts, Jenner is hermaphrodite rather than female. I was aware that Jenner had undergone surgical modifications to great public acclaim.
I have borne children and I am the breadwinner in my family. But I see the argument of the self-declared “not smart” is that women who bear children are not to be given any societal advantages over women who don’t bear children.
I think, however, that Lucinda’s argument is that women who bear children within stable marriages with good fathers, a feat often requiring significant sacrifice on the part of the woman, should be given protection and honor over either
1) women who don’t contribute to the future of society by bearing children or
2) women who bear children out of wedlock or
3) women who did not select good fathers and/or did not maintain a stable marriage.
As someone whose first marriage ended in flaming ruin, I know it can hurt to feel “blamed” for something that may have been primarily the fault of another person. However there was arguably some level of unwise decision making in play (for women who were innocent of the disasters ending the marriage) even if not any downright malevolence (for women who themselves committed the harmful actions that terminated the marriage).
As someone who remained unmarried for many years after marriage was expected and desired, I get that it can hurt to feel “blamed” for failing to attract a mate. While I myself have not struggled with infertility, I have seen the pain of those who have desired children but been thwarted in the ability to bear or adopt children. But the pain of not having the duties of raising children does not mean that one should demand the “wage” of that duty, any more than the person who wanted to be an NFL football player should be granted the wage of the individual who is the NFL football player.
As for someone who didn’t even want children to desire all the benefits of the woman who does raise tomorrow’s future, that’s seems like some dog in the manger behavior – selfish and harmful to the health of others.
For those who are bearing children out of wedlock, I suppose I prefer that to being pregnant and choosing not to bear children out of wedlock. Yet the predictable outcome for both mother and children in this situation must surely cause pause. While one can legislate elimination of economic disparity and provide all the benefits previously restricted to the married and honorable, it is not clear that parity with respect to economics and benefits will result in parity with respect to future outcomes. Meanwhile, society will get more of whatever thing it chooses to reward.
So, Lily, in case you haven’t followed my arguments, it seems you are saying nothing more than “women that don’t have babies are just as valuable to society as women that do.”
As for me, I earn a wage and I bore children (the husband is the one who has given up earning a wage in order to make sure the children become civilized human beings). What would you suppose my worth would be, in that case?
A woman who chooses a husband wisely and who promotes a successful relationship between him and her children will naturally gain the greatest respect in society in the long run anyway, even if it is somewhat unheralded. This may be hard to believe for many young women in our society because of feminist indoctrination, but it’s true. The question is whether feminism has done women any favors by obfuscating the most reliable course for long-term feminine happiness, to the point where many women completely fail to even try to start a family until their prime years of reproductive potential are gone. This delayed attention to what should be primary goals means that women will lack the ability to chose wisely, since the best men will already be taken, and also they will often lack the ability to easily conceive. (It is also notable that many men just drop out of the marriage competition because the incentive just is not there. It is fairly hard for young men, at the crucial beginning of their prime years of employment to feel confident they’ll succeed in getting a chaste woman, when there are relatively few around, so many end up wasting time on video games and such.)
But make no mistake, women who succeed as mothers are objectively the most valuable women to any given society.
My personal preference, as far as promoting marriage and fatherhood, is to allow hiring and pay preferences, as well as tax breaks, for employing married fathers supporting their wives and children. Forget about the gender pay gap, which only exists because women are (gasp) still choosing motherhood. Not every employer will choose to support marriage and families by paying married fathers more, but some absolutely will. Indeed, there would be many charitable-minded businesses that would actively recruit young married fathers among the poor, and this would be a far more workable solution than eliminating public assistance and jobs for single-mothers.
“Marriage equality” should be about making real marriage a viable option, even for the poor and low-skilled, and it really is too bad that instead it is a movement that will drive fathers and mothers ever further apart.
From my personal story, I spent my late-teens and early 20s dutifully and publicly mocking men for seeming to prefer women who were obsessed with cooking and cleaning and doting, meanwhile in my private time I would cry a lot that no men wanted me. Really, how stupid is that.
But ultimately, I was one of the lucky ones who didn’t have to pay the profound price other dutiful feminists have had to pay. And I rejoice to have a family.
I am a white adult male.
I feel quite privileged in society and not particularly diminished. Then again, I don’t see things as minority groups receiving “special rights and privileges”, either, so it may just be a difference in world view.