On My Home Planet

I have an opinion about everything, and here it is for the world to see.

Hating on: morons, self-righteous political extremists, the man-and-baby-hating strain of feminism, CraigsList, yuppies, careerists, white liberal guilt, people devoid of any sense of morals or personal responsbility, and other generally clueless and misguided types who continually piss me off.

Saturday, November 04, 2006

How Feminism F*cked Women Over

"Destroy the family and you destroy society." - Lenin

Biodork has brought it to my attention that perhaps I need to set the record straight on something. I am not a misogynist cavewoman. I just hate modern-day feminism.

When the woman's rights movement was initially founded, this country needed it. Women were second-class citizens, couldn't own property, couldn't vote, if they didn't find a husband by age 18 or so they were screwed, if anything ever happend to him they were screwed until they found another one (commodifying men in fact. If they weren't pretty and able to give birth, they were worthless.


This was wrong and needed changed. Enter Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and their compadres. How nice of these ladies to make sure the rest of us women weren't living in a van down by the river if we ever found ourselves husbandless for any period of time. They were the true pro-woman feminists. They wanted women to have the opportunities and abilities both to get educations/jobs *and* to have children, and to make this country a friendly environment to those possibilities. They were pro-child. Pro-man. The interests of the three groups *can* coexist.

That was when my great-grandma was my age though, so these ladies are long dead and for all intents and purposes, forgotten.
Enter the Second Wave of feminists. The Gloria Steinems who love abortion and hate men. The Betty Freidens who hate marriage, hate motherhood, and launch campaigns to make all women who want either or both be reviled as worthless patriarchical throwbacks. They're not about women's choices, they're about railroading women down a path to this mold that they (a select but powerful few) think all women are obligated to want.

Stereotypes are spread about men that they are stupid, unfaithful, insensitive, pigs. Some are, but evilness is not confined to the male sex. Anti-male affirmative action gives women preference in hiring and school admissions, leaving the residual question "did she get hired because she was the smartest and best candidate, or because she has a vagina and having a woman on staff proves something?" As a lady who has a "man's job", I agree that the XX-chromosone and the left-brain dominance are not the common combination. It *isn't* the typical woman who gets 750 on the Math section of the SAT's, likes the "logical" disciplines better than the "humanities", and doesn't pursue a job where she can feel "fulfilled" or "make a difference". But the second I have an "off" day and make a mistake, there goes the question in my coworkers' heads. And it gets a little old to see one of the other token females pull me aside and tell me how "you have to choose between family and career" (says what law? You think abortion is so great? Then how come every woman I know who's had one has lingering deep-seated psychological problems as a direct result?) and "if you get fat, you're not going to be successful" (If one serving of french fries is going to take me from on the thin side to obese, that would indicate a very serious metabolic problem.) And if one more bitter, dried up old baby boomer lady tells me how she had it sooo bad at work when she was my age as justification for acting like a complete bitch towards me, I am going to vomit. None of this shit inspires me to be selflessly devoted to my career.
And by the way, my impending nuptials and family plans do not make my intelligence or education a waste. Was I obligated to be homeless before I snagged a husband? Apparently so... before I met Mr. TMCL, seemed like almost every guy I met "the normal way" (not online, where you make said preferences clear upfront) just assumed that because damn me, I have a job, meant I categorically hate children. Nor should I have ever been put down by the feminazi fringe or kicked out of the sisterhood for wanting these things. You want to advance women? That's what this woman wants, and is what is best for me. If I'm smart enough to have a career, I'm smart enough to figure that out. Deal.

Thanks to their influence, there is limited knowledge of public health as well. Why should my gynecologist feel nervous to tell me that fertility declines sharply at 35ish? Even if you don't have an MD, is this really a suprise? Do the majority of women you know give birth in their 40s and 50s (without donor eggs, multiple miscarriages, and birth defects)? How about tell us the truth, even if it's not what you think we want to hear? Or should all doctors just not give us bad news? If you had lung cancer, would you want your doctor to say, "everything's cool, keep smoking 3 packs a day" or "get some chemo and nicorette unless you want to die a slow painful death"? It's my vagina, not an arena for sociopolitical action. Women deserve to know the truth.

If feminists really do speak for the wants of all women, then why all the backlash? If all women need men like fishes needs a bicycles, want careers not babies, etc, then why is it certain married women (with or without kids) that I know froze me out between the year-plus period between "turned 26 without a ring" and "got engaged"? Why did my soon-to-be-ex-doctor's ignorant-ass nurse recently tell me I'm mortally sinning to be taking birth control? Why does it feel like I'll be getting married, gaining social acceptance, and committing a major act of civil and social disobedience all in two little words: "I do."?
Women who want marriage and children can follow their hearts (which will whoop-a-dee-doo, get them conditionally "in good" with these bitches) and then run into a bunch of brick walls put there by the feminists. They can pay a big fat marriage penalty tax. They may be (justifiably) scared to tell their bosses that they're pregnant. Their health insurance might not cover childbirth and/or pregnancy, and they might lose their job if they take maternity leave. They might be forced to work when they'd rather be at home with their children, thanks to tax rates being jacked up by "feminist" programs designed to force women out of the house. Daycare might eat up most of their salary, and their employers might not be willing to let them leave on time to pick up their kids there. How is this advancing women?
And how could I be for any of this in good conscience unless I hated men or hated myself?
So until the woman's movement is legitimitely interested in making this world a better place for all women, without making it a worse place for the unborn or for me, count me out.

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4 Comments:

At 11:23 AM, Blogger Ibid thinks I'm the coolest...

No matter what choice you make someone is gonna tell you it's wrong. They're insecure about their own choices and need you to reassure them by making the same choices.
If you decide not to have kids someone is going to call you a selfish monster who is going against their god's will. If you decide you want kids then someone will crawl up your ass about overpopulation and your career.
It really has nothing to do with feminism and more to do with them being people. The same thing happens with religion, fashion, politics, and damn near everything.
Dougintology bumpersticker #1 says "I'm wrong and so are you." I find it applys nicely to a wide range of topics, particularly lifestyle choices.

I do know a couple of women who have had abortions who aren't torn up about it. They regret that they felt the need but to them it's murder about as much as getting their appendix removed is murder.

To me feminism is as much about giving women the same options as men as much as making men equally responsible for raising kids. Men should have to take off work to raise kids every bit as much as women. If a woman finds her job more fulfilling than standing watch over some diaper filler then she should be free to not have kids or get an outside job.

I'm not sure what tax programs you're talking about. The ones that I see slash taxes for people who have more children.

 
At 10:21 AM, Blogger TooMuchCoffeeLady thinks I'm the coolest...

The programs I'm talking about are the welfare stuff (ie more welfare money for the more kids you have), the Headstart programs (make childcare free to devalue stay at home moms, endless medicare/medicaid handouts, etc... taxpayers foot the bill for stuff, which drives up the tax rate, which reduces the amount of money parents bring home, which makes it less financially feasible for one parent to be at home. Somehow in the feminazis' eyes, welfare moms are the only women who should not work fulltime outside the home.

And don't forget married couples being taxed at higher rates than singles.

 
At 2:54 PM, Anonymous Anonymous thinks I'm the coolest...

Modern-day feminists say one thing and do another. Did you know that Gloria Steinem has had long-term relationships since her 20s? Some fish, huh? (It's in the book "Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy.")

I agree with you completely. These women -- Steinem, Friedan, et al, haven't done me a darn bit of good. I don't need quotas or special help for school or work. I did just fine on my SATs, thank you, did OK in college and very well in grad school, but was insulted by the knowledge that I was a checkmark on my boss's scorecard -- he had to have a woman at a certain level working for him to get his bonus. This was the same guy who told me in my performance evaluation to "quit using so many big words because it makes people feel stupid."

Feminism now is about control, power and hatred of men. Several years ago (1993), the women students at Brown (I think) put up posters of the male students and labeled them as "potential rapists." That's horrible! Men are not the enemy. Some men -- a very few -- rape. But most do not. These women also were calling themselves "potential victims." Why on earth would someone label herself as a victim, potential or otherwise? This was man-hatred at work.

Ibid, you write, making men equally responsible for raising kids. Men should have to take off work to raise kids every bit as much as women. Why? Why should men stay at home with children? Isn't earning a living just as important? For thousands of years, it has been women raising young children. It does seem to be the model that works. Why do you want to mess with success?

It seems to me that you are buying into the feminist argument that men and women are the same. We are not! We are different and there is nothing wrong with that. Mommies and daddies bring different qualities to parenting, which is why you need one of each. But perhaps -- let me go out on a limb here -- just perhaps mothers are better equipped to care for young children, both physically (they have the equipment, they hear the babies cry at night when the father will not -- ask your friends with babies if you don't believe me) and emotionally.

 
At 8:38 AM, Anonymous Anonymous thinks I'm the coolest...

Ok so I'm very late on this one, sorry about that. I haven't been very good on keeping up with blogs as of late, but first, I'm glad I brought this to your attention even though I have no idea what I did! lol But I really agree with what Ibid posted. I think it has a lot to do with people wanting to shit on other people's parades. Because "no one can be happier than you" is a sentiment I feel like I see a lot.

And you may hate modern-day feminism, but there is a still much that needs to be done, whether you like it or not. We are just now getting to a time where we are actually taking into consideration how a women's body operates when doing drug research. I'm not sure if you know this, but women's hormones can affect how drugs act in the body. There are some medications that work completely well in men but do jack when a woman takes it. Some of these are even pain medications. Can you imagine being given something that a Dr tells you will get rid of pain while you have some sort of surgery only to get to the surgery and have nothing work? And then the Dr doesn't believe you because you're a woman, and there "should be no difference in how it works." Granted, things are different now but for the longest time they didn't even teach the female anatomy in med school because there was "no difference." I think it might have even been into the 80's if I remember correctly. So you wonder why there are some Dr's not saying anything about fertility, well maybe it's because they are older and never were taught about it when they were in school.

Maybe there are some women taking the whole "feminazi" thing too far, but if that's what it takes to get some scientists off their asses and actually TEST how women's hormones affect how drugs and medications work then so be it. Also another reason why we need more women in science. I know I won't be lazy and not test women's cycles just because it'll be extra work. Because I know how my body works. I feel much better knowing there are still people willing to stand up for that kind of equal treatment.

 

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