Four feminist myths about domestic violence

by

Glenn Sacks

 

A FEW FEMINISTS STRANDED IN AN ARCHAIC TIME WARP

If you've been labouring under the impression that it is only in UK universities that feminist students refuse to let awkward facts get in the way of their vindictive outpourings against men, then think again.

ALAN BARRON

assures us that feminists 'down under' suffer from the same disease.

AT MY UNIVERSITY they have produced a booklet - just for women - called Seraglio. The booklet purports to represent women's interests, but it can safely be said that for 'women' one must read 'ideological feminism'.

I found the anti-male tone of Seraglio so unnecessary. For example on page one, we get: 'away from the chauvinistic loud mouth brutes that linger in the grounds of Deakin's Campus (not all but most)'.

How patronising! not to mention being a tad condescending. There are other, equally insipid, quotes as well: 'Remarks of misogyny - not just here but everywhere' and 'once I step outside the Utopian, womenospheric zone of hope, I wade through trenches of gender bias warfare'.

O please, give me a break! If these poor 'wymen' feel so insecure with men being on campus, perhaps their mothers should escort them around the campus to protect them from the 'patriarchy'. One is led to wonder what these whingeing women will be when they grow up.

I wrote to the Women's Council challenging the claim that 'Women on campus, as elsewhere, are disadvantaged in a variety of ways'.

The evidence cited to support this unsubstantiated and over generalised claim is a revisionist view of history. As for women being a 'disadvantaged majority' is the writer serious?

Let the following facts speak for themselves: men make up only 37% of undergraduates at Deakin; they comprise two thirds of the unemployed, they form 97% of the homeless, the vast majority of remedial students are male, men have a life expectancy of seven years less than women, male unemployment is rising at a much faster rate than the female rate as traditional male areas of employment, such as manufacturing, are rapidly declining.

Thanks to reverse discrimination in the Public Service, male numbers have dropped from 77% 20 years ago to just 55% today.

What have the 'norm' (males) got going for us? In a word - nothing!

Wymen have 'sanitised' (i.e. made meaningless) the language, they benefit from reverse discrimination (affirmative action), universal child-minding (funded by the tax payer) and they have a government spending millions on women's health needs while men's health needs go largely unnoticed. Men do not have a comparable Office of the Status of Women to look after their interests. In the Family Law Court, men continue to get a raw deal, while the wyman gets his money and 'her' children.

Since the 1970s, sociologists have observed a phenomenon, the 'disappearance of the middle class' in Western societies. In the 50s and 60s Australia had a large middle class. This was predicated on the nuclear family and the complementary roles of the sexes, an arrangement in which both sexes acquiesced. By employers giving preference to male breadwinners, wealth was evenly distributed throughout society. Thus poverty levels were kept low. The average families could do well on one wage, the birth rate was above replacement levels and unemployment was kept below 2%.

Then came the wymen's movement demanding equality. In the 70s, women were granted equality in the workforce and equal pay, and so the breadwinner's wage was dropped in real terms. Families found it hard to exist on one income, so they were forced to seek a second income to balance the family budget.

With the push to expand women's employment opportunities, coupled with incentives like affirmative action, female numbers in the workforce began to rise steadily in the 70s and 80s. With the over-supply of labour to the marketplace brought on by the feminization of the workplace, employers were able to strengthen their bargaining position. Historically, the balance of power had lent slightly towards the workers.

Equal opportunities for women changed all that: employers had a much larger pool of workers from which to choose and, with unemployment at 9%, they had the whip hand. It enabled them to drive down the wages of both sexes and scaled back the hard won improved working conditions of workers.

The upshot of all this is that, today, we have two income families (the haves), the single income families (the working poor) and many families which now have no full-time breadwinner (the havenots).

With the rise of unemployment, poverty levels have risen causing some three quarters of a million children today to be living below the poverty line.

The feminist movement has thus proved to be one of the most destructive anti-family movements of all time, and the results of its mis-applied energy can fairly be compared with that of the Gadarene swine.

It's the other side of the 'equality' coin that we never hear about.

The idea that, because women are 50% of the population, they are entitled to 50% of everything is sheer nonsense. There are very few areas of endeavour where the outcomes to the sexes are equal. Boys are just under 50% of VCE students but girls overwhelmingly dominate the high scores and subsequently undergraduate numbers. Males also make up the majority of the unemployed. Are wymen concerned about these injustices? I don't think so.

There is a vast difference between equal opportunity and equal outcome. All that equal opportunity requires is that both men and women have equal access, and that no impediment is placed in the path of one sex. It does not mean equal outcome. Outcomes will never be equal on a level playing field. This is due to the fact that both men and women have differing life expectations based on eradicable social and biological factors. There never will be a 50% split of the sexes in nursing or engineering. Women tend to choose careers which allow them to combine work and family responsibilities.

Anthropologists have yet to document a society in which men do not dominate at the' top'. There has never existed a documented matriarchy. In other words, the glass ceiling is not a cultural peculiarity of Australia, reversible by legislation. All societies ever studied have a glass ceiling.

George Gilder says that for many reasons 'men are overwhelmingly more inclined to an obsessive and successful focus than women are. Some of the reasons are biological. The evidence is overwhelming that men and women are genetically dissimilar in ways well beyond the obvious physical differences'.

What needs to be explained is the pervasive bitterness and resentment shown by many women, as typified by Seraglio, at the obvious manifestations of male dominance which is an inescapable fact of life.

All the established institutions in society today: education, politics, the media and the professions, tell women that they should be doing better in the job market.

Rather than admitting that feminism overall is a profoundly wrongheaded and unnatural theory of life, many women prefer to denounce the patriarchal nature of society. This is a cop out.

Rather than conceding that women generally are less prepared than men to do the hard yards, many women prefer to blame 'discrimination' of the 'patriarchy', which, incidentally, does not work in favour of men but of women, as the record reveals.

David Thomas summed it up well when he wrote: 'It is not often that a dominant class legislates its own downfall with quite as much thoroughness as the parliaments of the western world, filled as they are with men passing equal opportunities legislation in favour of women.' (Not Guilty - in defence of the modern man.)

Feminists rarely concede the obvious result: the sex that is more competitive will tend to win more competitions. Reinforcing the biological differences are equally powerful cultural and psychological differences. The effect of small sex differences, which are barely noticeable in most circumstances and for most people, at the extremes, is profound. The fact that men in general have more drive, ambition, single-mindedness and competitiveness ensures that they always show up at the sharp end of the pyramid, whether or not some women have them in equal measure.

The so-called glass ceiling is often really a glass mirror. A dogged belief in equal outcomes is ultimately profoundly reactionary and patronising, and will greatly harm the outstanding achievements of our outstanding women.

The drive to equalise the roles of men and women is not a fight against 'male bias' as much as a retreat from reality and commonsense, a rebellion against the purposes of nature. In effect it is waging a war against the primacy and stability of family life, not to mention pure democratic processes.

A radical rethink of the whole gender debate is needed. History will judge us most severely for making some critical errors regarding gender issues as most gender 'reforms' are carried out on the basis of ideology rather than empirical research.

I fail to see why money should be mis-spent on printing such negative and divisive propaganda as Seraglio which promotes the concept of men as brutes, as oppressors, and wymen as victims. In talking to women on on campus they, unlike the writers in Seraglio, do not feel the need to be constantly defensive when around men. I called on GAS (Geelong Association of Students) to discontinue the Deakin's Women's Handbook as it is divisive and fails to meet any demonstrable need, save for political objectives of the ideologically bound wymen's group who, in my opinion, appear to be out of step with mainstream women's views on campus.

Footnote: I find the name Seraglio rather curious. It means 'a walled palace'. This denotes a siege mentality. The wymen in a luxurious environment, are battling valiantly against the enemy - the patriarchal hordes of Deakin! It can also mean a harem, the concept of which, I would have thought, would be repugnant to the wymen.

 

 

MINETTE MARRIN writing in the Sunday Telegraph says:

'Speaking of wild exaggeration in female columnists, Suzanne Moore of the Guardian has just taken up the cry that women do not get a fair chance in the media. She accuses newspaper culture of being 20 years behind the times, as far as this goes, and asks why it is that at the broadsheets 59 of the top editorial jobs belong to men and only two to women.

Where can she have been all this time? Obviously Rip Van Winkle was a woman and has woken up as Suzanne Moore. Newspapers are the one industry in which women have never had it so good. There are lots of women in senior jobs . . .

The change during my lifetime has been astonishing. Editors male and female are falling over themselves to find women to promote. As for writers, it is obvious that newspapers and television are awash with women.'

I could not help but agree with Minette Marrin when BBC2 in August devoted their programme 'What the Magazines Say' to men's magazines. A friend who knew of my interest in men's issues told me about it beforehand so I tuned in wondering what the bloke would say about men's magazines.

Imagine my surprise when the presenter and acid commentator turned out to be Suzanne Moore. Couldn't they find a man to talk about a man's subject? The media in general must be awash with females.

Miss Moore's inability to enunciate well made it somewhat difficult to understand some of what she was saying, but this was only exceeded by her inability to grasp what men's magazines are about. It seemed to me that she was complaining that they were only about things which interested men. She whined about the fact that one actually dealt with the subject of shaving. Well, most men have to shave every day, so obviously it is a subject of interest.

Of one thing you can be sure: if women had to shave every day there would be a government ministry dealing with it by now.

It's perfectly true that men's magazines do not mention women very often, but at least they do not go in for gratuitously attacking women as is habitually done to men in magazines such as Elle, Cosmopolitan, She, Modern Woman, Company, Marie Claire and others of that unfortunate ilk. Such bitchiness is quite foreign to men's magazines.

 

So I tried to home in on Miss Moore's particular brand of 'female logic' and came up with the question: 'if men's magazines are not supposed to be about men, what are women's magazines about?'

The next day I set out on my voyage of discovery along the racks of ubiquitous women's magazines. There were hundreds of them! Obviously trying to read anything but a mere quote or two from the inside was out of the question unless I was to spend the whole day in the newsagent's, so I restricted my investigation mostly to the covers.

And what did I discover? Yes, that modern woman is only interested in one thing - sex. Men were dealt with in great detail, sometimes almost as though they had just descended from some planet in outer space and had to be explained to women who had never encountered one.

Female 'logic' abounded, such as the magazine which had an article telling women what terrible creatures men were and to avoid them at all costs. This was followed by a later article which told readers that if they were very fortunate they might be able to actually get one of these marvellous male creatures for themselves. Yet later another writer told women how to 'keep your man' and not let any other bitch get him; and yet later several pages on what food to cook for him.

Double entendres abounded as did the naughty wink-wink, nod-nod approach, but all on the same subject - men and sex. I remember reading somewhere that the word most used by women is the word 'he'.

Of lesser importance, but still with sexual connections was the need to be 'slim for him'. According to one magazine most women are overweight and need to do something about it unless they wish to degenerate into peripatetic puddings. And of course you cannot possibly slip into a slinky dress if you are overweight. One piece conjoined both issues by talking about 'dresses men want to take off'.

They, quite predictably, went on . . . and on . . . and on . . . so I looked for a different subject and, yes, I found one, nowhere near as important of course but there in the background just the same: how to be assertive; how to handle a man (I assume that is if you are slim, wear a sexy dress, and can cook - all in order to get one) how to hold your own in conversation, even with a man (presumably it would all be about sex, slinky dresses . . but there, I've already dealt with that haven't I?) The general advice was: 'you, too can be overbearing.'

 

Now, I must confess that all this was something of a revelation to me, but it did make me understand the reason for Suzanne Moore's total confusion when faced with men's magazines. I suppose her particular brand of logic indicates that if women's magazines are all about men, then men's magazines must be all about women. When she found this was not the case the poor girl was thrown completely.

The only time I ever read women's magazines is in waiting rooms where they seem to gravitate in large numbers. The fact that they are sometimes several years old seems to make no difference to the recurring themes I have already mentioned. If there are no other magazines about I sometimes flick through one of the women's magazines. However, my purposeful study raised another question: Is all this true? Do women's magazines really present a true picture of today's woman?

According to a recent survey, women think about sex more times a day than men do, but are women that randy? In an effort to be fair to women I asked a wide range of my female friends, colleagues and acquaintances for their opinions. here are a few of the results:

 

Carol (28, married and manageress of an insurance office): Obviously, women's magazine editors want to sell magazines. Their jobs depend on it, and I believe they will print anything that achieves that end. They print all sorts of things, some of them just plain silly, in an effort to titillate women and some women will believe anything in print. I admit to being as randy as my husband, but I think magazines go OTT.

Bethan (24, single. Freelance writer.) I'll be honest. I'd write almost anything if I thought it would help to sell my writing. As in war, so in the magazine game, truth is the first casualty.

Pippa (33, married. Two children ) I certainly don't think that women's magazines give a true picture of women. I often think it's the editors that are oversexed and that they are trying to brainwash readers down to their own miserable standards. I only take one magazine. It's a sensible one.

Edith (55, widowed. Dinner lady) I think many women's magazines are just plain disgusting. Some of the writers must have minds like sewers, and I certainly don't agree with the insulting things they say about men. I prefer the articles on home-making and so on.

Tracey (41, married, psychologist) I sometimes find myself trying to get into the minds of some editors and writers. It's obvious by some of their bitter remarks that some of them have had unfortunate relationships with men. Of course I've no way of knowing whether they or the man were to blame. Also, there is a type of spinster who talks loud and long about sex and relationships because she's never experienced either. There seems to be quite a few writers in this group. They try to imply that they are 'women of the world'. I suppose they fantasise in their writing. I believe sex and money are similar in this respect: those who talk most about it have the least of it.

 

Well, there you have it. The readers are not unduly impressed with women's magazines. So, what do you think? Do they print truth or trash?

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