I would like to consider myself feminist, but both those who call themselves Feminist and those who fight them will probably hate what I’m about to say.
I’ve seen how domineering and cruel some men can be, even in America, even in the nicest towns, justifying their actions and attitude by their gender alone. I can’t imagine what it’d be like to be a woman in a country that honors the female gender less. I’ve personally experienced gender-bias and harassment in the work place, and nearly everywhere else at one time or another. Sadly, I have seen women allow themselves to be treated this way. I have fought against it, I appreciate what has been done to fight it, and I encourage every individual and society as a whole to continue and even strengthen their efforts against this long-standing plague.
I have also noticed the popular thought that “All Men Are Idiots” where men are constantly equated with Homer Simpson — Homer himself has become less a jerk and more an idiot over the past several years to accommodate this trend. You’d be less than observant if you hadn’t noticed that media that portrays males as dolts is generally accepted, where anything that so much as hints at females having different qualities (even former Maya and Miguel theme-song) causes an outrage. I’ve been in situations where a less-qualified woman was given preference over a more-qualified man, just to “make things fair”. And has anyone met a Stay-At-Home-Dad who hasn’t been completely debased by his peers and society as a whole?
Until the vocal leaders of the feminist movement care more about fairness, freedom, quality of life, and a better world than they do about power and revenge, they will continue to spin their tires, burning rubber, causing far too much stink, and weakening their stand in the process. And as much as I abhor the term, this woman must be the reason Feminists have come to be called Feminazis. Check out this article, a commentary by Albert Mohler. I haven’t read the rest of his site. Glancing over it, I can’t say I’d agree with him on very many things; just the fact that he does talk radio jumps out and bites me, as life has conditioned me to associate talk radio with contention and manipulative advertisement. No offense to my friends and family who love it; besides that’s an argument for another day. An article on ABC News confirms a few of her quotes.
“I am saying an educated, competent adult’s place is in the office.” ~Linda Hirshman
Now if she were to read my resume I’m sure she’d say I don’t qualify as ‘educated’ but I should hope she’d admit I am competent, even though I totally disagree with her. I think she would.
If an educated, competent adult’s place is in the office, who is left to raise our children? By the way, if you visited my site and saw this article half-written, here’s why: I’d stepped away from my computer for a moment. My child, and I don’t know which one, but the oldest is four, tried to take over the computer while I was away, but was considerate AND competent enough to save my work first. Granted, he or she did not save it to the drafts folder like I would have, but the article was nonetheless saved. And so for a short time you saw a half-written article posted on my front page before I got this back to drafts.
If my children were being raised by an uneducated, incompetent adult, how would they know to do such a thing? My children are absolutely BRILLIANT. They are as creative as they are analytical. Look at the rising generation and ask yourself how different the world might be if we left child rearing to the most competent and caring individuals, instead of leaving them in day cares with the people Linda wouldn’t consider competent, educated, or office worthy.
“One of the things I’ve done working on my book is to read a lot of the diaries online. And their description of their lives does not sound particularly interesting or fulfilling for a complicated person, for a complicated educated person. It’s physical, but it’s repetitious.” ~Linda Hirshman
Changing diapers is repetitious, yes. In fact, I’m sure any parent would agree, if we could afford to hire someone just to take care of the ‘complicated’ diapers we would. Fortunately there’s so much more to parenting than diapering.
Legend of Velda 