Maybe it’s because I happened to sit next to three men, strangers, at breakfast yesterday morning and recognized something so familiar in the combination of banter, teasing and rudeness with which they tried to make contact, the same approach that used to terrify and enrage me when I was a girl—because there is no way, and was no way, to counter this approach (smiling compliance? Bantering back? Ignoring?) that I began to list to myself the ways in which it seems to me that, especially since Covid, we are going backwards in terms of equality, having made a bit of a progress before the plague.
For example: groups of women are always addressed now as “You guys.” Would it fly if groups of men were addressed as “You gals?”
All the press about the attempts to roll back choice refers to “the pregnant person.” Sorry, folks, but that person is always a woman.
The more frequent inclusion of women writers and artists in various events and in reviews is always accompanied by a whiff of “This is an exception and it will go away in a couple of years as we revert to the old way in which only men figure.”
Why is this?
More generally, it follows the forced retreat of women from the workforce because of lack of childcare as well as Covid. And when we are at home, we are still doing all the cooking, shopping and cleaning—the familiar roles that must be comforting to men who depend on these services to survive.
As to “you guys,” this phrase represents the underground (or not so buried) notion that only groups of men “matter.”
The attempt, which seems successful, to include men as wombs is the inevitable result of calling a pregnancy “ours.” That’s a nice delusion but a delusion nonetheless; and now that men with cameras are welcome in delivery rooms, snapping away at women, totally exposed and in agony, we’ve forgotten the old truth that men who can’t help are better off in the waiting room.
The progress that began in the sixties as an adjunct (if unrecognized) of the loosening of social restrictions may only have been a bubble. The changes that would be required to ensure that the bubble turned into something solid have never happened, and we women are often complaisant about the result—especially women like me who have few economic concerns. Why should we care about the multitude of women who are barely able to survive, in this country and around the world? We don’t number our friends among them.
Underneath it all is the problem we have with anger. When did you last witness a woman expressing anger? When did you last express anger yourself?
“Appropriate” is a slippery word. Maybe it’s never appropriate to curse, stamp, rage, throw things—but how possible is it to express anger calmly and “appropriately”? I remember some of the harshest criticism I received growing up was for my “tantrums”—which were not at all appropriate but absolutely necessary to express my rage and frustration.
It seems we may have learned to express our anger with tears. And tears, seen as weakness, spare us criticism—weakness is always appropriate for women—but are completely ineffective.
How compliant do you feel you must be in order to be accepted?
Erasing Women
Clarice Feldman
Clarice Feldman
American Thinker
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latest
I’m not sure why it’s happening — perhaps it’s a backlash from the most obnoxious of the feminists and their conduct or the widespread denigration of and discrimination against white heterosexual men, but there’s no doubt in my mind that there’s a concerted attack by the culture warriors to erase women, denigrate them, and allow them only symbolic powers — like choosing the moronic Kamala Harris as vice president instead of someone with a demonstrated and earned record of competence. How long has it been since we’ve seen women we looked up to, like Golda Meier and Maggie Thatcher, wielding political power?
Here’s a sample of what I mean.
In 2018 when we were told “believe all women” in the context of the Kavanaugh hearings, when his accuser told a fabulous story for which there was no credible evidentiary support and nothing except political bias to believe her.
Now just a few years later, an administration nominee for the Supreme Court down gets tongue-tied when asked to define “woman.” It’s confusing. How can we give someone automatic credence based on her sex when that sex defies definition? Well, definitions other than “birthing persons” or “persons who menstruate,” but even then, some advance the notion that men (that is transmen) can give birth, and educational institutions are being forced to install free tampon dispensers in male bathrooms.
ESPN honored Lia Thomas for Women’s History Month. Thomas, as far as I know, has all his original male equipment and simply grew his hair long and donned a……..
Tampax
“For years now, tampon brand Tampax has ignored biological reality to push the transgender agenda. In 2020, Tampax insisted to its Twitter followers that “not all women have periods.”
“Also a fact: Not all people with periods are women,” the brand claimed. “Let’s celebrate the diversity of all people who bleed!”
In recent years, Tampax employed the help of woman impersonator Dylan Mulvaney, a man who never has and never will menstruate, to promote menstruation products, sending him a public relations package. At one point, Mulvaney even jokingly questioned why a company that sells products to women with periods would work with him since he has male genitalia and physiology.”
Talk about anger! That Tampax ad made me mad. But also pissed at soccer player Megan Rapinoe for clearly saying women or girls should not object to having biological men on their teams—being kind or welcoming of everyone is more important. In other words, it is more important for women to cede their rights and yield to the interests of biological men. Sounds kind of familiar actually on a historical level. Last thing: New Biden regulation would alter Title IX to make women’s college teams accept biological men. It is at Regulations.gov for a comment period ending May 15. Document ID:
ED-2022-OCR-0143-0001.
Speak up!