Battles over Gender Role
You would think that with women gaining the presidency of a diverse group of nations like Germany, Chile, Liberia -- that all this talk about "women must stay home instead of women" would be as old-fashioned as saying the "world is flat"
But even in America, some people still haven't gotten the message. In fact, there's even women who demand that all women be subordinate to men.
An example would be mega-conservative Kate O'Beirne.A lot of what O'Beirne says in an interview in Salon is so full of stuff you wouldn't dare eat that I feel like being misogynistic for a few seconds so I could hit her head with a water bottle. But don't worry, I'm not like that :)
http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2006/01/17/o_beirne/index.html?x
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Interviewer:In the chapter about VAWA [Violence Against Women Act] you describe some of the signs of abuse -- like having a partner who monitors what you're doing, humiliates you in public, and controls your money -- as trivial. Do you really think those things are trivial?
O'Beirne:I think they are potentially trivial. Could any one of those things rise to the level of a real abusive situation? I suppose so. But it strikes me as a sort of alarmist [attempt to define] domestic violence down in order to find some epidemic of it. [If those were true] every dating relationship in high school would be abuse. I mean constant, constant humiliation in front of people? It's all so subjective: like every time I go out he asks me where I've been?What I see there is an attempt to define it down because it has to be an epidemic -- because there's a lot of money in it being an epidemic.
Pablo: What O'Beirne is saying is so stupid! Trivial?If your partner is controlling your money, monitoring all your actions, etc, do you think your partner would just stop there?
FUCK NO! Anyone with a brain can tell you that shit will escalate! It's common sense!
Domestic violence doesn't start with a viscious punch fist on the first date. It starts with an asshole asking "why are talking to that guy", "why are you smiling at him". It starts an asshole saying "you're stupid", "what the fuck are you doing". It starts with someone saying "you're good for nothing"
In other words, domestic violence doesn't begin with physical violence, it begins with hurtful words, it begins with micro-managing behavior.As time goes by, the spouse starting slapping, then punching, then with more punching, kicking, choking, etc.
Dont believe me? Just ask anyone in prison for killing their wives, girlfriends, etc! Just ask anyone in a shelter for domestic violence victims.
That's right, it starts with 1) someone using his/her words to control you, then 2) minor violence, 3) major violence, 4) murder.
Conservatives blame gangsta rap and heavy metal for domestic violence. Maybe folks like Vox Day and Kate O'Beirne should share some blame too, for displaying massive ignorance on this issue!
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Interviewer:You write about your dismay when your son was read a story about a princess killing the dragons while the boys did nothing. Why shouldn't the girls defend the castle?
O'Beirne:Men protect women from the physical threat. You're going into a movie theater with your husband or your boyfriend and you see two guys tussling in the parking lot: You walk a little faster. You see a guy shoving a girl around: You want to be with a guy who wouldn't go over to the parking lot and see what was happening? I wouldn't want to be with a guy who didn't. Good men rise to defend women in the face of a physical threat.
Pablo: It's all nice and sweet for a man to defend his girlfriend!
But let's also live in reality here. Some men have ZERO interest in defending women, they have interest in raping and abusing women.
If I had a daughter, youre dam F.N. right I want her to be inspired by a book about girls defending the castle!
So who wouldn't want my future daughter to be inspired by such books?
Pimps, spouse abusers, rapists, Islamic Fascists and so-called conservatives like Vox Day and Kate O'Beirne! After all, pimps, rapists and spouse abusers want easy targets! Anyone with a brain should be able to figure that out!
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Interviewer:You're accepting that society won't ever validate a man who stays home! That's a big trade-off!
O'Beirne:But it's not my opinion! Find me one. Find me one in the history of recorded mankind. You know what's funny to me? Whatever men do, as I understand it, is the status job in that society. Like if they gathered [instead of hunted] in some damn society, then gathering would be the status job because men were doing it.
Interviewer:But that's exactly the problem! To say that it's been true historically without exception doesn't make it right!
O'Beirne:
They care more about [status] than we do. But that's also why they care more about paid work. And obviously I'm talking broadly here. There are women who dance circles around guys, make them look like slugs. But [there are] recent stories about women being handed keys to the executive washroom and going, "Eh, I really don't want it!"
Pablo: Talking about history, a person living in 1800 can say there's no civilization in all of history that didn't have slavery. That was true! But now, slavery is banned in most nations throughout the world.
Of course, change is slow. Women gaining equal status to men wasn't going to come overnight. After all, in the US, African-Americans didn't all of a sudden have equal status to European-Americans after the end of slavery. These things take decades! After all 1) oppressed groups need a lot of time to catch up, 2) both the oppressors and oppressed have a lot of bad habits to overcome. These things take decades!
While there is major focus on women quitting high status job to take care of family, there has been men who did the same. For example, former Congressman JC Watts said he quit Congress because he wanted to be able to a bigger presence in his own children's life! Some has been true of some coaches and executives as well.
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Enough of Kate O'Beirne, let's look at a woman who did stay home instead of work, Terry Hekker
http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2006/01/04/brooks_and_hekker/index.html?x
Hekker was stunned when, on her 40th wedding anniversary, her well-supported husband announced he wanted a divorce. Left not just emotionally bereft, but financially decimated in her 60s, Hekker was forced to pay insurance, taxes, a mortgage and car payments for the first time in her life.
She may be more an emblem of full-time motherhood than a true practitioner, but Hekker proclaims that she is not alone. Several of her friends, women who'd "been faithful wives, good mothers, cooks and housekeepers," also found themselves discarded like "outdated kitchen appliances." Hekker now regrets a sentence from her original Times column mocking the feminist notion that "the only work worth doing is that for which you get paid." It turns out that that wasn't such a laughable idea after all. "For a divorced mother," she writes, "the harsh reality is that the work for which you do get paid is the only work that will keep you afloat."
Pablo: Ladies, learn from Hekker's mistakes! You dont want to be there
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Before I go, I want to mention about a former room-mate who said "women should be soft", that he "didn't like strong women" and said "men ought to be superior".
This guy wasn't a jock! This guy wasn't a playa. This guy was a loser who couldn't get laid, a loser who wanted to ditch his high school's festival instead of enjoying the festivities, a loser who can't handle strong minded women!
I never heard a jock say the stuff my former room-mate said!After all jocks are the real tough guys! They can handle strong-minded women! In many cases, their moms, aunts, sisters and girlfriends are strong-minded women, many of whom played sports!
It's losers who can't get laid with those women who end up being the sexists!
