There’s Something Wrong with Masculine Girl Power

I wonder where and how messages get sent through the whole of society. Who starts them? Who sends them? Who propagates them? And why don’t we more often question them?

For the sake of promoting a thriving civilization, I’m going to look at one of these today. Like in the “telephone” game, we can start with something that gets very distorted. Here’s a beginning statement:

·       Girls/women are just as important as boys/men in this world.

Who would argue with that? Not someone civilized. But, from this basic idea that we agree on come a great many distortions. Here are a few:

·       Girls/women can do anything boys/men can do.

·       Girls/women should do the same things that boys/men do, because they can do them as well or better.

·       The things boys/men do are the important things, so those are the things girls/women should do.

·       The things girls/women do are not as important as the things boys/men do, so girls/women should set aside those things in favor of the things boys/men do.

·       Marriage has been used to hold women down; it’s not good for women.

·       Women don’t need men in their lives; women are better off without men.

·       Children are a burden on women that they shouldn’t want—but if they do, only in small numbers, as they might choose to have a pet in their life.

·       Women shouldn’t have to suffer the consequences of sex by being forced to have a baby.

The distortions start out subtly. I’ve been noticing the distortions in movies lately, particularly movies aimed at girls. The intended message appears to be, “Girls are as physically strong as men, or even stronger,” which isn’t biologically true.

Take the new live-action Mulan. In the original, the theme was that a young woman sacrificed herself for the sake of her father and family.

live action Mulan movie poster
found here

In both versions, Mulan’s father was required to serve in the military at a point in his life when he was lame and old. He had no son, and it was shameful to the family to offer no support, so the father was going to sacrifice himself. But his sacrifice would take him away from being protector and provider of the family, and would mean the ruin of them all. So Mulan, seeing this, took his commission papers and sword and portrayed herself as a young man serving in the military.

animated Mulan movie poster
found here

In the original, she was weak and small, untrained and pretty clutzy. But so were a number of other new soldiers. So she trained with them and got somewhat better, although she was not a standout soldier.

In the new version, she shows near magical abilities of balance and agility—because a powerful chi was in her. While she trained with the other new soldiers, she surpassed them, despite her small size and previous lack of training. It was all that chi in her. In one scene, they are required to carry water up a steep mountain. It’s heavy, and wears down many of the stronger young men around her. But she finds that, because of her chi, she can practically float up the mountain carrying the heavy water.

In the live action, the only real challenge to her fighting ability is another female warrior. Because the new theme is, women can be the best warriors, but they aren’t respected, because they’re women. So get out there and show them.

In both stories, Mulan is discovered to be a female. In the animated version, it is because she is wounded, and they of course find out while treating her. In the live action, it is because she lets her hair down and reveals herself to be a woman, to be her true self, because otherwise she doesn’t have as much chi—even though she has had it through all the training. Then she is shunned as a fraud and possibly as a witch, since that’s what they think of warrior women.

In both versions, after being outed as female, she becomes aware of the threat to the empire and must rush to the city to protect it, despite being ostracized. In the animated version, she uses her smarts and boldness, and recruits help from friends. In the live action, she uses her over-the-top fighting skills, plus brings the warrior witch to her defense at a critical moment.

In the end of both, Mulan is honored for saving the empire. In the first, she returns home to her loving family, having brought them honor—plus there’s the possibility that her commanding officer might have more interest in her as a wife. In the second, she’s honored briefly by her family and then goes on to become a palace guard, giving up family life.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t see the new movie. Visually it’s beautiful. But afterward, what do you talk about? Do you ask your daughter what she thinks about how Mulan is valued? Because she’s valued, not for being a female, but for being better at male things—like being a warrior and being strong and skilled in combat against other strong well-trained men—than she is for those lowly female things like getting married or nurturing children. Those things are not valued here, in this latest film.

There’s something to be said for noticing your gifts, developing them, and using them to serve others. But what if your daughter doesn’t have the “chi” to make her magically stronger and more skilled in battle than practically any man? What if her gifts and desires position her better for something this movie and society seem to be devaluing? What do you tell her then?

There was another example we watched recently, a Netflix original called Enola Holmes. The teenage younger sister of detective Sherlock Holmes is, in her mid-teens, both a developing brilliant detective and action hero, apparently in the footsteps of her mother, who has recently abandoned her for more important female emancipation work. She spends much of the movie rescuing a young member of Parliament who is in danger of being murdered. She stumbles, makes mistakes, and gets into difficult situations that sometimes require her older brother or someone to get her out of. But mostly she figures out where to be even before her brother. And her martial arts skills are pretty intense for a girl of the late 19^th Century.

Enola Holmes, image found here

It’s a fun little movie overall. But, again, she excels at being a man—stronger, better at battle. There’s the braininess too, but only if it is coupled with the superhuman strength in physical combat.

What do you talk about afterward? That a girl can be every bit as clever at detective work—or other things that require good thinking skills? Good. That has always been true. And you can put her in karate classes, or some other martial arts training to boost the power in her 78-pound body. But what if a 180-pound male has martial arts training? Who’s going to win in combat? The stronger one. Who is the physically stronger one? Rarely is it the woman, and never is it the 78-pound girl.

What happens when she realizes that basic fact and feels less than adequate, because all the stories are showing women are valued—not because they’re women or do uniquely female things, but because they do men things better than men do. If your daughter can’t do physically impossible things, culture is actually telling her she is less valuable.

It’s the exact opposite of the message of equality we agree is positive.

Three years ago I wrote a piece called “Feminism Does Women Wrong,” in which I said:

Feminism has been about insisting there is no difference between men and women, and then pressuring women to hide their femininity and behave as if they are men.

That is not freeing; that is limiting. And it is anti-woman.

 A couple of days later (exactly three years ago today, it turns out), I wrote another piece on feminism called “Feminism Turns Women into Bad Men.” In it I said this:

Feminism is an ideology at odds with the feminine. Feminism, in a misguided scree, declares that women can be men as well or better than men can be men.

There are many ways in which men and women are equal. Intelligence, according to IQ data, is essentially equal. Individuals differ. And interests differ. Women who enjoy math, engineering, and other left-brain-labeled fields do as well (sometimes better) in those fields as men who enjoy those things. And men who enjoy arts, humanities, social sciences, and other right-brain-labeled fields do as well (sometimes better) in those fields as women do. Nevertheless, a larger number of women gravitate toward the “right-brain” side, and a larger number of men gravitate toward the “left-brain” side.

But it’s a rare woman who makes a better physical laborer than a man. If you can’t carry a fire victim over your shoulder to rescue them, maybe firefighter isn’t the best career choice for you. Same for construction fields, heavy equipment operations, oil rig worker, or a lot of other physically tough jobs.

If you’re 5’4” and 120 lbs., you probably can’t lift a 100-lb. sack of grain as easily as a 6’ tall 190 lb. man. Fact of nature, like gravity, not worth fighting.

Should qualifying women be prevented? No. And in my lifetime (I’m upper 50s) they haven’t been. And during my lifetime, when they do equal work, they get equal pay.

Women are not lesser women, or less feminine, for pursuing something different from most women, nor are men lesser men, or less masculine, for pursuing something different from most men.

But women who pursue something to prove that women can do it too are not doing it to help women; they are doing it with the attitude that women’s choices are less valuable. This is what feminism does; it shames the feminine.

One thing I have found particularly dismaying this past week is young mothers who are so excited that their daughters are seeing a female Vice President. They see this as a good thing, even though the woman in that position started her career by having sex with a person in power who would give her advantages over honest women and men. She had a particularly corrupt history, and was rejected even by the people of her party in the primary election. She accused the eventual nominee of sexual abuse and racism, but then was proud to join him on the ticket. They “won” in the wake of greater voter fraud in more places than we have ever experienced in this country. Her most sacred policy is abortion on demand, paid for by taxpayers, up through the moment of birth and possibly beyond.

Is Kamala Harris the best person to do the job? Clearly not. If you’re praising her simply for having female body parts while being in a traditionally male job, you’re sexist. If this is something you’re telling your daughter, you’re part of the problem.

Did we, in this country, have a problem with Margaret Thatcher’s leadership in Great Britain in the 1980s because she was female? No. Did we have a problem with Golda Meier leading Israel in the 1970s? No. Or Indira Gandhi’s leadership in India in the 1960s? No. It wasn’t an issue of sexism keeping women out of the top US positions; it was not having the right woman. And we haven’t seen that yet. But there have been multiple women in near top positions: Condoleeza Rice, Nikki Haley, Kayleigh McEnany, and on the Supreme Court Amy Comey Barrett—none of whom condone abortion or slept their way into power.

If you’re going to talk to your daughter about her possibilities, why not help her consider how to be the best woman she can be, as God intended her to be, using her natural talents together with her femininity—rather than discounting her womanhood to make her into a wannabe man?

Help her live a life that contributes to civilization—and is also a full and abundant life. Help her be a good woman.

Have those talks with her—because the world is constantly giving those distorted messages. Have civilizing conversations with your sons too, because they’re also getting distorted messages. You don't get civilization by telling men they're bad for being masculine and telling women they're bad for not being masculine.

Feminism Turns Women into Bad Men

The last couple of posts (here and here) have been about women’s issues. I think I’ll make this a third in the series.

Feminism is an ideology at odds with the feminine. Feminism, in a misguided scree, declares that women can be men as well or better than men can be men.

There are many ways in which men and women are equal. Intelligence, according to IQ data, is essentially equal. Individuals differ. And interests differ. Women who enjoy math, engineering, and other left-brain-labeled fields do as well (sometimes better) in those fields as men who enjoy those things. And men who enjoy arts, humanities, social sciences, and other right-brain-labeled fields do as well (sometimes better) in those fields as women do. Nevertheless, a larger number of women gravitate toward the “right-brain” side, and a larger number of men gravitate toward the “left-brain” side.

But it’s a rare woman who makes a better physical laborer than a man. If you can’t carry a fire victim over your shoulder to rescue them, maybe firefighter isn’t the best career choice for you. Same for construction fields, heavy equipment operations, oil rig worker, or a lot of other physically tough jobs.

Some women flourish in STEM fields.
image from here

If you’re 5’4” and 120 lbs., you probably can’t lift a 100-lb. sack of grain as easily as a 6’ tall 190 lb. man. Fact of nature, like gravity, not worth fighting.

Should qualifying women be prevented? No. And in my lifetime (I’m upper 50s) they haven’t been. And during my lifetime, when they do equal work, they get equal pay.

Women are not lesser women, or less feminine, for pursuing something different from most women, nor are men lesser men, or less masculine, for pursuing something different from most men.

But women who pursue something to prove that women can do it too are not doing it to help women; they are doing it with the attitude that women’s choices are less valuable. This is what feminism does; it shames the feminine.

Women are biologically made to bear children, and most women naturally bond with those children and care deeply about their welfare, sacrificing time, energy, and resources for the good of her children.

But, consider the feminist attitude toward women who choose to stay home to raise their children—they’ve sold out their sisters. Consider the derisive feminist sneers against women who choose to have a large family.

Feminism has resulted in a cultural shift, from women who expected to spend some years, or adjust a career around, raising young children—to women expecting to work, and possibly limiting the number of children, and time for them, in favor of the career. The result is that economic adjustments practically require women to work in order to maintain the socioeconomic level of the previous generation. There are more amenities at that socioeconomic level than before—bigger homes, multiple cars, smart phones, multiple television, etc. Still, the expectation for women to work, even while children are young, adds considerable pressure to women’s lives.

The result is less choice and more pressure on women to do both what they feel the urge to do and what they feel the necessity to do—or to do just way too much, almost all of which is pressure more than pleasure.

As Jordan Peterson said in the interview we reviewed the other day, if you require equality of outcome—such as certain quotas of women in every field, or at every level—then you do that by taking away the choices women would make if left to choose for themselves. In other words, to get the outcomes feminism claims are for the good of society, that requires tyranny—more against women than men, although they’re plenty willing to tyrannize men as well.

There’s another cultural shift resulting from feminism that is not helping women. It is a biological fact that pregnancy results from heterosexual sex. Not every encounter, not every time. But pregnancy doesn’t come any other way (including in vitro fertilization, which puts together the sperm and egg, just not during a sexual encounter). And it’s always the woman who gets pregnant, never the man. That’s not a social construct; that’s not an invention of society. That is biological fact.

What is social is the support and partnering a husband provides to a wife when she is bearing his child. In a civilized world, sex outside of marriage is always wrong—because it puts the pregnant mother and her child at risk, both economically and physically. But in an uncivilized, savage world, men engage in casual sex, sometimes leaving a woman pregnant, and then failing to provide for her and the child, leaving them economically and physically vulnerable.

The man in this uncivilized situation could get away with casual sex without apparent consequence, leaving individuals and society as a whole to pay the price. The appropriate response would be for women individually and society as a whole to hold men accountable. Do not allow or participate in casual sex. Hold men socially and economically responsible when they act in this savage way.

Feminism looked at this savagery and said, “That’s not fair. We need to be allowed to have casual sex without consequence too.” Put another way: God is wrong to burden women with a baby. What can we do to overrule God? Birth control, to prevent consequences—or abortion, if the consequences start to show up.

Women are still biologically going to face pregnancy following sex. Encouraging women to engage in frequent, casual, promiscuous sex—because a man can—means there will be more frequent vulnerable situations for women and children. Meanwhile irresponsible men get more casual sex that they are not held accountable for.

Expectations change, so it is actually harder for a woman to enforce the expectation on a man that sex with her must only follow commitment. By giving in to feminist pressure to pretend to be a man—and not a good man, but an irresponsible man—she loses the expectation of respect for her body and soul that she had before feminism stepped in to “help.”

4D ultrasound at 12 weeks
image from here

And how does abortion help a woman? She is pressured to kill her child in order to maintain the façade that casual sex is what she does willingly, since she’s just as much of a man as any irresponsible male. She denies biology. And she denies the naturally feminine part of herself. And, if you believe in good and evil, right and wrong, she sacrifices her soul to kill her child, gaining nothing but fake masculinity in exchange.

Sex only after marriage has always worked better for families than sex outside of marriage. But there used to be serious social pressure on a man to step up and do his duty by marrying a woman he caused to be pregnant. Now the pressure is on the woman to do away with the child so it doesn’t look like she was entrapping a man into responsibilities he didn’t want.

There’s a piece from National Review that I came upon week (from 2016) on the damage legalizing—and mainstreaming—abortion has done. Here’s an image to grasp the numbers: 

In the 43 years since Roe v. Wade, there have been 59 million abortions. It’s hard even to grasp a number that big. Twenty years ago, someone told me that, if the names of all those lost babies were inscribed on a wall, like the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the wall would have to stretch for 50 miles. It’s 20 years later now, and that wall would have to stretch twice as far. But no names could be written on it; those babies had no names.

Author of the piece, Frederica Mathewes-Green, says this about the pressure to abort:

We had somehow bought the idea that abortion was necessary if women were going to rise in their professions and compete in the marketplace with men. But how had we come to agree that we will sacrifice our children, as the price of getting ahead? When does a man ever have to choose between his career and the life of his child?

We can use a rule of thumb, to tell whether something is anti-woman—or anti-feminine: If you have to deny who you really are and portray yourself as more man-like, that’s anti-woman.

If you’re a competitive person, go ahead and compete. But don’t force yourself to be hyper-competitive because some feminist says you ought to for the sake of women everywhere.

If you’re a high-energy force to be reckoned with (as a lot of women are), go ahead and be that. But if you’re gentle and nurturing, don’t force yourself to be someone you’re not just because some feminist says you ought to for the sake of women everywhere.

If you like STEM studies better than soft sciences or humanities, pursue those interests. But don’t force yourself to become an engineer because some feminist says you ought to for the sake of women everywhere.

If you love children—especially your own—and you’d rather give them a well-run family with a nurturing mother than push yourself to work overtime and get the next promotion, do what’s right for you and your family, rather than what some feminist says you ought to do for the sake of women everywhere.

If you want to have a committed, permanent relationship with a man who will support you and your children, growing with you to become a strong, loving family together (which offers a greater sense of joy than any career position), don’t give that up in favor of casual, irresponsible sex—the results of which you may end up feeling pressured to get rid of with an abortion—just because some feminist says you need to prove women can be like irresponsible men. That’s not doing anything good for the sake of women everywhere.

If you’re a woman, be yourself, and be a good woman. That is the best thing you can do for women everywhere.

If you’re a man, be yourself, and be a good man. That is the best thing you can do for both men and women everywhere.

Feminism Does Women Wrong

There’s a lot of harm that feminism has done to men and women. I’m not saying there should be subservience, or underpaying, or arbitrary limitations. But feminism hasn’t really focused on equal opportunities and choices for women; feminism has been about insisting there is not difference between men and women, and then pressuring women to hide their femininity and behave as if they are men.

That is not freeing; that is limiting. And it is anti-woman.

There was a conversation I heard this week, an interview on British television, I believe, with Jordan Peterson, author of 12 Rules ofLife: An Antidote to Chaos. I wasn’t familiar with him, and haven’t read the book. But the conversation was enlightening. The Channel 4 woman interviewing him (her name is not mentioned, and I don’t recognize her) was aggressive, pushy, a lot of negative things—but there was, indeed, a conversation.

I'm including the video here. It's about 29 minutes long, so I'll only quote a few parts afterward.

Much of it consisted of her saying, “So, you’re saying…” and him returning, “No, I’m not saying that at all.” I tried to count. I think there are at least a dozen of those instances. Once he adds, “And I’m very very very careful about the words I use.” And another time he said, “It’s because you’re not listening,” to which she talked over him to insist she was listening carefully.

I found him to be very clear. But her misunderstandings come from an assumption that anyone who doesn’t see things the way she does must be asserting something unacceptably negative. So her purpose was mainly to catch him saying those negative things. It didn’t work. But it did demonstrate the difficulty in actually having these conversations.

There are several points he makes about the statistical differences between men and women and the choices they make. She always tried to imply that mentioning those facts was inherently sexist, and she would add on some negative assumptions. And then he would correct her.

For example, at around 6 minutes in, she brings up the 9% pay gap in the UK:

She: But I want to put to you that, here in the UK, for example—let’s take that as an example—the gender pay gap stands at just over 9%. You've got women at the BBC recently saying that the Pollcaster [?] is illegally paying them less than men to do the same job. You’ve got only seven women running the top FTSE 100 companies. So it seems to a lot of women that they’re still being dominated and excluded, to quote your words back to you.

JP: It does seem that way, but multivariate analysis of the pay gap indicate that it doesn't exist.

She: But that’s just not true, is it?

JP: It’s absolutely true.

She: 9% pay gap. That’s a gap between median hourly earnings between men and women.

JP: Yeah, but there’s multiple reasons for that. One of them is gender, but it’s not the only reason. If you’re a social scientist worth your salt, you never do a univaried analysis. Like, you say, well, women in aggregate are paid less than men. OK. Well, then we break it down by age; we break it down by occupation; we break it down by interests; we break it down by personality.

She: But you're saying basically it doesn't matter if women are getting to the top, because that's what skewing that gender pay gap, isn't it? You’re saying, well, that's just a fact…, but it doesn’t matter, because you’re never going to get to the top.

JP: No, I’m not saying it doesn’t matter either. I’m saying there are multiple reasons for it.

Later the discussion turns to the difference between equality of opportunity vs. equality of outcomes. I don’t know whether she ever grasped the difference. But I appreciated his part:

She: Is gender equality a myth?

JP: I don’t know what you mean by the question. Men and women aren’t the same, and they won’t be the same. That doesn't mean they can’t be treated fairly.

She: Is gender equality desirable?

JP: If it means equality of outcome, then almost certainly its undesirable. That's already been demonstrated in Scandinavia. Because, in Scandinavia,

She: What do you mean by that? Equality of outcome is undesirable?

JP: Well, men and women won’t sort themselves into the same categories, if you leave them alone to do it on their own accord.  We’ve already seen that in Scandinavia. 20 to 1 female nurses to male, something like that—it might not be quite that extreme—and approximately the same male engineers to female engineers. And that’s a consequence of the free choice of men and women in the societies that have gone farther than any other societies to make gender equality the purpose of the law. Those are ineradicable differences. You can eradicate them with tremendous social pressure and tyranny. But if you leave men and women to make their own choices, you will not get equal outcomes.

She: Right. So, you’re saying that anyone who believes in equality—whether you call them feminists, call them whatever you want to call them—should basically give up, because it ain’t gonna happen?

JP: Only if they’re aiming at equality of outcome.

She: So, you’re saying, give people equality of opportunity; that's fine?

JP: Not only fine; it's eminently desirable, for everyone, for individuals and for society

She: But, still, women aren’t going to make it. That’s what you’re really saying?

JP: It depends on your measurement techniques. They’re doing just fine in medicine. In fact, there are far more female physicians than there are male physicians. There are lots of disciplines that are absolutely dominated by women. Many, many disciplines. And they’re doing great.

She accuses him of not wanting women to have equal pay for equal work. He points out that the problem is complicated, because you have to ask, who decides what is equal work? There’s more. A lot of it uncomfortably argumentative. But it is revealing.

Men and women are different. They make different choices. There will therefore be different outcomes. If a woman does pretty much the same things as a man, in the same competitive business world—taking away all the different choices, and just comparing raw equal behaviors, which is more an intellectual exercise than an actual experience, you get woman who succeed. You only get more women at the top if more women choose to behave as men do.

That has always been my problem with feminism; it’s so anti-woman.

You see that as well in the recent sexual debate. The so-called sexual revolution was supposed to make it so women had the same sexual freedom as men. But that requires denying that women get pregnant from sex. It also denies that men degrade themselves with casual, commitment-free sex, and a woman only degrades herself when she follows that uncivilized male behavior.

Matt Walsh explained this  well this week. It was an uncomfortable conversation too, but needed. He was responding to the accusations against comedy actor Aziz Ansari. Walsh’s piece is titled, “You Feel Violated After Casual Sex Because You Degraded Yourself. Not Because It Was Rape.” There were parts a little too graphic for me to want to quote. But these paragraphs make the point:

So, you feel violated? Well, you were. But you allowed it to happen; you invited it; you participated in your own degradation, and you did the same to the other person, even if he does not share your regret. What you hear in your heart is your conscience telling you that your body is too sacred to be treated the way you treated it. You. You treated it that way. It wasn’t something that happened to you, it was something that happened through you, because of you. You are 100% responsible, and so is the other person.

In this way, casual sex is no different than any other sin. Whenever we do something wrong, if our conscience is still functioning, we will always look back when the deed is done and think, “Why did I do that? It wasn’t worth the cost.” And we may be tempted to retroactively relieve ourselves of our guilt by rationalizing and justifying. We may say — whether the sin is sex or anything else — that we were “pressured.” And surely we were pressured. Every sin in the history of man has been committed by someone who was pressured, whether externally or internally, to carry it out. But the fact that you were pressured into sex does not mean that you were raped, any more than the fact that you were pressured to smoke a joint in high school means that you were drugged. Moral courage is required to resist pressure and temptation. It is no one's fault but your own if you lack it.

There is one way the Hollywood “casting couch” scenario could have been prevented: If every woman who had ever been placed in that compromising situation had run, yelled for help, and made sure the men who put her in that situation were held accountable, it would never have become a thing.

I’m not saying this is the individual victims’ fault. I’m saying that it is the fault of willing females who sold their souls for a chance at fame, laying the trap for future victims. Every man who did these despicable acts is culpable, fully. And should be prosecuted and brought down. Every person, male or female, who knew about it and turned their head and gave predators a pass is culpable for their part.

But it’s not just a matter of consent. Like Matt Walsh says, even if a man doesn’t recognize why he should regret it, he degrades himself as well. Soul-degrading casual hook-up sex was never a way in which women should emulate men. But let’s not forget that, every time a man has casual sex, there’s a woman choosing to have it with him. This was true in the Ansari episode. The soul degrading consequences are severe for both, but the physical and emotional consequences are more likely to affect women, no matter what the feminists shout.

Feminists were always wrong about casual sex. And they compounded the wrongness by adding abortion, to take away the result of what the woman should only have done within a married relationship, in which the two parents would raise the child. So feminism denies womanhood, and kills babies in an attempt to cover up natural consequences.

I think it’s likely that women would be more respected in the workplace if they were still respected as women, instead of turned either into “just another man” or else the sex object of a man who never learned to respect women.

March and Meaning

The media told us there was a historic event across the country and around the world this past Saturday. Women came out, in extraordinary numbers, to march about….   I’m not sure.

As a strong woman friend, who didn’t attend, said on Facebook, “The whole point of a protest is to educate those who don't know anything about what it is about. I was left completely clueless.”

A confusing poster from the Women's March
found on a friend's Facebook,
original source unknown

I know a few women who participated. Young, educated, successful women. Women who have made their career choices, or are staying home with beautiful children while their husband pursues career goals that support the whole family. That’s anecdotal, I know. I just don’t happen to know any downtrodden, marginalized women who participated. But I assume in crowds that big, there were some.

But I’m confused about their message. Women around the world were protesting the election of a US President they don’t like? When the alternative was a catastrophically bad choice? That seems unlikely.

So, if we broaden out the purpose(s) for this solidarity march, maybe it’s about pushing a progressive (tyrannist), social justice (fascist) agenda that happens to be led by people who identify as female for now.

To anonymously quote one of my Facebook friends who attended in her city:

My earlier post only mentioned it was a reaction to a misogynistic president (which it definitely was), but it also was a pro-immigrant, pro-racial equality, pro-LGBTQIA rights, pro-environment, and pro-healthcare accessibility demonstration as well. Everyone marched for their own reasons, but it did expand beyond just feminism yesterday.

She linked to this Reuters article, which claims the activists were “outraged by Trump's campaign rhetoric and behavior they found to be especially misogynistic.” This is the very next day after the inauguration, and the event was in planning stages for some time, so it is not about either his rhetoric or behavior as president. Their timing, therefore, is a bit off; the campaign is over.

Another clever person made a comparison to NFL football following yesterday’s games:

I refuse to accept the results of the AFC & NFC Championship games. Tomorrow I’ll be protesting, picketing, looting, rioting, and forming support groups. Contact me privately for details.

#NotMySuperBowl     NFLMemes on Facebook

So, there’s the timing problem. Then, it is difficult to believe people are outraged about distasteful, disgusting things the now-president has said or done in the past when they show up costumed as their own genitalia. Signs they carry are some combination of vile, offensive, profane, or just stupid.

Video here, if you care to see; I’d rather not reproduce those images on my blog. But here's a photo of the leftover detritus.

The leftover detritus
photo credit Ben Ferguson

Then there’s the irony related to solidarity.

This Occupy-Wall-Street-sponsored, Planned-Parenthood-funded march attempted to exclude pro-life women.

A piece on Lifesite News, by Kelsey Kurtinitis, two days ahead of the march, starts out, “I am a woman, and yet the Women’s March on Washington does not represent me.” Later in the piece Kurtinitis explains,

According to their mission statement, they aim to “join in diversity” while sending “a bold message to our new government on their first day in office, and to the world that women’s rights are human rights.”…

All of these well-intentioned statements might have at least maintained consistency if they had not then immediately violated their very own mission statement.

Yesterday, the Women’s March organization made headlines by removing New Wave Feminists, a pro-life women’s group, as an official event sponsor. The Women’s March released a statement to defend their decision, apologizing for “the error” of having previously listed an “anti-choice” group as a partner. They also made it clear that they only wish to march on behalf of those who share the pro-abortion mindset.

So, women who “choose” life for children are not “woman” enough to qualify for the Women’s March. Hmm. Given pressure, organizers backtracked and decided to grudgingly allow participation from women who believe in giving birth to babies rather than killing them in the womb. For some reason that doesn’t win me over.

There has been some pushback. Some women explain why they didn’t join the march, while others respond with why they were wrong not to join. Some claim the definition of feminism has been hijacked, and others say the definition means anything and everything.

Conservative Review had a piece last September about the failure of modern feminism:

Like most progressive movements, modern feminism purports to laud equality, tolerance, and freedom of expression as its primary goals. The truth, however, is that feminism promotes two unappealing visions of equality, neither of which could be considered “tolerant.”

Some feminists have attempted to reach equality by disarming and devaluing men. For these women, equality demands that the status and intrinsic worth of men be lowered for the sake of female liberation, independence, and “leveling the playing field.” This is the “fight the patriarchy” and “the future is female” group.

An alternative and more radical form of modern feminism asserts that equality demands total transcendence of sexual and all other differences—complete uniformity in role, in pay, and, consequently, in perceived value. This view not only attacks men, but any person whose beliefs or values challenge the progressive feminist agenda. I call this camp the “feminist fascists.”

I have good friends who are willing to use the term feminism, and then define it themselves. They usually mean they want equal pay for equal work—usually unaware that women already have this, because they hear soundbites rather than look at data. [Pew Research points out that nearly all pay differences can be traced to women’s choices.] Sometimes they mean they want women to have the opportunity to pursue whatever work they want to do, as long as they are capable—again, unaware that women are more likely to graduate from high school, more likely to go to college [52% since 2010, according to UN statistics], and are more likely to be hired over a man to avoid accusations of sexism.

These sisters mean well. I don’t really have a quarrel with them. But I’ve been around long enough to know how the word has been used for many decades to mean anti-female. Women don’t gain more rights as women by denying their womanhood and acting like uncivilized men.

So I don’t ever describe myself as a feminist. And it never occurred to me to join in this meaningless march.

What did I do instead? I attended a funeral to celebrate the life of a beautiful, energetic, humanity-serving woman I had the privilege to know during the last few of her 78 years. Then I spoke at our local Tea Party meeting, outlining our legislative priorities during the session that just got underway here in Texas. (No one at the meeting talked about the march, or even mentioned the inauguration; we’re on to doing what we need to do next.) Then I went and played some music with friends. And then I went home to share a quiet evening watching a movie with Mr. Spherical Model, because sometimes being a woman living a very full life is  not only enough, it's exhausting.

The Having-It-All Myth

In today’s post, the data is from my observation, from which I’m extrapolating an opinion. More often I prefer data from broader and deeper sources, from which drawing conclusions is more or less inescapable. Data I use about the family as the basic unit of society, and the importance of mothers and fathers in raising children, comes to mind.

While I think my opinions today will also be accurate, they’re more my impressions than conclusions of social science.

Recently I attended a dinner with a number of colleagues of my husband, people who are expert in their field. They range in age from mid-thirties to mid-fifties (Mr. Spherical Model is at the upper age range, and also among the most experienced in the specialized field). Around thirty people attended. I think there was one other spouse besides me. I counted five men; the rest were women.

After accounting for various factors, I decided to assume the field as a whole is about 25% male and 75% female.  When Mr. Spherical Model was in graduate school, women were well represented, but men still accounted for at least half of his class. So there has been movement in the past several decades. It is an education field, and women are well represented (a heavy majority) in other areas of education. So this shift isn’t surprising.

Among the group of thirty or so, most of the men were married; one or two others had children, but not all. Most of the women were not married. In fact, from what I think I observed, most had never been married. The very nice lady seated next to me had been married for a couple of years, but had lived with her husband for seventeen years. No children. And I’m guessing the time of opportunity has passed.

I was an anomaly in their world. I had been acquainted with their field from before I met Mr. Spherical Model; I was an educational technical writer for people in his professional specialty. In fact, he went to the graduate school recommended by my boss. So I’m more familiar with the field than these colleagues knew. But they were so unfamiliar with my lifestyle that they couldn’t find questions beyond how many kids and grandkids. I don’t mean to say they were rude or exclusionary. I’m simply saying that my world was unfamiliar to them, although they probably imagined that they totally knew what it was about.

From those I know in this professional field, some have wanted to marry. They liked the idea. But it just never happened. When they were young, in their twenties, they were in school, then graduate school, with maybe a stint in elementary or secondary education in between. And then they were focused on the first job and getting a career underway. Sometimes travel was involved. And long hours.

They believe they would have been open to the right relationship, if it had come along at the right time. In their thirties they tried several failed relationships, and may have tried various dating services. But now, in their forties, family isn’t likely to happen. So career is their life. Plus a few outside interests. (Several considered themselves wine aficionados. Some knew the best restaurants in the most traveled cities.)

I also observed—not judging, just curious—that very few of the women wore makeup. They do their hair, often colored and stylishly cut. They may do their nails. But not their faces. Their clothes were what you’d expect at a business casual event. I think they have gotten to a point in their lives that looking good enough is important, but beyond that, they would just rather not fuss. So, no makeup.

I’m not joining them in that. I don’t know if it has to do with the invisibility of going through my career years as a stay-at-home mom, or if it’s a quirk of my personality. But, even though I don’t wear a lot of makeup (I skip foundation and eye shadow), when I don’t wear makeup I get asked if I’m ill. Or I’m not noticed at all. I’ll be introspectively thinking about this detail.

Back at the office where Mr. Spherical Model works, among people in his field as well as other assignments, several more women are married. But divorce is common. And one or two children is about the limit. If a woman gets to her early thirties without marriage, chances are she’ll miss out on family.

This is much less likely to be true of men, who often marry in their twenties or early thirties, and have a rich and full family life in addition to their career.

So, the question is, is it because society is sexist and intrinsically unfair? That’s what feminism would say. But that’s not what I’m seeing.

I’m seeing more women with opportunities than men. Women get paid as much in this field as men do, for the same work. Women are as likely, maybe more so, to get into consulting and be their own boss. The business treats them at least equally well. But women don’t easily multitask when it comes to career and family.

When I look more broadly at society, that seems like it can’t be true. More women work than not. Most women eventually have children. There’s huge financial pressure for women to work. And there’s huge societal pressure for women to assert their feminist rights by working. Family becomes incidental. But I think I’m observing that women in successful careers are more likely to be unmarried than men are. (I’m thinking of Condoleeza Rice, for example. Carly Fiorina is a high-caliber businesswoman and married, but didn’t have children of her own.)

I saw this Rodin sculpture a couple of weeks ago,
Premiere Impression d'Amour,
or First Impression of Love,
at the Smithsonian Gallery of Art.
My photos were inadequate; this one found here.

To a woman who becomes a mother, a child is not an incidental nice thing to have, like a pet, or maybe a recreational boat. A child become a raison d’être. She doesn’t work for her personal fulfillment anymore; she may work because she must, but she’s focused on that child. And she might wish to be home with that little one. This means she might choose a less demanding career, or just a predictably limited job, or maybe part-time work.

She doesn’t have a “wife” at home, to see to the cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, laundry, and family scheduling. She can’t just come home and spend a good hour or two with the child before bedtime. She has to do it all. And doing it all is exhausting.

Are there situations with stay-at-home dads with career moms? Yes. They’re functional in their own way. They’re certainly not immoral or wrong for the child. But they’re rare. One of the main reasons is physiological. Having a baby is a physical strain. A woman might decide ahead of time that she’ll be one of those strong women, who exercise all the way up to the final couple of weeks of pregnancy, believing that will give her energy to work right up until the end.

But she might not know that her pregnancy will include a whole lot of nausea, with accompanying exhaustion, and an overwhelming desire to just put her feet up and rest, and not think—no matter how disciplined and energetic she was before. And she might not have the physical ability to go through pregnancy as if it’s no more than a slight inconvenience. She might not have planned on how much this baby would become an overwhelming love and focus, with career seeming less vital.

Women are the ones who have babies. And breastfeed them, because their bodies are made to do those miraculous things.

If a life is centered on a woman’s career, it can’t also be focused on family. Focus is singular—the one point at which everything is clear.

I’m not saying that no woman can have a successful career and be married and raise children. That happens. I’m saying it’s a lot harder to do, for very natural reasons, than the feminist movement would lead you to believe. It has been a lie, that women can “have it all.”

You can do some things. You can possibly do some things really well. You might do several things somewhat well—which is the reality for most women, out of necessity. But you are not likely to do it all well, and enjoy it, all at the same time.

If you decide to focus on career all the way through your twenties, because, once you’re established, you can always add in family later, you are very likely to remain focused on career through your thirties, and then your forties. Careers build. There doesn’t seem to come a time when you can set it on the back burner and work less hard. You won’t have available time. And you won’t have available men to choose from, because they’ve gotten married while you were busy.

A woman who chooses a career can do good in the world, and can be self-sufficient. If that is her greatest desire, she should be free to choose such a life. But if a woman chooses to focus on her family, even as a stay-at-home mom if she can, she contributes to perpetuating civilization, and she does it because of love beyond what she previously knew she was capable of.

As C. S. Lewis says, "The homemaker has the ultimate career. All other careers exist for one purpose only....and that is to support this ultimate career."

Image found here

This past weekend during the LDS Church’s semi-annual general conference, one of our apostles, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, spoke about motherhood as a metaphor for the love of Jesus Christ. He said, “No love in mortality comes closer to approximating the pure love of Jesus Christ than the love a devoted mother has for her child.”

Elder Holland also said, “God bless you. You are doing better than you think you are.”

If we are to restore and sustain civilization, it will be because women choose to be mothers—good, nurturing mothers—who combine with good fathers to civilize the children they love.

Character Trumps Tribe, Part III

We’ve spent a couple of posts so far talking about “tribes.” I’m using this term to mean group, or identity, such as race or ethnicity. But it can be other things, whatever is part of an identity grouping. In part I we covered Houston Mayor Annise Parker and her LGBT tribal loyalty overriding principles important to the larger population. In part II we talked about the tribalism in the black community, standing in the way of freedom, prosperity, and civilization.

Another “tribe” that’s being put forward to get “firsts” is women, which we’ll cover in today’s part III, along with some conclusions.

Wendy Davis, running for Texas Governor, is an example of the “tribe” of women. She claims there is a war on women, and voting for her puts you on the right side of the war. But that’s tribal. What is she saying that would lead to freedom, prosperity, and civilization for men in Texas? Or for women? Because the same principles apply if you want to go north on the sphere.

Other than our age and gender, I find nothing in Wendy Davis that puts us in any similar group. We agree on almost nothing, and I would never want a person with her lack of character and capability to represent or lead me. I certainly would not give her my vote just because of her gender. Especially when a man of great character and capability, Greg Abbott, is our blessed alternative.

Hillary Clinton will not be the first female to run for president; but she is pressing the “tribalism first” goal of getting the vote because she is nominally a woman. Her lack of character and capability are almost legendary. The only thing she thinks will work for her is tribalism—“Vote for me to prove you don't hate women.”

What does this "feminist tribe" stand for? Sex without consequence. “Right” to kill unborn babies at any point (and leading to even after birth in some cases). Disdain for motherhood, and especially for stay-at-home motherhood. Pushing to ignore physiological differences between men and women. Claiming that there’s still a pay difference between men and women (outlawed decades ago, when you’re comparing apples to apples situations). Pretending to be men, while pretending men are evil and inconsequential. There's nothing in there that even shows an understanding of women, let alone a love and appreciation for divine womanhood.

The feminist tribe pushes for power to be men, to replace men. It’s illogical. It’s ugly. It’s hate-filled. And because it’s so anti-family, it can only lead to tyranny, poverty, and savagery.

That is not to say women can’t be good in government, leadership, or just about any profession they choose. But it has to be based on the character and capability of individual women—nothing to do with the feminist tribe.

You can't assume goodness based on tribal association. So the next question is, how do you tell when a person is likely to promote their tribe over the common good?

In Harris County right now there is an interesting race for District Attorney. Both party’s candidates are women. The incumbent, Devon Anderson, was appointed a little over a year ago, upon the death from cancer of the very capable Mike Anderson, who had not been in that job long enough. He was her husband. She is a former prosecutor and was serving effectively as a judge. And she has been effective thus far, just a little over a year into the job.

But her opponent, Kim Ogg, also a woman, is fairly impressive. She is tough on crime, has some good data to show how things have been (up to 2012, when Mike Anderson was elected, so no data on how things are currently being done). One of the issues is about prosecution of minor drug offenses. I don’t agree with Ogg, but she did support her stance fairly well, and got some support at our Tea Party, where we have some libertarian leanings.

I got the chance to ask her this question: “We seem to agree with being tough on crime and fiscally responsible. Those aren’t things we usually go to the Democratic party for. So what attracts you to the Democrats?”

I give her credit for coming to a Tea Party in the first place; more Democrats should. And she was forthright and honest in the Texas way. I appreciate that. But her answer essentially was that she couldn’t get elected in a Republican primary. She thinks of herself as an old-time conservative democrat, like her father. She voted Republican in the 1990s, and has now gone back with the democrats. Yes, she did vote for Obama, but only once.

But here’s the telling detail: she voted for McCain in 2008; she liked him a lot. And then she voted for Obama in 2012. So, after four years of evidence against Obama, she thought he was a better option than Romney. (If you missed the contrast, start here.) She has revealed a severe lack of judgment. And she added to that by admitting without being asked that she supports Wendy Davis for Governor. In other words, even though we agree on a couple of principles, she identifies with a party that I simply don’t relate to. She's not about conserving the Constitution; she may not even know what the word means.

So maybe the most important detail is party—which is another tribe.

This may not have always been so, but today I find it very difficult to find a Democrat with character—the values that lead to freedom, prosperity and civilization. They tend to want power over others. Often power for their tribe (their group, their identity, their coalition of groups) trumps the good of all. Democrats, in Spherical Model terms, live in the southern hemisphere, with no awareness that there’s a better alternative.

So, regardless of tribe, let’s start with the agreement that the Democrat party right now is wrong for America, and their principles are wrong anywhere else in the world that might want freedom, prosperity, and civilization.

That doesn’t necessarily mean being part of the Republican tribe is the answer. Same is true for libertarians, or any party. You might get a little further by looking at someone’s religious affiliation. But even then, if it’s a tribal affiliation rather than connecting on principles, it’s misplaced loyalty.

So, in a party where you find a number of like-minded people, keeping the Constitution in mind, find candidates with character and capability. And once you find those things, look at agreement with the principles that lead to freedom, prosperity, and civilization. You can find a good list of questions to ask here.

Connect with others to influence and support one another with love. But be loyal only to God and to your soul. Any other tribe is an incidental connection, unworthy of unquestioned loyalty.