The War On Men

…so, I fell a little bit behind the past couple of days. My bad. I don’t have a legitimate excuse… or an illegitimate one either, really. So I guess I’ll just start writing.

I don’t know if you’ve seen this, but there’s been an article tossed around online that actually shares the same title as this blog post… that wasn’t actually intentional, but I’ll go with it. The article can be found on the Fox News website and takes an interesting twist on the whole “war on women” debate largely inflamed over the past year and presidential campaign.

By interesting, I want to clarify that I mean pretty stupid.

As so many of the privileged classes and groups enjoy doing, there is many times a tendency to look at actual discrimination and turn it on its head, complaining that the majority is actually the group being discriminated. For example, the legalization of same-sex marriage is seen by many as discrimination against Christians. Which would be idiotic. No rights are infringed, no churches forced to perform ceremonies, no beliefs or practices outlawed. Same thing happened with interracial marriage and slavery.

Well, this go round, we actually have a woman disregarding the so-called “war on women” by turning it on its head and saying that there is, in actuality, a war on men.

Apparently, women becoming a larger part of the workforce and higher education is a problem, according to the author of the piece. Feminism is destroying the desire of men to marry, which is clearly a bad thing. Apparently, it’s because “women aren’t women anymore.”

What is that even supposed to mean? Well, my guess is that there is a prototypical woman Suzanne Venker has in mind when she says that. Even though she flat admitted that she didn’t really think that much about what she wrote, so she might not have had anything in mind. Anyway, this prototypical woman defines women with certain characteristics, characteristics that have apparently started to alter and disappear since the “sexual revolution,” while men remain true to their prototype.

To be fair, women are departing, by and large, from the 1950s Mrs. Cleaver stereotype, but I don’t really know that that was ever something women had to be confined to. While society tried, there were always women bucking the trend. It just seems that, in recent years, more women have felt empowered enough to cast aside those gender roles.

But, Venker says that’s bad. See, feminism has apparently sexually liberated women to the point that now, unlike ever before in history, men can sleep with women without having to marry them. Ignore how “We can sleep with them without being married to them” is a different reason to not marry than “women aren’t women anymore.” Further, women are apparently defensive and angry, thinking of men as the “enemy.”

Now, I’m not a woman, but I want to take a crack at this: Women that are trying to fight against gender stereotypes and being forced into gender roles are actually mad at society. Are some women mad at men? Sure. As society is still largely patriarchal, there can definitely be some interchanging of what gets the anger.

Whatever women are upset at, as all of them are totally just seething at something, it’s apparently made men pissed. Men are tired of being told everything is their fault. Woman’s unhappy? Your fault. Also, you’re a man, so there’s something inherently wrong with you. These are, apparently, the messages of the modern feminist woman. And men are so put off by it, they don’t want to be stuck with a woman the rest of their lives, settling for “sex at hello.”

So, apparently, feminists will just have sex with a man at the drop of a hat, but they totally hate men and think they’re the enemy.

But it’s okay, because there’s a way to fix all of this! Just be more like ladies, ladies, and let men be men. Then, all those men that you hate but want to have sex with the moment you meet them and want to marry will totally be into marrying you.

…I haven’t been doing much commenting on what I think of this article, partly because I’m hoping my tone will be clear enough. But, really, is there anything I need to say about this? It should be obvious why this piece is a piece of trash. Why it’s ridiculously stupid, why it’s backwards and anti-feminist and, really, just anti-everybody. It’s really just a sad sign of how badly we need to keep pushing equality, pushing against the idea of a “typical” man and a “typical” woman, pushing against confining gender to certain tasks and duties.

Either that or Venker’s completely right. If so, none of my feminist lady friends are really feminists because they not only haven’t treated me like the enemy, but they also haven’t been trying to sleep with me after my first word to them. If Venker’s right, I’ve been hanging out with the wrong feminists. Because, as a man, sex is all I need.

Ugh.