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by Anonymous User on Tuesday January 01, @11:20AM EST (#1)
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Mona wrote a very nice essay of thanks. However, I've been reading Mona for years. She's not an egalitarian- male strength is useful to her only so long as it serves women. She also believes in old-fashioned chivalry which obviously is a huge disadvantage for most men in most situations these days. Still, I suppose in this limited situation I can accept her praise whole-heartedly.
Remo
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Still, I suppose in this limited situation I can accept her praise whole-heartedly.
That's big of you, Remo. This is the kind of article that mainstream feminists such as Judy Mann found so irksome, especially for comments such as this one:
As Peggy Noonan observed in Opinion Journal, Sept. 11 has brought old-fashioned virility back into style.
The sentiment expressed by Noonan and other commentators wasn't sufficiently intolerant of masculinity for Judy Mann, who outrageously suggested that it took tragic events of the magnitude of September 11th to shock the firefighters at ground zero out of "old patterns of manhood" and into a new kind of masculinity that feminists could at long last tolerate, and that would allow for the possibility of the end of terrorism and ultimately to the feminist utopia.
I'm repeating this here to make the point that the volume of recent commentary expressing gratitude to men for their heroism has reduced some mainstream feminists to desperate attempts like that of Judy Mann's to somehow reconcile their twisted view of masculinity with the facts.
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So if a few more terrorists strike men may be upgraded from a species of monsters in need of elimination to the status of useful muscular servants & bodyguards.
Wooo-wee, I'm excited! Go Osama!
Why oh why do so many "men's rights activists" carry on like over-excited puppies whenever a female journo makes the least positive reference to men?
We don't need them.
sd
Those who like this sort of thing
will find this the sort of thing they like.
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Unfortunately, SD, we do, at least in the US. It's not that we need female journalists, or in the converse, fewer feminist journalists, what we need is balance in the media. Perhaps it's not such a large issue in AU, but it is here, and if this article by Charen does nothing else, it lessens the space in which negative things are written about men.
Marketing is everything, in politics as well as in commerce.
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In some ways, I agree with Smoking Drive, and a few others in this thread who posted similar sentiments. While men's physical strength and greater ability to challenge and defeat "evil men" is no small virtue, I think we should fight back against the reasoning that these are our only unique virtues. It seems to me that lurking beneath that reasoning is the idea that Nature created women perfect except for a limited capacity for self-defense - which was the primary motivation for creating men.
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by Anonymous User on Tuesday January 01, @05:16PM EST (#12)
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So if a few more terrorists strike men may be upgraded from a species of monsters in need of elimination to the status of useful muscular servants & bodyguards.
Wooo-wee, I'm excited! Go Osama!
Congrats on one of the few ways that one could make a good point and use Osama in a humorous light :)
Remo
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In the Jan 2 2002 edition of the Tennessean newspaper, Mona Charen's column appears on the opinion page under the heading "Ladies, in times of danger, leave some things to the men." To me there seems to be in this heading (composed, I assume, by the newspaper) an attitude of "let the men do the dirty work and risk their lives so that we women don't have to."
My own message would go something like this "Ladies, in times of danger, leave some things to the men. And don't take for granted the sacrifices that men are willing to make for your protection, including the protection of feminists!"
Collins
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My own message would go something like this "Ladies, in times of danger, leave some things to the men. And don't take for granted the sacrifices that men are willing to make for your protection, including the protection of feminists!"
I agree, Collins, but that never would've fit on that page. :) Plus, The Tennessean is a pretty feminist rag. ;)
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All-in-all a pretty good article. I think she's genuinely trying to say good things about men.
I kinda feel unappreciative or even a bit petty, when it's so rare to hear *anything* positive about men, to point out the insidious underlying sexism that still creeps in. I'm sure she doesn't intend it, it's just such an unquestioned part of the environment. But it's there.
The article recognizes that men have value, after all, and thanks them. Apparently our value is in our physical strength -- in being big and strong so we can protect women...
"The female flight attendants deserve high marks for their courage. But the episode does reveal that physical size and strength still matter in this world."
..and so we can do the difficult and dangerous jobs.
"But when it comes to tasks requiring physical strength, well, women are still smaller than men. And while many women have just as much courage, ingenuity and self-possession in emergencies as men, only the most unusual women have the strength to carry the average overweight American out of a burning building."
She also apparently believes that 'violence is male,' but that she does appreciate the big strong men who will step into harm's way and sacrifice themselves for her.
"Perhaps the new climate of danger -- danger from evil men -- will quiet the anti-male agitation we've endured for so long. For the threat from evil men can only adequately be met by good men."
She does, however, go on to say one *very* good thing:
"What feminists have never understood, and have actually gone out of their way to distort, is that male strength has always been viewed, in Western culture, as a responsibility, not as a weapon with which to subjugate females."
So, like I said, I have some mixed feelings about this article. Mostly it's good -- heaven knows, I'd like to see *lots* more like it -- but it does point out how far there is to go in changing the prejudice in the basic, root level thinking about men.
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. This is one of them; a step in the right direction.
Mona Charen should be thanked for the article. I didn't see an email address for her, but there's a link that allows you to respond through a browser-based form.
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Has anyone else noticed how the reporting about this incident has changed over the last couple days?
Now it's either *only* the flight attendants who are mentioned resisting the terrorist or, at most, there's a brief mention that they were 'assisted' by some 'passengers.'
More than a few times I've heard the flight attendants referred to as 'female,' but I have yet to hear the male 'passengers,' who actually subdued and restrained the terrorist, referred to as male, and their names, even though known, are never mentioned. They remain unrecognized and un-thanked.
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More than a few times I've heard the flight attendants referred to as 'female,' but I have yet to hear the male 'passengers,' who actually subdued and restrained the terrorist, referred to as male, and their names, even though known, are never mentioned. They remain unrecognized and un-thanked.
Yeah, I noticed it. More than likely that's a result of feminist bitching about a lack of presence of women in these stories. After all, NOW recently released a video depicting "women rescuers" at 9/11 and are demanding that a large portion of New York's recovery money (donated by charities) go to subsidize female emergency workers.
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Once again I refer you to the work of Adam Jones on how the media suppresses mention of the gender of males, and emphasizes the gender of females, especially as victims of violence. It's good that awareness of the journalistic tendency to efface males is deepening.
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On this last point of demanding that women a larger share of charitable donations, I think we ought to be howling loudly about that. Can anyone identify the folks to whom NOW appealed? And can we mount our own appeal for EQUAL distribution?
If someone can point us in the right direction, we can make difference here, if we act quickly.
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If someone can point us in the right direction, we can make difference here, if we act quickly.
I can try to find the article (Thought I posted it here. Guess I didn't.) HOWEVER, I would like to point out that I do not think the money donated by charities should be going to any specific group of rescuers. I think it should be donated to the families of victims and to help heal New York, not further careers.
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