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About 10 years ago I was in a car wash in Northern Virginia getting a work vehicle cleaned. I noticed a card that said:
Little girl to Mom: "Mommy, why don't men live as long as women?"
Mom: "I don't know dear." On the inside: "But don't you think it's a good idea?"
I went into a rage right there in the shop, and said to my coworker (a black man who was not fond of feminism either) "I know who wrote this - ****ing bitchy feminists!!!!"
Then I realized that my outburst may have been a bit too much. I looked over at the guy behind the counter, who said "You should watch your language." I said "I'm sorry, but I find this card offensive."
Well, my reaction this time was a lot more muted. I just drove home and got online to write this.
Steve
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Frankly, I liked your first response better.
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Frank - thanks for your frankness ;)
True, the first response a decade ago was more visceral and immediate, but I realized that it just annoyed the guy behind the counter. At the time I didn't have resources like Mensactivism.org and the internet was in its infancy, so I didn't have alternatives to blowing my top in public.
Well, maybe it did have an effect. On a later trip to that car wash I noticed that the card wasn't there anymore.
Steve
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I also try not to blow my top in public and mostly succeed. But when I hear some drivel that reflects poorly on men, my usual first response is a loud & clear "Excuse me?" It's sometimes enough by itself, but frequently, I press the offender to explain themselves which, in and of itself, is enlightening to both parties.
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Some years back I came across this bumper sticker (click link to see it). ("MEN ARE NOT PIGS! Pigs are intelligent, sensitive, sweet and caring beings.") This was not long after I saw in a shop window a rubber stamp that read ABORTION IS HARMFUL TO WOMEN / LEGALIZE CASTRATION. I went inside and inquired of the shopkeeper about the stamp, which I found also displayed on a shelf. "Some people find it funny," she said. I wrote a letter of protest to the store owner (a woman), quoting another joke I'd heard ("Old enough to bleed, old enough to butcher.") and asking if she found it "funny." Curiously, I received no reply. Last I looked, the rubber stamp was still on sale.
I don't think this kind of thing will ever end. It has become clear that even in the most intelligent, kind, gentle, even enlightened woman there is an underlying stratum of resentment against men that is never penetrated by reason. I have yet to encounter a woman whose first, involuntary reaction to this kind of "humor" is not amusement -- perhaps quickly suppressed, but it's always there.
I don't really get angry about it any more. What's the point? It's like being upset about the weather, or other Acts of Nature. Women are as they are; it's a fool's errand to expect them to be like men, to understand that "equal treatment" really means something besides a way to wheedle everything they can get out of men. When a woman appeals to principle, it's only a device, to get a man to do what she wants; the idea that a principle is something that applies to all equally, that might limit her activity as well as a man's, is completely foreign to her mind. She knows instinctively that her innate power, derived from the power of Nature Herself, absolutely trumps anything a man can come up with. After all, She created him, did she not?
What she doesn't understand, what never occurs to her without male assistance, is that the ultimate result of the use of her power will be her own suffering. This is why the Buddha, and every other great teacher of liberation from suffering, was a man. Woman on her own can't get out of the prison of suffering life.
The bottom line is: there is no such thing as "equality" between the sexes. It is a chimaera, a mythical beast, a political tool used by women -- on average much more clever than men, as Harry Belafonte ("Dat's right! De woman is uh! smatah!"), among many others, noted -- and fundamentally lacking the innate sense of scruple that even the most corrupted man possesses -- to fool and manipulate men by appealing to our sense of "reasonableness."
Lead, or follow. There cannot be two drivers at the wheel, two hands on the tiller. Either our activity is guided by Reason, or it is propelled by Passion. And the life ruled by Passion is the life of suffering, no matter how attractive it may seem in the (very) short term.
Women in our culture are completely out of control. They have taken over the lead, but they really don't know where they are going. They are no longer restrained and guided by men, and self-restraint is unknown to the female mind. The other day I saw an overweight teenage girl wearing a sleeveless tee-shirt that said "It's all about ME. Deal with it." Which I thought summed up feminism neatly and for all time.
"If you allow them [women] to pull away restraints and put themselves on an equality with their husbands, do you imagine that you will be able to tolerate them? From the moment that they become your fellows, they will become your masters." --Marcus Porcius Cato (the Elder, aka the Censor), 234-149 BCE
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Relax. I didn't really commit terrorism.
But I was in an art shop down in
the south a few days ago, and came across a display of refrigerator
magnets, most of which either ridiculed men in general or ridiculed
President Bush. I thought the ones about Bush were excessive and
rude, too, but I let those go. I took about a dozen of the anti-male
magnets. They said things like "Women: 50% of the population, 100% of
the brains" and "I never met a man I couldn't blame". The most
offensive one featured those symbols you see for women's and men's
rest rooms. The "woman" was knocking the "man"'s head off. It
read: "Chicks rule! It's not like he was using it, anyway..." (Just
imagine if a man was knocking off a woman's head, cartoon or not...
I stacked twelve or so of these and placed them on top of a piece of
paper with the words "SEXISM SUCKS" written on it. It's such a stupid
little thing but I felt like some Masked Avenger or something, hastily but inconspicuously heading out of the store and back to the family car...
Probably, a clerk or customer put everything back and rolled his/her
eyes. But maybe if we do things like that more often, a surge will
begin. Remember: I didn't damage, steal, or vandalize anything. I
just put them over a piece of paper...
bg
Men are from EARTH. Women are from EARTH. Deal with it.
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