An American Paradox?
(c) 2012, Davd
This post began as a response to an “Outraged Anglican-American Feminist”; and if the Webmaster deems it appropriate and valuable, some of my most general responses to her outrage will appear after the end of the main text.
Suppose Barack Obama wins re-election, and rewards his disproportionately female voter base by making American law and public expenditure even more Feminist than it already is1. The US already has rates of emigration [outbound migration] to States where men have more opportunities and greater rewards for their work—but especially, to where men can expect women to keep their promises and the law to structure the consequences in favour of keeping rather than breaking them—that are higher than in the past; and a majority of the emigrants are men who don’t trust the USA to treat them even almost as well as you American women get treated.
Inequality? Definitely. Favouring men? You might imaginably feel that way, if you are subject to the Princess Syndrome2 [which has much in common with the Apex Fallacy3]; but facts and logic say women are the favoured sex. Take a cohort of boys and a cohort of girls born in 1993, matched in IQ [mean and variance; it should not be necessary to match at the individual scale] and socioeconomic status. Look at how much schooling each cohort has achieved, how many of each are in universities, what jobs are held by those who are already employed.
Take a sample of divorce cases, reverse the genders, delete the decisions, and present them to lawyers “duly anonymized”. Get the lawyers to role-play judge [or ask real judges if enough of them will agree to be research respondents] and have them render their decisions. The women will be less well treated when described as men; the men will be better treated when described as women.
An American [Australian, Canadian,English, Kiwi,…] woman can desert her husband, or commit flagrant adultery; then sue for divorce, and win child custody and support without proving he wronged her even as much as she wronged him before the desertion or the adultery. Thousands upon thousands of women have done so. Can a man do the reverse? Vanishingly seldom, if ever.
Think about that: American (and much “British Commonwealth”) law blesses and rewards women breaking promises, provides far more support for girls than for boys, for mothers than for fathers: Female privilege.
Female privilege is nothing new: When the Titanic sank just over 100 years ago, men were refused lifeboat space to the extent that there were far more empty seats in those lifeboats, as Titanic sank, than there were women and children who had not got off the ship: Even if all the 154 women and children who were lost, had been loaded into the boats, there would have been 250-300 more places for men. At that time, men had some counter-balancing privileges; today, the men’s privileges are gone, the women’s largely remain.
The Obama Campaign proposes to go farther in the pro-female direction, and said to a male voter in the presence of that voter’s wife, in Ohio, as marriage advice: “Just do whatever she tells you to.”
(So why isn’t Michelle Obama the candidate? Doesn’t Barack Hussein practice what he preaches? Wouldn’t surprise me if he does, in which case, we might see the First Lady behind that presidential desk five years on. Perhaps that’s the plan for 2016, and they want to get four terms to FDR’s three—if the USA should last so long. Glubb, cited below, found that empires tend to last about 250 years; the USA began about 1776. Sixteen Obama years would end in 2024-5, which is about when Glubb’s finding would lead you to predict the US empire will collapse… but i speculate … and digress.)
Suppose that at the end of US Election Night next month, B. H. Obama has won re-election. What will the men who would have been nice blue-collar and white-collar husbands back when marital fidelity had the support of law and adultery was cause not only for divorce but for loss of custody of children—even adultery by mothers—what will those men do who no longer have the choice of Marriage 1912, and know that Marriage 2012 is biased heavily against them?
Some will emigrate. A friend i used to meet in Ontario and later in Vancouver BC, is now working in Saudi Arabia, and before that, worked in Korea as a computer programmer. A German-born friend who used to live in Victoria, is now working on Okinawa as a translator. I read similar stories from the U$A on men’s websites there: Asia, Latin America, even parts of Africa and the Middle East, will see American men with good degrees in productive fields, and high-skill tradesmen, arrive seeking a life safe from burdens of proof against false accusations and safe from “divorce theft”, a world where they can have a 90% or better chance of fathering their children from weaning to maturity.
Some will convert to Islam. A young lad who came to my forest and prayer garden for a 3-5 day retreat, told me about how he, a lonely university student 5000 km from home, found so much welcome in that city’s mosque and so little in ordinary student life, that he spoke the ritual words “There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is His Prophet.”
… and though he was still a rank beginner as a Muslim, felt content with his choice. This lad was not a devout, faith-before-World Christian if he was even Christian enough to go to church once a month, before conversion… but he was a potential Christian, and the face of our faith that he saw, neither welcomed him nor valued him as much as it did “lasses” with his level of charm and talent. Islam did.
I’ve read some allegations that your President is really a Muslim; if so, he hides it very well. Nothing i’ve read about Islam would bless a man telling a husband to do whatever his wife tells him to. The Muslims i’ve known well enough to speak with, and two are women physicians (at least one is a man and a physician, another an engineer—Islam educates its smart children of both sexes and very often does it well), all value men; and in Canada anyway, value men about equally with women, given about equal capability and humanity. Obama’s Feminism is not consistent with being a good Muslim, from which i infer that he isn’t one.4
What your President and Feminist politicians generally, seem to be, is preparers of the ground for Muslim proselytizing. The more the State takes from men and gives to women, the more the State deems men guilty and women innocent until proven otherwise, the more Islam looks like an island of hope in a sea of abuse. The island is growing, Islam is larger than Christianity outside Europe and America, a few more years, perhaps just one more election of Feminist-biased government, will [i estimate] make it larger than Judaism or Buddhism “in America.”
You American women had a great deal, back in 1950-75, and you threw it aside trying to get an impossibly better deal. Now the evidence is coming in, that the deal is impossible, but instead of seeing reality, you are feeling aggrieved.
But let me not be too categorical: Many American women, like you, are feeling aggrieved when the Christians among you should feel ashamed of so much privilege. Some women are seeing the change rather accurately, and realize that if they want the many good things that a faithful marriage can provide over a woman’s adult life, they can make them much more likely by finding some way to assure good men of their willingness to make their marriage one of committed fidelity, which civil marriage is not. Some join Christian sects [usually called “churches”] that strongly support lifetime marriage. Some will join Islam.
I would even forecast, with perhaps the same assurance as a weather forecast, that increasing numbers of American, Australian, British, Canadian … women will join Islam as a way of giving young men an assurance of fidelity that once was given by entering civil marriage.
Your outrage reads to me as neither Christian, nor justified, nor even in your own selfish interest. It is consistent with what Glubb describes as typical of the higher-class women of a failing empire.
Aprés vous, le deluge; aprés le deluge, nous.5
d.m.
[name withheld] wrote:
> As a woman of about your age I can be pleased that younger women have
> fewer hurdles than my generation had, but they still don’t have equality.
Apex fallacy: You compare the x’th percentile woman with the x+yth percentile man. Younger women have fewer hurdles and more help climbing over them, than young men; and that is a more appropriate basis of comparison than “feelings”.
In fact, women have not so much equality as favoured treatment. If you want equal outcomes while men work longer hours at more hazardous, less pleasant jobs, you want privilege. With that privilege, you can expect fewer men working hard to please women, and more men converting to Islam.
> We are still in a time of change with many feelings about
> what is fair, appropriate or possible.
Ah, so desu ka! There is that word men use so rarely and women so often: Feelings. What you feel is a vastly inferior guide to social policy and social action, than facts and logic. I am reminded of Marie Antoinette, who despite her graceful and delicate name, was [i read in Wells, 709-713] a somewhat heavy headed Austrienne in fact.
> I think I could go on for pages,
> but I don’t have the time, even though I am feeling the outrage that
> might otherwise motivate me to spout more.
I appreciate that admission: Outrage is indeed a feeling, imho egregiously inappropriate in context; an example of the gynocentric feelings-first-bias and its potential to misguide.
References:
Notes:
Promoting Islam by extending Feminist privilege:
An American Paradox?
(c) 2012, Davd
This post began as a response to an “Outraged Anglican-American Feminist”; and if the Webmaster deems it appropriate and valuable, some of my most general responses to her outrage will appear after the end of the main text.
Suppose Barack Obama wins re-election, and rewards his disproportionately female voter base by making American law and public expenditure even more Feminist than it already is1. The US already has rates of emigration [outbound migration] to States where men have more opportunities and greater rewards for their work—but especially, to where men can expect women to keep their promises and the law to structure the consequences in favour of keeping rather than breaking them—that are higher than in the past; and a majority of the emigrants are men who don’t trust the USA to treat them even almost as well as you American women get treated.
Inequality? Definitely. Favouring men? You might imaginably feel that way, if you are subject to the Princess Syndrome2 [which has much in common with the Apex Fallacy3]; but facts and logic say women are the favoured sex. Take a cohort of boys and a cohort of girls born in 1993, matched in IQ [mean and variance; it should not be necessary to match at the individual scale] and socioeconomic status. Look at how much schooling each cohort has achieved, how many of each are in universities, what jobs are held by those who are already employed.
Take a sample of divorce cases, reverse the genders, delete the decisions, and present them to lawyers “duly anonymized”. Get the lawyers to role-play judge [or ask real judges if enough of them will agree to be research respondents] and have them render their decisions. The women will be less well treated when described as men; the men will be better treated when described as women.
An American [Australian, Canadian,English, Kiwi,…] woman can desert her husband, or commit flagrant adultery; then sue for divorce, and win child custody and support without proving he wronged her even as much as she wronged him before the desertion or the adultery. Thousands upon thousands of women have done so. Can a man do the reverse? Vanishingly seldom, if ever.
Think about that: American (and much “British Commonwealth”) law blesses and rewards women breaking promises, provides far more support for girls than for boys, for mothers than for fathers: Female privilege.
Female privilege is nothing new: When the Titanic sank just over 100 years ago, men were refused lifeboat space to the extent that there were far more empty seats in those lifeboats, as Titanic sank, than there were women and children who had not got off the ship: Even if all the 154 women and children who were lost, had been loaded into the boats, there would have been 250-300 more places for men. At that time, men had some counter-balancing privileges; today, the men’s privileges are gone, the women’s largely remain.
The Obama Campaign proposes to go farther in the pro-female direction, and said to a male voter in the presence of that voter’s wife, in Ohio, as marriage advice: “Just do whatever she tells you to.”
(So why isn’t Michelle Obama the candidate? Doesn’t Barack Hussein practice what he preaches? Wouldn’t surprise me if he does, in which case, we might see the First Lady behind that presidential desk five years on. Perhaps that’s the plan for 2016, and they want to get four terms to FDR’s three—if the USA should last so long. Glubb, cited below, found that empires tend to last about 250 years; the USA began about 1776. Sixteen Obama years would end in 2024-5, which is about when Glubb’s finding would lead you to predict the US empire will collapse… but i speculate … and digress.)
Suppose that at the end of US Election Night next month, B. H. Obama has won re-election. What will the men who would have been nice blue-collar and white-collar husbands back when marital fidelity had the support of law and adultery was cause not only for divorce but for loss of custody of children—even adultery by mothers—what will those men do who no longer have the choice of Marriage 1912, and know that Marriage 2012 is biased heavily against them?
Some will emigrate. A friend i used to meet in Ontario and later in Vancouver BC, is now working in Saudi Arabia, and before that, worked in Korea as a computer programmer. A German-born friend who used to live in Victoria, is now working on Okinawa as a translator. I read similar stories from the U$A on men’s websites there: Asia, Latin America, even parts of Africa and the Middle East, will see American men with good degrees in productive fields, and high-skill tradesmen, arrive seeking a life safe from burdens of proof against false accusations and safe from “divorce theft”, a world where they can have a 90% or better chance of fathering their children from weaning to maturity.
Some will convert to Islam. A young lad who came to my forest and prayer garden for a 3-5 day retreat, told me about how he, a lonely university student 5000 km from home, found so much welcome in that city’s mosque and so little in ordinary student life, that he spoke the ritual words “There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is His Prophet.”
… and though he was still a rank beginner as a Muslim, felt content with his choice. This lad was not a devout, faith-before-World Christian if he was even Christian enough to go to church once a month, before conversion… but he was a potential Christian, and the face of our faith that he saw, neither welcomed him nor valued him as much as it did “lasses” with his level of charm and talent. Islam did.
I’ve read some allegations that your President is really a Muslim; if so, he hides it very well. Nothing i’ve read about Islam would bless a man telling a husband to do whatever his wife tells him to. The Muslims i’ve known well enough to speak with, and two are women physicians (at least one is a man and a physician, another an engineer—Islam educates its smart children of both sexes and very often does it well), all value men; and in Canada anyway, value men about equally with women, given about equal capability and humanity. Obama’s Feminism is not consistent with being a good Muslim, from which i infer that he isn’t one.4
What your President and Feminist politicians generally, seem to be, is preparers of the ground for Muslim proselytizing. The more the State takes from men and gives to women, the more the State deems men guilty and women innocent until proven otherwise, the more Islam looks like an island of hope in a sea of abuse. The island is growing, Islam is larger than Christianity outside Europe and America, a few more years, perhaps just one more election of Feminist-biased government, will [i estimate] make it larger than Judaism or Buddhism “in America.”
You American women had a great deal, back in 1950-75, and you threw it aside trying to get an impossibly better deal. Now the evidence is coming in, that the deal is impossible, but instead of seeing reality, you are feeling aggrieved.
But let me not be too categorical: Many American women, like you, are feeling aggrieved when the Christians among you should feel ashamed of so much privilege. Some women are seeing the change rather accurately, and realize that if they want the many good things that a faithful marriage can provide over a woman’s adult life, they can make them much more likely by finding some way to assure good men of their willingness to make their marriage one of committed fidelity, which civil marriage is not. Some join Christian sects [usually called “churches”] that strongly support lifetime marriage. Some will join Islam.
I would even forecast, with perhaps the same assurance as a weather forecast, that increasing numbers of American, Australian, British, Canadian … women will join Islam as a way of giving young men an assurance of fidelity that once was given by entering civil marriage.
Your outrage reads to me as neither Christian, nor justified, nor even in your own selfish interest. It is consistent with what Glubb describes as typical of the higher-class women of a failing empire.
Aprés vous, le deluge; aprés le deluge, nous.5
d.m.
[name withheld] wrote:
> As a woman of about your age I can be pleased that younger women have
> fewer hurdles than my generation had, but they still don’t have equality.
Apex fallacy: You compare the x’th percentile woman with the x+yth percentile man. Younger women have fewer hurdles and more help climbing over them, than young men; and that is a more appropriate basis of comparison than “feelings”.
In fact, women have not so much equality as favoured treatment. If you want equal outcomes while men work longer hours at more hazardous, less pleasant jobs, you want privilege. With that privilege, you can expect fewer men working hard to please women, and more men converting to Islam.
> We are still in a time of change with many feelings about
> what is fair, appropriate or possible.
Ah, so desu ka! There is that word men use so rarely and women so often: Feelings. What you feel is a vastly inferior guide to social policy and social action, than facts and logic. I am reminded of Marie Antoinette, who despite her graceful and delicate name, was [i read in Wells, 709-713] a somewhat heavy headed Austrienne in fact.
> I think I could go on for pages,
> but I don’t have the time, even though I am feeling the outrage that
> might otherwise motivate me to spout more.
I appreciate that admission: Outrage is indeed a feeling, imho egregiously inappropriate in context; an example of the gynocentric feelings-first-bias and its potential to misguide.
References:
http://www.everyman.ca/2011/06/21/last-statement-by-tom-ball/
“Futurist,” 2010, “The Misandry Bubble.”
Glubb, John Bagot, 1978. The Fate of Empires. Edinburgh: William Blackwood & Sons Ltd.
http://www.the-spearhead.com/2010/01/14/john-bagot-glubb/
Wells, H. G. 1961: The Outline of History Book Club edition, vol, 2. Garden City, NY.
Zelinsky, Edward A. 2006. “Deregulating Marriage: The Pro-Marriage Case For Abolishing Civil Marriage”. Cardozo Law Review 27:3 (January), 1161-1220.
Notes:
1The Obama campaign’s “Julia advertising” is an example of the Administration’s advertising their social programmes with emphasis on their largesse to women.
2. An “Evangelical Christian heresy” form of it is described at the website cmd-n.org.
3. In “The Misandry Bubble,” a writer whose pen-name is “Futurist” writes, of “… ‘feminists’ comparing the plight of average women to the topmost men (the monarch and other aristocrats), rather than to the average man. This practice is known as apex fallacy, and whether accidental or deliberate, entirely misrepresents reality. To approximate the conditions of the average woman to the average man (the key word being ‘average’) in the Western world of a century ago, simply observe the lives of the poorest peasants in poor countries today. Both men and women have to perform tedious work, have insufficient food and clothing, and limited opportunities for upliftment.”
4. Neither am i, but i undertake to treat Islam and Muslims with the same respect they give Christianity and Christians as “people of the Book.”
5. Women holding on to their privileges [based originally in the sheltered social role of mother and housekeeper] and demanding power as well, have characterized the decline of empires before; as Glubb wrote in The Fate of Empires. Glubb was the British military officer who, as what we would now call a contractor for the King of Jordan [and with the consent of the British government], organized the Arab Legion, the most effective Arab army at that time. He has been described as “like Lawrence of Arabia, but smarter.”
About Davd
Davd (PhD, 1966) has been a professor, a single father keeping a small commercial herb garden so as to have flexible time for his sons, and editor of _Ecoforestry_. He is a practicing Christian, and in particular an advocate of ecoforestry, self-sufficiency horticulture, and men of all faiths living together "in peace and brotherhood" for the fellowship, the efficiency, and the goodwill that sharing work so often brings.