Last week I described the recent urban legend of the "Rule of Thumb."
The fact its opposite is true (it has never been legal nor even
acceptable for a man to beat his wife; men have always found their
identity in protection) suggests it is an intentional smear against
men.
The fact women commit as much or more domestic violence as
men makes the last three decades of gender-focused domestic
violence campaigns equally a gender-hate crime. Violence has never
been gender-specific, but domestic violence has been politicized as
a weapon for gender wars.
Consider the mythical deadbeat dad. The emotion used to
justify persecution of every divorced father is that 34% of single
mothers (and, hence, their children) live in poverty. The assumption
is that all those fathers live on the Rivera and all we must do is
force them to pay. It is a similar smear. In truth, if every one of
those mothers married the father of their children, just as many
children would still be just as poor. If 34% of single mothers are
poor, what do you suppose about the fathers?
But our child support enforcement policy is, "inability to
pay is no excuse" (men can't possibly be poor or deserve compassion),
and since 1986 it has not even been possible to reduce arrearage
when new evidence comes to light, even having been in a coma.
Child support is used as another opportunity to blame men
for any plight, but this one nicely dove-tails with those who want
to blame poverty on the poor. Or at least on poor men, not women.
These social campaigns are mass vilifications along strictly
gender lines. For all men they create what feminists like to call a
hostile environment when done to them. If it's wrong done to women,
what makes it right done to men?
In response to the recent spat of trials of adult women
discovered having sex with underaged boys, Chicago Tribune columnists
Eric Zorn and Mary Schmich wrote that this should not be a crime. It
should be a crime when men have sex with underaged girls, but when
women do the same thing the boys should be punished because they
should know better. An adult woman should not, she is "just having
a relationship."
This is another expression of, "All women are caring, all
men are predators." If there was sexism before the 1970s, it's
nothing to what we have now.
Jean Bonhomme is a male black doctor in Georgia who grew up
in 1960s Atlanta. In a recent article about the buttons teen girls
are now wearing ("All boys are stupid," "Boys are great, everyone
should own one."), he says, "It does not appear to me that
discrimination is being eliminated, but merely shifted from one group
to another."
Since the Industrial Revolution annihilated any distinct
female identity, it is understandable for women to seek new ways to
distinguish themselves as women. But when self pride can only come
at the expense of pride and justice for others -- when it's only
source is projecting one's own evil onto others in a superiority
game; when rights for women can only come at the expense of any for
men -- it is not pride but prejudice. It is not assertive but
defensive, and not social progress but regression.
There have been social changes during my lifetime. There has
been no social progress nor movement for gender equality. Not if
equality means equal dignity and respect for all.
Copyright © 2004 K.C.Wilson.
K.C. Wilson is the author of Co-parenting for
Everyone, Male Nurturing, Delusions of Violence,
and The Multiple Scandals of Child Support, all
available as e-books
at http://harbpress.com.
