Remember that famous line from George Orwell's Animal Farm: "All animals
are equal, but some animals are more equal than others"? Mr. Orwell,
here are two more examples to add to your collection:
1. On April 20 last, sports pages around the country featured a picture
of the Catherine Ndereba of Kenya with upraised arms, the "winner" of
the Boston Marathon. She won not by virtue of being the fastest runner,
but because the female runners had started the race 29 minutes before
the men.
That day the Boston Globe ran an article carrying the headline, "New
Rule Engenders Equal Footing."
If giving women a half hour head-start is an
"equal footing," then would someone please explain inequality to me?
2. Fox News ran an article in late August about
American military women
in Iraq. This was the lead
sentence: "Today, equality of the sexes includes dying in combat."
The article highlighted the statistic that 24 female soldiers had died
in Iraq. As of that time, one thousand American troops had perished --
24 female and 976 male. If we do a little math, it turns out that only
2.4% of combat deaths are female. That's equality of the sexes?
In both stories, the reporter massacred the obvious meaning of
"equality." But where was the outrage? The fact that no one murmured a
word of protest says something about the mental anesthesia that grips
our collective awareness.
In his recent book The War Against Men, Professor Richard Rise of Texas
A&M University notes, "the female propaganda machine is relentless." My
last four columns have traced the outlines of this machine:
First, erect an
elaborate
mythology that begins with the Great Myth of
Patriarchy. Then embellish it with a series of urban legends that "men
have all the power," "marriage is a legalized form of slavery," and so
on. Remember that emotional impact, not historical accuracy is what
counts.
Then introduce a
gender
perspective to the mass media. Portray men as
unworthy and women as entitled. Never allow men to be depicted as
victims. There's nothing subtle here -- the key is the sheer
mind-numbing repetition of the Ms.-Information.
Take the claim that women suffer from wage discrimination, for instance.
On the average, women are paid 76 cents for every dollar that men earn.
Groups such as the National Center for Policy Analysis have found that
when differences in work hours and other factors are taken into account,
the gender wage gap disappears.
But during last week's presidential debate, one of the candidates
couldn't resist the urge to dust off the old canard that women receive
unequal pay for equal work. Score one for the rad-fem PR campaign.
Third is the tactic of
inciting
gender conflict. V.I. Lenin employed the
concept of class consciousness to instigate class warfare. As an
offshoot of Marxist-Leninist thought, it is no surprise that radical
feminism now seeks to promote gender consciousness in order to drive a
wedge between men and women. Women have been put upon all these years,
so isn't turn-about fair play?
In the final phase of the propaganda campaign, everyday speech becomes
sprinkled with
ideologically-loaded
words like "gender." Male-derivative
words like "chairman" are banned, but female expressions like "Mother
Earth" continue in use. Once persons internalize the terminology and
logic of Fem-Speak, you could almost say they have become brainwashed.
So when mainstream media outlets such as the Boston Globe and Fox News
use the word "equality" to denote its exact opposite -- and nobody seems
to mind -- you know that we're in trouble.
Almost sixty years ago George Orwell wrote a prescient essay titled
"Politics and the English Language." Deploring the way language was
being used to manipulate and deceive, Orwell wrote: "Political
language.is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable,
and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."
Who can doubt that the feminist propaganda campaign has now reached
Orwellian proportions? Welcome to the world of Fem-Prop.
