I normally don’t curse my eyes with shit from Fox News, but I couldn’t quite resist this piece about the “war on men” because there is something I find particularly annoying about assholes that think they get to decide if you are a woman or a man. For example:
And in doing so, I’ve accidentally stumbled upon a subculture of men who’ve told me, in no uncertain terms, that they’re never getting married. When I ask them why, the answer is always the same.
Women aren’t women anymore.
So wait, what are women then, if we aren’t women? Houseplants? Evil robots? Corporate flying monkeys? A form of parasitic fungus? Cheap plastic toys? That little bit of popcorn that gets stuck in your teeth that you just know is going to give you an instant cavity?
Because goodness knows, we apparently aren’t people. And neither are men, I guess. We’re caricatures controlled by our biological natures, which I’d guess is that “poison from the gonads” stuff General Custer mentioned in Little Big Man.
As far as I can tell from this essay, women only get to be women if they want to get married and then let men do their manly man duty of manliness, which is to be the primary breadwinner and “protect their families.” I am also going to take a wild guess and say that in order for a woman to be a woman, she must want to have kids too.
The entire basis of this argument seems to be that the author has talked to people. Woo, anecdotes! Well, I have a bunch of anecdotes, too. There are people who want to get married and people who don’t. There are people who want to have kids and people who don’t. There are men that want to be the breadwinner and others who would like to be stay-at-home dads and the same with women, and some that would even like to split things 50/50. This may come as a shock, but people are a diverse bunch. And incidentally, there are men that want to marry men (or don’t) and women who want to marry women (or don’t) and it’d be great if they had that choice too.
Oh yeah and:
All they have to do is surrender to their nature – their femininity – and let men surrender to theirs.
I just threw up a little in my mouth.
You know what would be awesome? If people were just allowed to be themselves. I’ve never bought the idea of their being an essential femininity that comes with possessing a uterus, just like I don’t think there is something essentially masculine that people with penises get to have. (Okay, except maybe the part where you get to pee standing up because that’s kind of awesome.) I don’t feel like I’ve missed something important in my life because I don’t like makeup and dresses and would rather die than be a housewife; but I also think the experiences of my friends who do like and want those things are just as valid because it makes them happy.
Ms. Venker, I’d hazard a guess that a great many people out there aren’t angry because evil feminism has caused us to fight against our “natures.” We’re tired and cranky because we constantly have to fight with assholes like you who think there’s only one way to conduct a life.
Also: Eric has some entertaining things to say about this from his naturally manly position of manliness as he tries to parse out just what he’s so angry about.