Gender Wars

Last week, I happened across a post entitled, “Should Men Get Married?” that caused a ton of controversy (read the comments section). In response, more authors in the conservative blogosphere started to weigh in on the subject, and they, too, seemed to create controversy.

It’s a little hard for me to determine what, exactly, the problem is, because there are a number of incredibly angry people out there making different points with vehemence and vitriol… Some common themes seem to be:

• The legal neutering of men when in disputes with women
• The decline of traditional morals and degeneracy of our culture at large
• The tearing-down of men, especially by the media — alternately, they are portrayed as bumbling idiots or crazed violence-mongers
• The knee-jerk response: “Hey, wait, plenty of women are still being victimized! Men don’t have a monopoly on suffering…”
• The sour grapes response: “My ex-wife was a [fill in the appropriate expletive here] and now I hate all women!”

When I first read the original post (and some of the comments), my response was a profound melancholy. I could completely see where the anger of so many of the responses were coming from, and agree that, in today’s society, the balance has shifted and women usually have the advantage in any dispute, whether they deserve it or not. I’ve seen that happen in the lives of people I know and love. However, what really blows me away is the directed anger toward not just one person or a small group of people, but at an entire gender.

I recognize that I shouldn’t be surprised–there’s a certain type of institutionalized man-hating in culture at large, and it’s only natural that it should go both ways… But it’s sad to see everyone hating everyone else. I’m used to this in politics; for the moment it seems inevitable (even if it’s stupid–after all, no person is the Devil Incarnate), but must it spill over into every other aspect of life as well? Why can’t we just treat people on a case-by-case basis, as we go about our lives, with no preconceived notions (OK, that’s probably impossible, but at least with as few blatantly biased preconceived notions as possible)?

Right now we’ve got a cultural emphasis on the idea that the victim is always right… And thus groups jockey for victim status and the benefits they’d be entitled to, as a consequence. Women, historically more likely to be victimized than men, have capitalized on this in modern society, to the point where now the scales have been turned: the weaker (the victims) really do dominate the stronger (the oppressors)…

However, for sustainability, this power structure depends on the enthusiastic buy-in of all parties, victims and oppressors alike. Which requires some sense of moral absolutes, some guarantee of gentility on everyone’s part. But we’re tearing down all the moral absolutes we can lay hands on, and what you’re left with, in the absence of religiously-motivated morals, is the “will to power”. And lets face it: as soon as there are no vestiges of the old religious morals, there will be no reason for the historical oppressors to go back to oppressing, based on (*gasp*) the universals of strength, power, and desire to dominate. Violence is always the lowest common denominator in power struggles, and violent struggles are won by people who are exceptionally strong or (more rarely) exceptionally smart. I don’t think that most of our current “professional victims” are either.

All of which suggests that the logical consequence of continuing down our current path will see the overthrow of all the favored victimized groups by some very angry, re-energized oppressors. I, for one, would rather exist in a society where there were expectations of reasonable behavior placed upon women (as well as on men), but where people pretty much got along with one another, than in a society where men are out to crush the women because they’ve been crushed, belittled, and disenfranchized as long as they can remember. And we could very well be headed to the latter if we don’t wake up and try to fix the brokenness between the genders.

Edited to add: Oh, now see? I just found an essay that, essentially, solves the problem. Consider the character of the person in question and keep your head in the game as you’re evaluating marriage. Duh!

Explore posts in the same categories: Culture, Pontification, Relationships, Values

Tags: anger, war of the sexes, fighting, vehemence, vitriol, dr. helen, violence, domination, marriage, divorce

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