Brilliant article, short, succinct, right on.
I hold women in high esteem. Very high. I am even of the persuasion that Women’s Lib, seen in a wider perspective, brought quite a lot of good (mind: I live in Holland). I think women have a right to vote, and I think women have a right to make financial contracts with third parties (both rights weren’t there for ladies early in the 20th century). Women should also be able to enter University and become a good doctor (a right secured by the Dutch conservative Thorbecke, the greatest we had).
But: then there were the ‘60s. Things got out of hand. By and by stories disappeared. Stories that extolled male virtues, that explained why to give orders, to dare, to face challenges, to win (and to lose gracefully!) are important. These stories became suspect. Since John Wayne was mentioned: there were quite a few liberal writers in the U.S. who termed him a sociopath, e.g. on the grounds of his role in ‘The Searchers’.
The other side of the coin is equally bleak: traditional women’s strengths got devalued. I mean: good house-keeping, cooking well, rearing the very young, and also: to keep in check the not-so-wonderful characteristics of men (which do exist). Men can, under certain circumstances, fall prey to things like impulsivity, recklessness. ‘Behind every good man there is a good women’, that kind of thing. If a man gets provoked, he can become all too risky. His wife can make him think again. Easy as that.
But things got very, very confused. Roles lost their definition, it got harder and harder to circumscribe what ‘male’ and ‘female’ meant, respectively. Of course, academia gave in to the new fashions. Postmodernism became all the rage, with weirdos like Derrida, Foucault, and their likes.
What was meant to ‘liberate’ people, was imprisoning them in reality. Many, many folks got afraid as a result. Weakened. Am I fulfilling the role that I am meant to fulfill? How do I fit in in the new scheme?
In fact: asking yourself if you’re playing ‘the right role’ already betrays the fact that you lost contact with your own inborn instincts. You will probably pay tens of thousands of bucks to a psychologist (the rise of doctoring yourself with psychology is a sign of decadence).
If all of this means anything, it means: the onset of decadence, and the possible downfall of a society wholesale.
We should be wary. Very, very wary.
It also means that Islam will become the predominate “religion”... Holland will fall before the US, but if this disgusting trend of feminization contiues all will fall (or rather submit).
...”If all of this means anything, it means: the onset of decadence, and the possible downfall of a society wholesale”...
Thank you for writing more than a “text message” comment on this serious topic, as so many seem to do on Freerepublic nowadays. Your remarks are very interesting and, in my opinion, right on the mark..This is one of the major irrational changes in this culture which will result in the decadence and the downfall you speak of. You cannot displace 50% of your population with forced changes which go against DNA and nature, herself, without widespread, dysfunctional consequences. In the case of the US, the feminization of men is taking down our country which means all of us. Eventually, physical strength will determine our fate, for another culture which has not feminized it’s boys, will prevail.
“Postmodernism became all the rage, with weirdos like Derrida, Foucault, and their likes”
Deconstructionism was one of the many philosophies perpetrated by French socialists like the above which added to the break down of traditional values. The roles of men and women, clearly defined in the Bible, and complementary ones at that, were challenged and ultimately redesigned by an establishment of communist leaning intellectuals who dominated the college campuses and the media. With that combination, it was difficult to retain the male attributes so necessary to maintain our culture. Most young men today, (not all of course) are no longer motivated to support families or even lead them. They have devolved into the handmaiden of their wives and girlfriends, accompanying them at the supermarket where the two of them discuss what kind of pasta they will cook that evening. Women, forever searching for a good man, sabotaged themselves by embracing feminism in the past and setting themselves up for the kind of relentless work schedule they nearly all must adhere to now. I recall attending a seminar once for a job I held. For some reason, the seminar leader was pointing out the differences between life now and what it was like in the ‘50s. In the 1950’s, her projected graph showed, nearly all married women were not employed outside the home, home sales were up, gas was cheap,etc. Now one would think that the seminar leader was presenting this with a longing glance at the past. On the contrary, her tone was sarcastic. She then showed the statistics for the modern society. Everyone working, home sales down, etc. and for some reason she thought this was great. I raised my hand and said given the upbeat statistics of 50 years earlier, what are we doing wrong? She then gave the usual response about how prejudice people were in those days, how little mobility women had, how the disabled were in institutions et al. The point is our culture was hijacked in the 60s by the leftist ideologues who had surfaced earlier in the century and didnt get their momentum until mid century. If I were to look back, it began in earnest with Lyndon Johnson’s “civil rights” programs. These socialistic ventures in actuality equated white males with racism, and thus began the process of demonization which has led to the impotency of males everywhere today. Unfortunately the remedy is not easy. We, as a people, have become too used to a dual salary and the things it buys us. New cars, new phones, computers are all purchases that have gone beyond luxury status and become necessities to most Americans. The status quo cannot remain so without two incomes. But even if we could reduce the desire for material goods significantly, the damage has already been done.
The battle is not over though. The pendulum is swinging back. There are still families that have raised their young men and women with so-called "old fashioned" morals and virtues. There is a significant segment of our youth that get it. As pointed out, just look at the valor and selflessness exhibited by most of our soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. The failure of a culture built on a rejection of the fact that we were created as male and female, very different but complementary, is quite obvious to anyone (young and old alike) who takes even a moment to reflect upon.
Also, the fact that the "old-school NAGs" (thinking it's still the 70's or something) clinging to their hate of men and masculinity are so unattractive to young women of today that we have a great openning to turn this thing around.