Posted on 09/12/2005 10:21:53 PM PDT by goldstategop
I don't think the issue here is so much "feminine" vs. "masculine" qualities, as it is personality type, Myers-Briggs style.
In the Myers-Briggs system, people are sorted into 4 different categories: Introvert/extrovert, sensing/intuitive, judgemental/perceptive, thinker/feeler. People are born with these types. On the last, something like 65% of women are "feelers" rather than "thinkers." Men tend to be thinkers rather than feelers. With my particular personality type (sensing, judgemental, thinking), I'm in a group that contains more men than women, and I just plain don't have those godawful "feminine" qualities. I think a lot of early socialization is geared towards encouraging young girls to be more "feminine."
Liberalism and feminism take advantage of feelers, by pitching a very emotional (but factually empty) message, and by discouraging the use of logic and reason.
Perhaps because Mr. Prager is not a Christian, he does not seem to recognize that compassion is not a feeling - it is an action. Sympathy is a feeling, and it doesn't hurt anything, particularly, but it doesn't do anything, either. The Good Samaritan in the parable did not cry over the injured man's condition; he took practical steps, using his own resources, to ameliorate the injury.
This is the true example for Christian compassion ... not feeling sorry for someone and demanding the government do something to make you feel better about the situation ... or (even more useless) demanding that the President validate your feelings by expressing similar ones on TV ... but getting your own money out (if necessary)or getting your hands dirty to help restore a needy person to self-sufficiency.
I suppose Mr. Prager would say I'm a man, huh?
Indeed cherry. Good points all.
I'm certainly no expert either ,however ,it seems to me that rather than (or along with) taking on certain traits of the opposite sex,people are expressing less restraint on more base emotions.
"...The only reason we let you hang around is out of sympathy"
LOL I think that often and thank God for my missus!
God bless
Well, all the berries agree with each other.
I understand your points.
I believe what Prager was talking about was the feminization of the power structure in modern society, and not saying much about those who are governed.
The laws and rules that help to regulate society are those of a more parental (or feminine) nature, increasingly so. Perhaps this change began in the US with the ascendency of the "New Deal" politics, that asked less of society, and tried to solve the immediate problems for the people; and it's been a snowball down a hill ever since. Europeans have been at the progressive/welfare well for longer.
However, I believe there's been a trade-off made, in society at large, to enable this kind of change. In exchange for a more feminized government, regular people have taken license to be more infantile, and yes, masculine too (both men and women).
This is why a good percentage of the population believes that their personal liberties and individuality are being threatened by conservative politics and initiatives. If you cede your responsibility to an overarching central government, you gain "autonomy" to act more irresponsible. To change the nature of government is to ask libertines to appreciate their liberty more, and to take more care of themselves every day, and for the long term.
Isn't he denigrating feminine traits in "macro" sphere of society, whereas it belongs in the "micro"?
Interesting and thought-provoking post.
Actually he is. I'm being logical in pointing out his hypocrisy.
Most people attending Catholic services are women. And women are mostly responsible to decide whether or not to bring up their children in the Church.
I'd say the Church was "feminized" a long time ago.
You've pointed out nothing. You've made a claim with substantiation.
I am familiar with Mr. Prager's views on the subject:
1.)Men and women are innately psychologically different.
2.)These differences are important, and are complimentary on a micro level. Fatherly love and motherly love are different, each being vital to the raising of children.
3.)The feminine nurturing traits have permeated society, to its detriment.
Nowhere does he denigrate feminine traits, which he considers necessary to the survival of the species and the civilization of men. Everything in its place.
BTW, before I am deluged with examples of nuturing men and aggressive women, I will acknowledge that there are degrees and exceptions to every generalization. That does not make the generalization false, no matter what you learned in college.
Men and women are different. Period.
As a result of the repudiation of Judeo-Christian values, we are witnessing the ascendance of the feminine in Western society.
First of all, if the feminine is NOT something bad then why is this a problem? (Prager's thesis is that this is a problem). Secondly, CHRISTian values are based on the life of Christ ... and more than one scholar has noted that Jesus touted "feminine" values ... empathy, compassion, etc.
Judeo-Christian values do not conflate equality with sameness. But the Left rejects any suggestion of innate diference. And the truth is that men and women are profoundly different.
This is true. But it does not support his thesis, that the ways in which women are different from men are detrimental to society.
One of these differences is that women generally have a more difficult time transcending their emotions than men.
OK, I don't believe this, but even assuming it is true, why is this a problem? Remember, he is saying that the "feminine" is detrimental to society.
There are, of course, millions of individual women -- such as Margaret Thatcher -- who are far more rational than many men; but that only makes these women's achievements all the more admirable.It hardly invalidates the proposition.
OK, so according to him, Thatcher's achievements are admirable because they mirror Prager's preconceived "male" values. Margaret Thatcher cannot be admirable in any other way, except to imitate MALE values (according to Prager's genderization of values).
Far more common than Margaret Thatcher's rationality was the emotionality of the women jurors in the Menendez brothers' trials. ....
"Male" values good ... "female" values bad (again, according to Prager's assignation of gender to values). So even if you accept his gender associations ... female ones are
"detrimental".
To say that the human race needs masculine and feminine characteristics is to state the obvious.
Well, OK, sure. I agree. But why does he keep assigning mostly negative adjectives to female characteristics?
But each sex comes with prices. Men can too easily lack compassion, reduce sex to animal behavior and become violent. And women's emotionality, when unchecked, can wreak havoc on those closest to these women and on society as a whole -- when emotions and compassion dominate in making public policy. The latter is what is happening in America.
I disagree. But even if he is correct, why is it his so-called "female" values which are wreaking havoc on sociey as a whole"?
Doesn't much sound like Prager has a high opinion of female characteristics to me. The high crime rate alone would assume the opposite by Prager's thesis. And what about all the crimes in immigrant Muslim communities in Europe (Muslim communities are "male dominant" communities) and terrorist worldwide? I guess in Prager's book this are small problems?
The Left has been successful in supplanting masculine virtues with feminine ones.
OK now we're getting somewhere ... Left values vs. Right values ... but WAIT .... according to Prager the evil Left represents female values.
A sentiment such as "War is not the answer" embodies leftist feminine emotionality. The statement is, after all, utter nonsense, as many of the greatest evils -- from Nazi totalitarianism and genocide to slavery -- were quite effectively "answered" by war. (Virtually every car I ever have seen display the bumper sticker "War is not the answer" was driven by a woman.)
Here we go again. Women are "emotional" and make statements of "utter nonsense". Well what about all the men who are anti-war? What about all the women who are pro-war? And how does he know who put the sticker on the car? This is his evidence? Bumper stikers on cars to support your thesis ? ... talk about your "utter nonsense". .... why if I didn't know better I'd think a irrational woman wrote that bit of Prager's piece. :)
In the micro realm, the feminine virtues are invaluable -- for example, women hear infants' cries far more readily than men do. But as a basis for governance of society, the feminization of public policy is suicidal.
Why? If we are equally important, why are female (according to Prager) values "suicidal"
That is one reason our schools are in trouble. They are increasingly run by women -- women with female thinking moreover.
Here we go again ... female thinking = schools "in trouble". But wait ... what are all those logical, rational males doing? Why, they're letting those irrational, emotional women run the schools !!!! What are they thinking? Males better get their rational selves over to the schoolhouse and take over, no? I mean, it's only logical, if women are putting the schools at risk, naturally the more logical rational males would be over there in a flash replacing all the women right?
In a masculine society governed by Judeo-Christian values ... feminine virtues are adored and honored.
Based on Prager's choice of words and examples in this article, let's just say I have some very serious doubts about that.
And wait a minute there ... in Islamic countries (whcih are masculine governed socieities) the feminine isn't exactly "adored and honored" ... unless he means "honor murders".
Prager has made a convincing case, just not the one he set out to make with this article.
The womens movement has turned into a far left commie pinko outfit ...
This article isn't about the women's movement .. it is about all women. They are not the same thing.
Cause and effect. Things will get back to normal sooner or later.
Not all, just women in general. It's not the same thing.
Over and over he uses negative adjectives when discussing (by his reckoning) feminine values. This is a clear give-away that he adds positive value to male traits and negative value to female traits.
Men and women ARE different. But by valueing the differences in such stark possitive/negative terms, he devalues the the feminine (again by his reckoning not mine) values.
Over and above that, his assigning of sex to values is blatantly weighted to support his (good/bad, admirable/suicidal, helpful/harmful, rational/emotional etc. choose any one of Prager's adjectives) preconceptions ... in other words, circular reasoning.
He is also choosing to deny individuals their due individualtiy and instead appling the "collective" thinking of the very people he opposes (the Liberal Left). By Prager's own logic .. he is female!
Not at all, he is merely using generalizations. Individual exceptions, contrary to what is taught in college, do not invalidate generalizations. Without generalizations, we can discuss nothing.
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