"Feminism is the radical notion that women are adults."
The
problem in America is that we treat women like they are part
child, part adult.
That's really, really it.
Too many Americans see women as "Adults
Lite" or "Children Plus" and it is reflected in the way we employ them, use them in our
armies, punish them when they commit crimes and mourn when they are
abused.
As
a society, we abhor men who sexually abuse young girls and boys. We
somehow see women who do the same thing as slightly less culpable. I
think this is similar to the way that we see less harm in a 19-year-old
man having "consensual" sex with his 17-year old girlfriend than we do a
40-year-old man and a "consenting" 17-year-old girl.
Why do we do this? Sex with an under-age
child is harmful to them no matter the age of the perpetrator, right?
Not exactly. We think of that 19-year-old man as more of a child than
the 40-year-old. And we certainly don't think a crime has necessarily been committed
when 14-year-olds have consensual sex with each other, right?
Well, what's more child-like than a
19-year-old man? A 19-year-old woman. That's part of the reason why
society doesn't care as much when an older woman has sex with an
underage boy.
You could even make the case for eye makeup that embiggens their eyes
and hairless bodies as the ideal vision of female beauty being tied to
the childization of women.
(Yes, I just
used two words that aren't words in one sentence. But you knew what I
meant, didn't you? That's right. Deal with it.)
Hell, we even have a federal organization named "Women, Infants & Children."
I
think this ties into one of the biggest problems facing Feminism today.
The effort that has been put into getting women the right to vote and
into the workplace has been crucial for women to physically, financially
and legally "leave the nest" of child-like status when they were passed
from parents to husband for custodial care hundreds of years ago.
But
now, women are permitted the benefits of adulthood without many of the
societal expectations and responsibilities we expect of adult men.
Women are still:
Able to avoid parental responsibilities via abortion, adoption or abandonment
Able to sidestep military drafts via exclusion from selective service
Able to sidestep career "duties" via relative ease of being a housewife
Able to sidestep or mitigate criminal sentences
Don't get me wrong: women being excluded from voting and employment opportunities are not the only ways that women have been and still are harmed
by this mentality. Those were just the most egregious and
systematic/institutionalized issues. Women still have many issues to
deal with today - just add Jezebel to your daily reading and you'll be
bombarded with (mostly) valid issues.
That
said, there are certain benefits to being a woman today in the same way
that there are things that are pretty awesome about being a kid
(assuming you're not in an abusive home.) I think Feminists think that
these "benefits" to being a woman either A) aren't really benefits at
all or B) think they'll go away on their own as Feminism grows in
popularity.
It
is especially apparent when feminists stand up for women accused of
crimes. They may outright defend them or may look for reasons
(systematic/gendered or otherwise) to excuse their behavior. This is
blatant childization of women. We do the same thing when a child is
accused of a horrific crime - "What kind of home did they grow up in?
Were they being abused? Were there drugs involved?" We excuse and
mitigate the consequences of the behavior of juveniles because they are
less developed than adults.
When you do it with women, you're saying
the same thing. You're saying they're less culpable for their actions
because they are "less developed." It's bullshit and I've only seen a
few feminists speak up about this.
And that's why I butt heads with Feminists. Women have been committing crimes for the entire length of humanity because people commit
crimes. Men, women and children, too. We are all human beings - animals
with great intelligence, capability for good and evil acts and an
incredible knack for adapting to our environments.
It
makes sense for women to who are enjoying the recently-earned benefits
of full adulthood to fail to recognize the increased responsibilities
that come with that position. It's called a "catch." And right now, men
are the ones primarily being caught by it.
To
those of us wishing to change our environment - socially or politically
- we'd best not forget the animals we're dealing with: Apes that want
to get the most reward for the least effort. It's in our programming.
Nice post.
ReplyDeleteI think you need to abandon the abortion-as-birth-control argument because that’s more biological reality than anything else. As far as abandonment/adoption goes, it’s assumed that the woman had a valid reason to abandon the child, unlike a man who does it on a whim. A teenage girl is almost universally considered to be more mature and reliable than a boy her age. That’s adult-perfect rather than adult-lite in operation.
As far as violent crime goes, a female perpetrator is considered such an aberration that something awful must have happened to cause her to snap like that. Again, more like pedestaling women as a group rather than infantalization. Same with any issue where women are behind men. SAT-math, that’s because the test is sexist. SAT-writing, that’s fine because it is the natural order of things.
I was always told growing up that girls are more "mature" than boys. That is why I never questioned the fact that I often observed younger women with older men--and I'm not even counting Hugh Hefner in this one--more like your example of the 17 year old with the 19 year old. Then I was told that my observations occurred because of something called "female hypergamy." At least that's what the manosphere guys say....
ReplyDeleteGreat stuff, I'm bookmarking this in my resources folder on responses to feminism.
ReplyDeleteHello there.
ReplyDeleteI really don't appreciate being publicly slandered as a "misogynist", and I especially don't appreciate your pals at NSWATM silencing my calm, civil response to your malicious accusation through censorship.
Just wanted to let you know!
Everything point you make is better explained if you posit that women are treated like royalty, not children.
ReplyDeleteIt is especially apparent when feminists stand up for women accused of crimes. They may outright defend them or may look for reasons (systematic/gendered or otherwise) to excuse their behavior. This is blatant childization of women. We do the same thing when a child is accused of a horrific crime - "What kind of home did they grow up in? Were they being abused? Were there drugs involved?" We excuse and mitigate the consequences of the behavior of juveniles because they are less developed than adults.
ReplyDeleteIf you go to a feminist website and check a post on false rape accusations, it will almost invariably be couched in terms of how how such accusations make it more difficult for the real accusations, with almost no concern for the actual men accused, or condemnation of the false accuser. Feministe's post actually went so far as to argue that the Duke Rape accuser was actually raped based on little more than the fact that most rape accusations are correct, and complained about people subjecting her to the same treatment her accusers had been getting for almost a year.