Any woman who would give up equal rights under the law for the ability to drink booze for free in a bar, should get herself to the nearest Betty Ford clinic immediately, and any man who would refuse to excercize good manners towards a woman unless she's his subordinate in society, needs to get himself to a psychiatric unit.
I hope really hope this isn't an example of the type of illogical thinking they're teaching in the meteorological department at Penn State University these days.
If feminism prevailed, the world would be drastically different and women wouldn't like the final result.
I suppose there are some masochistic women who wouldn't appreciate getting equal pay for equal work.
The day men and women have the same level of power is the also the day when chivalry dies.
So he's saying that men would be incapable (or at least unwilling) to behave honestly, courteously, and courageously, unless women are their subordinates. Seems to me that a world where women are treated as equals, is a hell of a lot more condusive to respect and courteousy, than if women are treated as chattle.
Many women enjoy visiting bars and having men buy them drinks in exchange for a casual conversation. It seems that after all the work women put into getting ready for a night out, they won't compromise their ability to get free alcohol for the sake of self-independence.
This assumes that many women are not only alcoholics... But even if they got equal pay for equal work, that they'd still be too poor, or too greedy, to buy their own booze.
Other women appreciate a man paying for dinner or movie tickets. But in a world where men and women see each other as equals, a man might not open his wallet and show a level of gallantry toward an intriguing woman.
Again, this is assuming all men who pay for a date's dinner, do so with the idea that they are in authority over the woman... So he's saying that women who have dinners that men pay for are basically slaves/whores.
I guess we know where his expectations lie, when he takes a gal out on a date.
Women would have to protect themselves and a lot of women would find themselves walking home alone instead of being escorted home by a man.
I thought the reason that a couteous man escorts a woman home, is because of the uncourteous bad men out there who would prey upon them. This guy seems to think that men do it because women are simply chattle to be protected.
Furthermore, in a world where women were seen as equals, across the board, women would be no more likely to be the victim of crime walking home than men are, and would not need an escort anymore than a man. And what about "safety in numbers"? No matter what gender you are when walking home at night. There are plenty of areas of various cities in which I would advise men don't walk home alone at night. Plenty of men are mugged according to the statistics I've heard.
A man's reflex to open a door for a woman would be replaced with the thought of her being comfortable enough to open the door for herself.
For pete's sake, does he really think that women need to have doors opened for them? Does he really think the reason someone would open a door for someone else is because they believe the other person to be incapable of opening a door?
I'm a woman and I open doors for people who are certainly not my subordinates! I also hold doors for plenty of people who are perfectly capable of opening a door on their own.
It's called common courteousy.
And courteousy & respect is definitely not dependent upon a patriarchal pedagogy. Indeed, good manners are fostered by a respectful environment of mutuality and equality.
If both sexes were equal, love would become awkward as well. Marriage, or even deciding who should propose or pay for the ring, would be a different experience.
The days of a husband pulling out his wife's chair would be over because men wouldn't want to risk hearing a reminder about how women can do things for themselves.
If I had a husband, who was generally respectful, treated me as an equal, and was kind & courteous, I highly doubt I would "remind" him that I could pull a chair out on my own. That's simply ridiculous.
Furthermore, one wonders why he has this phobia about being reminded that women can actually complete simple tasks on their own, that he views it as such an untenable risk.
It seems that if men and women acted as equals, dating would be pretty boring. The chemistry created between two people is not defined by strong similarities, but by the differences and struggles for power that some feminists seek to destroy.
Oh boy, now the true colours display in their full luminescence...
He's a toxic relationship junkie. A control freak. And maybe even an abuser.
Because if he's suggesting that women should be subordinates, and not equals, then any power struggle in a romantic relationship must play out with the man achieving dominance.
Unless of course he's suggesting most people want to live out their life partnerships on a perpetual battlefield, forever unto death. But that's a recipe for domestic violence... Because power struggles either play out with a dominant & a submissive, have a resolution of equality (if we're talking about healthy rational people), or they ESCALATE.
And if that's the only way some guy gets his jollies in a romantic relationship, that's pretty sick. And if he can't get his needs met through cooperation & communication, but only through force, then I have to wonder about his intelligence, talent, and skills.
I daresay that most grown adults do not view romantic relationships as a game of winners & losers, or a battle between a conquerer and someone they defeat... They view it as a partnership of cooperation.
And most intelligent, rational people don't consider love & peace to be 'boring'.
I think this guy is insulting most men. I don't think most men are egomaniacs with inferiority complexes stuck in an immature unstable mentality, who believe they can only wrest satisfaction through making someone else miserable.
There's a lot of excitement & joy to be found in life. Someone who only finds pleasure in attempting to dominate another person's life, is living a pretty narrow existence.
Where there are equal rights, there should be equal responsibilities. In a fair world, both men and women would have rifles in hand, ready challenge the enemy on the battlefield. Yet few feminists are yearning to fight wars or work blue collar jobs with long hours. Comparatively fewer women than men work grueling hours on the assembly line. Instead, many want to be key players in powerful companies or work for widely viewed media outlets where their voices can be heard.
Oh yeah, and rich white men are signing up for frontline military battle and vying for jobs in factories all the time?
This guy needs to watch Norma Rae -- a story from a time when there was even less gender equality. Heck, in some of the most sexist regions of the planet today, little girls are working in sweatshops.
Mothers nourish their children, and if these caring mothers were placed in the work force, we force traditional family standards to be the exact opposite of what they are today.
First off, this guy does realize there are women already in the work force, right?
And what's wrong with a father being nurturing? And who says women won't be in the future if they have more equality? Seems to me that's a recipe for two nurturing parents, or at least a better chance of a child having at least one nurturing parent!
We're not living in jungles & caves anymore. Sounds like this guy wants to go back to archaic times when humans lived as hunter-gatherers. I hope he realizes back then, there was no meteorology -- people did a rain dance, or predicted the season's crop success by how much the children screamed on their way to being sacraficed.
Not only do humans not have to hunt animals in the dangerous wild anymore, but the world is plenty populated... In addition, we have a space station, there's planning for a lunar station on the moon, and people hope to eventually have a mars colony, (and if human history is any indicator, it's only a matter of time before people settle on yet newer frontiers)...
So I don't think it's necessary to strictly adhere to the survival methods our species used 12,000 years ago, in order to successfully propagate.
It would be far from the truth to say that women are not entitled to have high-power positions in the work force or successful careers in the military. But in a world where feminism holds the reigns of society, we overhaul the design of the family unit, weaken the effect of feminine sexuality and introduce the possibility of having our daughters, sisters and mothers fight on the front lines and work grueling jobs.
Women are already working grueling jobs, and not even getting paid as much for them as they would if they were men. And plenty of civilian women die in war zones.
As for the "effect of feminine sexuality"... I guess this guy's saying he's incapable get turned on by a confident woman... why should that be our problem?
I'm not here to say what is right or wrong, but those who are fighting for equality need to keep in mind the changes that may occur if society adopted a true feminist perspective.
If women choose to fight for equality, they should be careful what they wish for.
That sounds like a threat to me.
Sounds to me like he's saying, "You want equal pay for equal worth? You want equal rights under the law? You don't want to let me control you? Well then I won't be nice to you, I'll be even more rude. So there." or perhaps, "You want high positions in companies and want to be my boss, well, then I hope you, your mothers & sisters die in combat."
Spoken like a true misogynist, wrapped up in a pitiful dog-eat-dog perspective of reality.
But here are some people who wrote about this column far more concisely than I have:
The Digital Collegian - Letter to the Editor - Many men supportive of feminism's ideals
To him, men and women have certain roles that must be followed or everything will fall apart... I see a world where women are treated by the content of their character and not prescribed gender roles. I see a world where relationships are based on attraction and love rather than a dance of power.
The Digital Collegian - Letter to the Editor - Feminism works toward a more perfect society
Surely you didn't mean to imply that women think free drinks are better than equal pay in your column, Scott Dimmich? .... It's OK that you forgot to mention that in places like Mexico, factories can be up to 70 percent women workers -- this is because it's such a feminist society.
Wonderblossom | Brianna Brash-Nyberg
Yup, my life sure would be horrible and meaningless if men thought I was "comfortable enough" to open doors, and if romantic relationships were characterized by, I don't know, shared values, responsibilities, and experiences instead of power struggles.
Stories and Other Things, Also
I am told that this article is not a parody, though nothing about the contents helps me to believe that this can possibly be true.
Pandagon: Nice pedestal you got there, be a shame if something happened to it
I love "chivalry"! I'd never want to see it go. Any system that allows for assholes to think they are owed at least a blow job for lowering themselves to opening your door for you is one that I would be absolutely crushed to see disappear.
Since I have never, ever opened a door for myself, I have to wonder--is that more or less difficult than hauling the laundry baskets or huge bags of groceries for myself?
Someone tell G. Gordon Liddy that his women with guns pinup calendar is shrinking the testicles of undergrads at Penn State. Pandagon: Of doors and the holding of them
Why this topic holds such fascination is hard to say, but I am going to venture that it has a lot to do with the eternal semantic question of what is arbitrary and what is loaded with meaning--is holding a door open for someone mere politeness or a rude indication that you think the person is helpless and/or your social inferior? After my article the other day, a number of people have pointed out what should be blatantly obvious, that holding open doors hasn't been a gendered custom in god knows how long.
I hope this opinion column haunts Scott Dimmich long enough for him to 'complete his education' & join us in the 21st century, before he attempts to practice (his particularly screwy version of) the patriarchal pedagogy on who knows what victims.
Considering that women do not have equal rights in most, if not all, of the countries on earth now and they are subject to spousal abuse, discrimination and sexual harrassment in the workplace, rape (including some rapes by their booze buying dates) and a host of other indignaties, I would be willing to sacrific having men hold doors, pull out chairs and pay for my dinner if universal equal rights would help stop some of the other horrors women have to put up with.
Posted by Georjean | Tuesday 15 November 2005 9:17PM
Ya know, I went to PSU many a year ago, and even then, they would frequently have the "anachronistic oddball dude" editorial in the Collegian. (And if memory serves me, it was usually a guy.) I could never tell if it was an attempt at being "fair and balanced" or an intentional Red Herring editorial to drive letters to the editor.
Clearly, whatever it was, the tradition lives on...
Posted by mergenow | Tuesday 15 November 2005 10:25PM
Georjean: Oh, I know, as if door holding is such a pivotal issue. haha!!
But what's worse is that a guy would actually use that as a threat, to withhold that, if you demand to not be subject to sexual harrassment or you want the right to vote. Who taught that guy manners, I wonder, because it seems he thinks of them as a tool rather than a courteousy!
Posted by Chloe | Tuesday 15 November 2005 11:59PM
mergenow: Well I did hear that there's a feminist group on PSU campus, that has been under fire from, I think, national Republican groups of some type.
I can see how you would think they would publish this as an oddball thing to get, naturally, letters to the editor in outrage.
This guy certainly isn't helping conservatives' stand. Most of the things he said were either false (like the junk about women not working in factories), or just dumb (like saying that ladies would be loathe to part with free drinks or someone pulling out a chair for them).
Posted by Chloe | Wednesday 16 November 2005 3:34AM
That Penn-State kid is a sad figure. Seriously. Unfortunately, he will most likely go through life thinking the way he does. I see many signs of intellectual stagnation in his article.
Posted by Heo Cwaeth | Wednesday 16 November 2005 6:37PM
Heo Cwaeth: Yeah, some people on Pandagon thread seemed to think he would 'grow out of it' or something, once he'd had some experience with women...
But I worry... the fact that there are tons of so-called educated men abusing their wives, leads me to think that's not necessarily true.
Sadly, there seem to be a lot of women who will put up with that sort of mentality from men, and plenty of people who sit in that mire of ignorance, so that there's never any real necessity for them to learn much or leave that stagnation.
But that's why I think it's important to keep on opposing this sort of thing. To say nothing, I feel, would be to support it.
Posted by Chloe | Thursday 17 November 2005 6:42AM
Comment Avatar icons by Gravatar.
E-mail addresses are required, but not displayed nor shared.
Please post comments relevant to this page only. For off-topic comments, questions, and discussion, please use this site's Message Board Forum. All comments posted that are spam, abusive, use phoney e-mail, or that do not relate directly to the page, will be removed.
Thank you for respecting this site, author & readers, and for helping stem the flow of ridiculously inaccurate hits from search engines.
superficiality >>If the facade is what's important to you, all you wind up with is an illusion. Disillusionment is the gift of substance.
-- Chloe<<
(more)
-- a story from a time when there was even less gender equality. Heck, in some of the most sexist regions of the planet today, little girls are working in sweatshops.
Considering that women do not have equal rights in most, if not all, of the countries on earth now and they are subject to spousal abuse, discrimination and sexual harrassment in the workplace, rape (including some rapes by their booze buying dates) and a host of other indignaties, I would be willing to sacrific having men hold doors, pull out chairs and pay for my dinner if universal equal rights would help stop some of the other horrors women have to put up with.
Ya know, I went to PSU many a year ago, and even then, they would frequently have the "anachronistic oddball dude" editorial in the Collegian. (And if memory serves me, it was usually a guy.) I could never tell if it was an attempt at being "fair and balanced" or an intentional Red Herring editorial to drive letters to the editor.
Georjean: Oh, I know, as if door holding is such a pivotal issue. haha!!
That Penn-State kid is a sad figure. Seriously. Unfortunately, he will most likely go through life thinking the way he does. I see many signs of intellectual stagnation in his article.
