Which is it? Are women “strong”? Or can they be crushed by fears of a permanent bad hair day and inspired by something as superficial as Hollywood fashion? Given the amount of time and money that most women spend on applying makeup, blow-drying their hair, shopping for clothes, and gullibly attending to preposterous wrinkle-cream ads in women’s magazines, Angier’s claim that girls could be thwarted by a TV comedy is not wholly unreasonable. It just happens to contradict the usual feminist claim that women are just as tough as men.
The evidence to date suggests that the highest-level math skills—those required for research physics—aren’t evenly distributed among men and women. Men greatly outnumber women at the very highest and lowest ends of the mathematics aptitude curve. As Christina Hoff Sommers has documented, men also show greater interest in abstract, non-empathetic careers than women. Of course, the conflicting demands of raising a family and pursuing pure science undoubtedly influence women’s career paths as well. If scientific pursuit can be made more family-friendly without in any way damaging its essential strengths, such changes should be contemplated. But the fertility clock and women’s greater involvement with their babies are not chauvinist plots; they are biological realities....
Reality? Today's swooning, sissy feminists don't need no stinkin' reality--especially biological reality.
Siggy has this to say about the 'culture wars' raging over gender:
One of the great ‘culture wars’ of the last century has been fought over gender identity. Differences in human biology were minimized or eradicated entirely. There is entire generation that has been taught that what is good for men is good for women and what is good for women is good for men. As a result, the reality that men and women have different needs is ignored. What separates men and women, according to the cultural dogma 0f this western new world order, is gender as defined by sexual organs only.
There are of course, other truths....
In defining humankind with a one size fits all parameter, popular culture has unfairly put an onerous burden on women.
We understand the qualities that define adulthood and maturity are many, not the least of which are independent and autonomous thinking, logical thinking and responsible actions and behaviors. These are masculine traits. They are measured and played out on a level playing field.
Women have become trapped by current culture.
Well, not only have women become trapped by the new rules, jublantly laid down by the feminists of today, but men have also been 'liberated' from their traditional roles:
Many men simply don’t feel the need to grow up because women have quite plainly said they don’t need or value men. “You say you can take care of yourselves? Fantastic! I’m gonna go invent computer games and play them for as long as I want.”
So, women indulged in a gigantic fit of self-indulgence and selfishness, which they are still very much involved in, and along comes not just one woman (you), but many of them, calling upon men to engage in the self-sacrifice of yesteryear, while at the same time, retaining all of their newfound privilege, comfort, self-determination, and yes, power, both over themselves (fair) and men (not quite so fair). Don’t like your husband? Divorce him and don’t worry about it. The law will ensure that he still does his 18th century duties; and you’ll still get the kids. Not quite feeling fulfilled enough? Drop your kids at day care without a thought to their welfare and go get it.
And, lest you think all this narcissistic emphasis on 'self-fulfillment'--at the expense of responsibility-- has not had a profound effect on the worldview of our children, you need to read this about 'generation sex':
The sexualisation of our young is ubiquitous: boys caught cheating on their girlfriends on mobile phones, ritual humiliation and worse by YouTube (In February 2008, a gang of London teenagers aged 14-16 drugged and raped a woman in front of her children and then posted the film of the attack, videoed on a mobile phone, on YouTube), television programmes like Sex And The City with man-eating Samantha as the living embodiment of casual libidinous sex, all provide the back projection to our children’s lives.
Instant fame is all. In today’s celebrity culture, no one cares how you made your name, as long as you’ve made it; there’s no distinction between fame and notoriety.
Do you really want things that you’ve done when drunk to be plastered all over the internet?
These images are like puppies; they’re not just for Christmas, they’re for life.
Would the 13-year-old girl administering oral sex in a London garden have done so if she’d fully considered the possible repercussions of the video the boy was taking of her?
I do not think that this was what most feminists had in mind at the beginning of the last century when they marched for women's rights. Yet, that is the reality.
In the beginning of that century, feminist intellectuals argued that women need NOT be victims or second-class citizens; that they were free to choose and live up to the best within themselves. In a free country, women should have the same opportunities as men and be judged not on their gender, but on their merit and capabilities.
And then the intellectually bankrupt marxist/leftist ideology infected the women's movement.
The good news is that the early women’s movement was instrumental in mobilizing and encouraging women (such as myself) to reach for the stars. One small measure of the success of that movement is that most medical school classes today are >50% or more composed of women! There is no systematic discrimination any more that keeps women out of medicine. Women are in every medical specialty. They have become presidents of universities and professional societies; deans of medical schools and chairwomen of departments. This is really wonderful. And these gains have been made in almost every profession and area of human endeavor.
The bad news is that the leftist feminists could not accept that the mission had been mostly accomplished because they were too invested in the same old marxist "oppressor/oppressed" template that has obsessed the political left throughout the 20th century. The strategy then shifted from encouraging women to reach for the stars, to injustice collecting; denigrating men; and most importantly maintaining women's special and priviliged victimhood status. One of the most despicable consequences of this has been to encourage the cultural denial of the 'biological realities' of gender; and to aggressively pretend that there are no important differences between men and women--and if there are it is because women are being oppressed.
It's hard to determine the biggest losers of this narcissistic and delusional victimhood scam, but I vote for the children.
Today women who want to become professionals--or do anything for that matter--can do it--including becoming wives and mothers if they choose. They have achieved equality of opportunity and little stands in their way except their own choices. The war has long been won and women have all the opportunity anyone could desire; but for some reason, the diehard leftist feminists continue to battle on, quivering with outrage that there is still no equality of outcome . They seem to be enraged at the fact that men are really different from women and that, when it comes to biology and physiology, there is no equality of outcome. There is only reality.
The main justification for the existence of the women’s movement these days is to support and expand the cult of victimhood that has been created for women. The justification for bashing men and undermining traditional roles is to maintain the cult and promote their socialist agenda which long ago replaced any agenda driven by the concerns of ordinary women.
Is it any wonder that both women and men have been shortchanged (gang-raped, might be a good term to describe it) by the angry, screeching feminists of today's women's movement, who now answer to their neo-marxist masters and are determined to usher in the Caliphate of the X Chromosome. Submit to leftist feminization or they will will feel horribly, terribly bad. They might even swoon. But even worse than that, they will get pissy and make your life quite miserable.
MacDonald goes on:
Obama has indeed presented himself as a science president. Rejecting feminist propaganda, however belatedly, regarding sexism in science would be a strong start in justifying that title. In the meantime, stay tuned for the latest twist in feminists’ contradictory—dare one say, irrational?—apologetics.
Maybe Obama should discuss the issue with the head of his National Economic Council, who has some experience dealing with [post]modern feminism's hysteria and obsession with victimhood. These days, though, the victimhood con is a powerful force in society; and it has spread outwards from the women's movement to infect all other groups aspiring to power. There is even an approved victimhood heirarchy or 'food chain' to determine whose victimhood has priority over others'.
The sorry result of this has been the slow but steady deterioration of the family and personal responsibility. Instead there has been a new culture of narcissism and entitlement that has risen to take center stage.
And the feminist roar has become a constant, shrill whine.
EARTH TO TODAY'S FEMINISTS: WE WILL SURVIVE (Without You)
We were oppressed,
Our souls distressed
We kept hearing we must always
Let our lives be male-possessed...
But then we thought about that meme
and understood that it was wrong,
So we grew strong
We were women and we roared!
But now-a-days
It's pretty weird
Cause our movement's sure has gone around the bend,
becoming itself what we once feared.
We should have never burned our bras;
We should have kicked Marx out the door--
If we had only known that feminism
Symbolized the victim-whore.
We've got Camille and Brittany
And swooning gently
Is Harvard's female faculty
who are now the ones who cannot bear to hear the truth
So they just crumble
And react hysterically;
But we are women--
And we'll survive
as long as we keep growing
We know we'll stay alive
We've got real lives to live
We've moved on--that's what they can't forgive
But we'll survive...
We will survive
It took all the strength we had
To break glass ceilings;
We just showed them all our stuff
And used our brains and not our feelings.
Once we spent oh so many nights
just feeling sorry for ourselves;
We used to cry,
Now we can hold our heads up high.
And we grew up
empowered and quite strong
Not the foolish little women
who thought NOW could do no wrong.
Today you play the victim card
and can't stand we're truly free:
We left you many years ago
To be all that we could be.
We will survive.
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