Discrimination Against Men–Claims Of Universal Misogyny

Hillary Clinton, running for President in 2016 made her sex an issue.  The fact that she was the first woman to run for the office was beside the point, lost in her radical feminist attacks on men.  Although her slams were aimed at Donald Trump - a sexist, woman-hating, abusive misogynist – women understand that she is taking up the cudgel against all men who, no different from Trump, harbor and  express their disdain, disregard, and dismissal of women.

The animus is understandable and predictable, women say.  Little boys are treated differently and specially.  They are given sexual license while little girls are taught to be demure, chaste, and complaisant.  Boys’ sexual enthusiasm is dismissed as ‘boys will be boys’ but any sign of girls’ flirtation or ‘come hither’ suggestions are disciplined.

It is quite natural for boys to grow up as crude, undisciplined misogynists. How in a sexist world and within male-favoring families could they possibly be otherwise?

Today’s woman has had enough.  She has suffered  slights, sexual innuendo, unwanted advances, and sexual abuse her whole life, and it is time to put a stop to it.



Political women today like Mrs. Clinton before them understand the zeitgeist of America.  Men are on the run everywhere.  Universities accept all women’s claims of sexual impropriety, and deny the accused men of due process.  College administrators create safe spaces for women to isolate them from their predatory male classmates.  Threatening gestures, words, looks, and insinuations are considered potentially abusive, and men are schooled in how to behave with women so not to give even the slightest intimation of offense.

Women, say an increasing number of men concerned with both the judicial process and their integrity and status as males, have been given free rein.  How they dress, no matter how provocative, is considered their own business.  If it arouses men, that’s men's problem.  They must wait in the wings until called.  Girls can drink as much as they want without concern for consequences.  If they consent to a sexual encounter under the influence of alcohol which they might not have if sober, they have been compromised.  Women can act with impunity, this growing number of men contend, while men are always under suspicion.



If this is not a heating up of the war between the sexes, nothing is.  The fact that women label all men as potential rapists is as slanderous and pernicious a discrimination as any.  Discrimination is defined as “the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, especially on the grounds of race, age, or sex”.  In women’s blanket assumption about male behavior, are they not discriminating against a category or class of Americans as a Southern racist might blacks?

Women’s sexual discrimination shares another unfortunate trait with the racial variety – innateness.  The racist condemns all black people because they are innately inferior; and the female sexist condemns all men because of what she sees as their innate, genetically-programmed, inescapable abusive behavior.

Most women and men share none of these discriminatory feelings.  Women understand that men have pursued them aggressively for a million years; and that women have been reluctant, diffident, and dismissive in response.  Taking on all comers would be tantamount to throwing survival to the winds; and up till recently, women have always played this careful, selective role.

Strong, confident women today know that there are far too many men who cannot manage their sexual drives; and who, instead of solving the puzzle of women’s desire, turn violent; and are on the lookout.  Women’s radar is highly attuned to the boor and dismiss him easily.  They pick up negativism, frustration, and crossed wires, and move on quickly.



In other words, they understand men – what makes them tick, their strengths and weaknesses, and how they can be led.  They are careful to avoid situations where boors can turn nasty.  They know that despite feminist manifestos, provocative dress and sexual flirtation can indeed lead to unwanted sexual advances; and have learned when and how to behave to get what they want and deter what they don’t.

All men talk dirty, always have, always will.  Savvy women understand men’s boasting, braggadocio, and lewdness; and know that it derives from three sources – male libido which forces men to think about sex all the time; competition; and sexual insecurity.

Men are  obsessed with sexual conquest, anxious to best all competitors, but timid and unsure around women.  They talk big in the locker room, share stories of sexual adventures, ogle pictures of naked women, and puff, prance, and strut; but cannot seem to find the gumption to make the first move.
Knowing this, savvy women dismiss the talk as silly sexual ineptness, use the poison-tipped, ego-deflating feminine rapier to deflate all ignorant comers, and clear the way for those few confident, admiring, appreciative suitors who get them.

Strong, confident men understand that women raised in patriarchal families respond to men like Daddy – unquestioning love, kindness, support, and admiration.  These men know that the way to a woman’s heart is to reflect Daddy.  Patience, respect, interest, and courtesy are not only good general social skills but the unequivocal keys to sexual conquest.

These men know that even in an age of sexual freedom, women are offended by sexual ineptness.  An arm around a woman’s shoulders at the wrong moment is inappropriate, but at the right moment a sign of affection and interest.  Women have always been the arbiters of physical intimacy; and all but the most obtuse or disturbed men respond accordingly.

The reason why the war between the sexes, usually a stalemate, has gone out of kilter is because of the current progressive demands for recognition, retribution, and compensation regarding race, gender, and ethnicity.  In an era of such universal reform, the sanctity and identity of each aggrieved group is tantamount.  Rights and privileges not enjoyed by the majority will be awarded to the minority until balance has been reestablished or achieved.



Men, white people, and Anglos need to back off while minority grievances are redressed and social equilibrium is restored.

Normal sexual relations have been interrupted by ‘No Means No’ and the legal processing that must occur before any male advances.  An inept gesture of hope and interest (the arm around the shoulder) is not dismissed as such but decried as abusive groping.  In such a climate a focus on actual, real, indefensible sexual aggression risks being blurred.

Resolution to any conflict becomes more difficult when one side intractably assumes the moral ground.  Not only does such sanctimony hinder any understanding and mediation, it fuels resentment, anger, and hatred on the other side.   More whites have negative feelings about blacks the more groups like Black Lives Matter make unrealistic demands based on questionable evidence.   More men resent women in this environment of universal condemnation and calumny than before.

Strong women have always managed the most difficult of men.  The fictional defiant heroines of Ibsen, Strindberg, and Shakespeare – Hedda Gabler, Rebekka West, Laura, Miss Julie, Gertrude, Margaret, Goneril, Regan, and Volumnia – were more than a match for their weak, errant husbands; and negotiated the patriarchal societies of Victorian Europe and Elizabethan England with ease and dispatch.  Did anyone worry about Golda Meir, Margaret Thatcher, or Indira Gandhi?

Or Mary Callahan Erdoes, CEO J.P. Morgan Asset Management; Abigail Johnson, CEO Fidelity Investment; Marie Chandoha, CEO Charles Schwab; or Charlotte McLaughlin, President and CEO, PNC Capital Markets?

It is to these women – strong, self-assured, aggressive, smart, and savvy – that feminists should turn as examples of women who have – like Shakespeare’s historical heroines – navigated the treacherous waters of male dominion with conviction and aplomb.  Young women who are brought up to believe that they are victims, that the enemy is everywhere, and that they need and deserve protection can never become strong and self-assured.  The world is a dangerous, tricky place, and only the fittest survive – true for politics and true for mating.

It is encouraging to see that the tide may be turning slightly.  Conservative activists have challenged progressive reasoning and have insisted that university administrators re-calibrate the scales of justice and encouraged men not to take allegations without defense.

Male students on campus have for too long, they argue been asked to give up their rights to due process in the name of exposing predatory, abusive behavior.  Women, even those with questionable claims, have been encouraged to speak out because they have for so long been forced to remain silent.

Everyone in America seems to be warring with someone else as identity politics takes its toll.  Yet, given the long-overdue rise of women to political and corporate power, perhaps the inflamed and discriminatory rhetoric against men can be quieted as women begin to assume more responsibility for their own fate.

To be sure, the world is a dangerous place; and the erosion of traditional morals seems epidemic.  Crime of all kinds is endemic and growing in many areas. Women especially need to be particularly wary of criminal assault; and the full force of the law should be leveled on those convicted of it.  At the same time, the world that most of us inhabit is not so dangerous or fraught with threat.  We deal with bullies, jerks, dopes, and assholes all the time.  We learn to sort them and toss them overboard and move on.  This is the normal world of men and women.

Radical Populism, And The Decline Of Democratic Liberalism–A Post-Election Scenario

As of this writing (10.23.16) it seems likely that Hillary Clinton will be elected President of the United States; but this in no way means that Donald Trump or his radical populism will disappear.  On the contrary, it will grow.  The anger, resentment, and frustration of the electorate with the Washington establishment and the collusion, corruption, manipulation, and arrogation of power it has come to represent are too virulent to fade away after November 8th.  In fact it is more likely that the movement will coalesce, be strengthened by a new Tea Party-like coalition in both House and Senate, and energized by Trump himself who, on a new media platform (his proposed new network), will be as outrageously honest as he has been during the campaign.

This emergence of a disaffected electorate in the United States is not new and parallels the rise of Putin and Neo-Imperial Russia, authoritarian but hyper-productive China, Duterte and the popular acclaim for extra-judicial governance, the rise of Muslim separatism and Islamic orthodoxy, and the ascendency of the Right in Europe.


                                www.mendaily.com

Traditional liberal democracy is being questioned more than ever not only in the Middle East where God, not the State, is considered the final arbiter of all things spiritual and secular but in Russia and China whose leaders refuse to compromise their autocratic rule for the sake of democratic traditions.

Since Deng Xiaoping opened China to the world economy and geopolitical arena, the country has grown rapidly.  GDP growth has been in the double digits for more than a decade, and tens of millions of Chinese have been raised out of poverty.  This accelerated economic growth and concomitant political power have come at what the West considers an unacceptable price – inflexible restrictions of civil liberties.  Yet China has refused to capitulate to demands for reform and in no way wants the divisive, corrosive, democratic chaos of today’s America.  Socio-economic development is too important, Chinese officials state, for political debate and ethnic separatism to get in the way.


                                       www.biografieonline.it

Vladimir Putin has rejected the concept of the nation-state and is redrawing old boundaries according to the demands of Russian ethnic nationalism.  Putin has annexed Crimea and maintains de facto control of Eastern Ukraine.  He has made his intentions perfectly clear – to reconstitute a strong, ethnically united, militarily and economically powerful Russia which rejects integration within Europe or a peaceful and complaisant relationship with the West.

President Duterte in the Philippines has rejected the United States’ call for moderation and respect for the rule of law and continued his extrajudicial war against drug trafficking.  As a result he has an approval rating of over 80 percent.  His forthrightness, political honesty, and commitment to radical reform are applauded.  The ends justify the means.

Right-wing parties are in their ascendancy in Europe after repeated terrorist attacks and a flood of Muslim migrants.  France, always a champion of the rights of man, secularism, and justice has imposed an extended state of emergency, a measure close to martial law.  Individual rights are abrogated in a campaign to expunge all traces of foreign and native-born terrorism.  It has become more defiant than ever concerning secularism, forcing increasingly fundamentalist Muslim communities to abandon certain religious expressions and practices.  Scandinavia, once considered the model of European socialism and equality, has turned its back on this storied past and found multiculturalism corrosive and dangerous.



Only America persists in its commitment to progressivism and the role of the state in mitigating if not resolving social problems and promoting economic growth.  Yet because of the growth of radical liberalism and the multiculturalism which it has spawned, the country is more divided than it ever was.   Identity politics have separated racial, ethnic, and gender groups and delayed or even deterred national integration and social harmony.  America is no longer a country which welcomes immigrants as long as they assimilate but one which celebrates their differences.  This spirit extends to native minorities, especially African Americans who are encouraged to speak as an oppressed group with special privileges rather than one whose separatism is discouraged.

Universities have ceded their responsibility to educate at all costs and have become political side shows where learning has taken a back seat to espousal and promotion of progressive causes.   This political correctness has infected all area of American society and in its deliberate closing of the American mind has fueled anger, resentment, and frustration as well as promoted divisiveness.

The Supreme Court has become increasingly activist and has ruled on issues which should more rightly be left to the electorate.  There is no justification for continued judicial support for universal abortion when a significant number of Americans oppose it.  Likewise, there is no reason why the Court should interfere with majority views on traditional marriage or religious rights.



Trump has been openly and avowedly antagonistic to all the above.  He sees the Washington cabals as destructive, self-serving, self-perpetuating destroyers of America.  He calls out their arrogance, sanctimony, and self-righteousness.  He blames the liberal Left for imposing social judgments on millions of citizens who have not yet sorted through issues of abortion, gay marriage, and religious rights. 

He excoriates progressives for their dogged advocacy of social programs which after decades of support and billions in taxpayer investment show little or no results.  He is incensed that the mainstream media with few exceptions are unashamedly staffed by liberal staffers, editors, and publishers.  Even the traditional conservative media have ignored the populist sentiments of his followers.

He refuses to accept the conciliatory approach of the Left, fueled by multiculturalism, to immigration.  He understands that many if not most Americans feel threatened by what they see is unfettered access to the country.

The election for all intents and purposes is a fait accompli.  No matter what Wikileaks may reveal over the coming two weeks, there is no time for the legislative or judicial processes  to indict Hillary Clinton.  She will be elected as one of the most unpopular presidential candidates in American history – largely because much of the country is unprepared for or harshly antagonistic to Trump’s radical populism and his outsized personality.

The movement, however, will not disappear.  A hopeful if not likely short-term scenario is the following:

1. The House and the Senate remain Republican, and a significant minority of those elected come from Trump districts.

2. This new coalition can be as effective as the Tea Party in promoting a radical agenda that will satisfy Trump supporters and those who will join the populist movement.

3. Trump will start up a new network which will in theme, content, format, and personality reflect the same sentiments that have been so angrily expressed during the election.

4. As a result of the above, local Trump supporters will be more open about their radical conservatism and an energized, activist base will be formed.  A an organized grass-roots movement will replace individual expression, and as the movement becomes institutionalized, it will gain influence in statehouses and Washington.

5. The new appointments to the Supreme Court may not be as radical as they would be under a Trump presidency, but will far more moderate than the liberals currently serving on the bench. 

In the longer run, the Clinton presidency will not last more than one term and a radical populist president will be elected.  If the above five-point scenario comes even close to reality, the new president will have unequalled support from the country.  Although he may not take the same authoritarian measures as his international counterparts – Putin, Duterte, Xi Jinping, Sissi, Netanyahu, and Le Pen (and, like it or not, Assad, the Ayatollah, and al-Baghdadi) – he will begin the process of reforming government but much more importantly, governance.

Trump has been good for America.  A cleaning of the Augean stables was long overdue.  The Washington Establishment was getting  inbred if not incestuous and the lines been big money, big government, big media, and big industry were being blurred.  The arrogance and sanctimony of all these sectors was becoming insulting and intolerable.  Although Trump himself might not have made an ideal president – the country is not yet ready for a Duterte – the revolution he inspired and supported is underway.



                     www.morningmail.org

What Ever Happened To Civil Discourse? A Return To Manners, Civility, And Politeness

After months of trying to get her children to sit up straight, eat properly, chew with their mouths closed, and stop picking at the serving dishes, Eleanor Bradley had become frustrated and exasperated.  She had been brought up in a strict home where napkins were spread evenly on laps,  knives and forks were used properly and quietly, and mouths wiped carefully and decorously.  The dinner table at her own house was feral and disgusting.  She blamed it on her husband who had been brought up to eat ‘with gusto’ , as he described his extended family meals; but to her these dinners were free-for-all, undisciplined affairs at which food was eaten quickly and carelessly.

“Manners are bourgeois”, said her teenage son, and served no purpose in the modern world.  They were vestiges of an elitist system.  They were markers of class and lineage designed to distinguished aristocrats from rabble; and whatever the social value in earlier times, they were unnecessary reminders of oppression.

“Yeah”, said his younger sisters. “Who needs them?”

That was when the mother put down her fork and stared across the table at her husband and children.  She patted her lips, carefully folded her napkin and laid it next to her plate, and stood up.
“Manners are not for you”, Eleanor said. “They are for me.  I have to look at you, and I am disgusted.” With that she left the table and did not return.

It was an epiphany.  The children and their father looked at each other.  None of them had ever thought of manners this way. They were always an unwanted, unnecessary obligation.  They made eating tedious and inefficient.  They were relics from an earlier age that inhibited ‘gusto’ and the enjoyment of food.  In short they were restrictions on individual behavior, on personal space.
With their mother’s few words, they finally understood.   For the first time in their lives they put themselves in her shoes, imagined what they must look like to her – pigs at a trough; cud-chewing cows; a pack of dogs tearing at dead meat.

From then on while never perfect, their manners were much improved. They ate well if not properly, and their mother was pleased.

Eleanor Bradley was right, of course.  Manners, politeness, civility are for other people.  Yes, they do reflect well on one’s own upbringing and education, but courtesy is for others.

The American presidential campaign (2016) was an example of bad manners, incivility, and disrespect.  There seems to be no end to the vitriolic, nasty,  and deliberately abusive and demeaning language of the two candidates.  Politeness, demurral, and respectful silence are seen as signs of weakness.  Americans, the candidates have concluded, respect combativeness as a sign of strength; respect as sign of defeat, personal attacks as fair tactics in a high-stakes game.

It wasn’t always like this, of course.  The Kennedy-Humphrey primary debate in West Virginia in 1960 was a model of propriety, respect, politeness, and good manners.  The candidates expressed their views and commented on those of their opponent; yet the discourse never left the high ground.  Points were scored on intelligence, clarity, precision, and insight.

What has happened in 50 years? How did America go from a society where civility and respect were the norms to one where discourse is discordant and individual identity primary?

The movies of the 40s reflect this culture of good manners and social propriety. Cary Grant, Bette Davis, Gregory Peck, Ingrid Bergman, and Lionel Barrymore were exemplary of a culture which, while no less enterprising as today’s, respected a notion of social grace.  Men wore suits and hats.  Women dressed elegantly but conservatively.  Clothes were both fashion statements and reflections of common social values.  A suit displayed formality, shirtsleeves an intrusive, personal informality.

Graceful masculine manners – holding a door, standing up when a woman entered the room, helping her with her coat, escorting her to her car – were not the now-parodied  symbols of male superiority and chauvinism but tributes to a woman’s own careful attention to her dress, demeanor, and social behavior.

In other words, civility in dress and behavior was a way of respecting not only others but the entire community. 

Society was simpler,  less diverse, and far less aggressively competitive than that of today.  More people lived in small towns where everyone knew each other and where individual propriety and manners were not only matters of civility and respect but survival.  Conformity to social norms was the rule. 

Sinclair Lewis, most often thought of as a savage critics of the fat and happy American bourgeoisie of the early 20th century was far from it.  Main Street, perhaps his finest novel, tells the story of a young woman who moves from a city to a small Midwestern town to follow her physician husband who intends to set up a practice there.  She is intelligent, sensitive, and ambitious and quickly finds the town insufferably conservative and insular.  Her attempts to start a theatre group, revitalize the library, and introduce art and literature to the community are considered intrusive and seditious. 

Yet despite sympathizing with his heroine in her struggle for personal authenticity in a society which has no use for it, Lewis never condemns the town itself.   There is something important, he concludes, about social  integrity and community – something very American.  Life on the prairie in 1920 was harsh and unforgiving; and only with social solidarity could survival and prosperity be assured.  Individualism had to give way to normative behavior.

In the end Lewis’ heroine, Carol Milford, comes to realize that her husband despite his intellectual timidity and bourgeois sentiments, is a good man; that his profession is difficult and essential if not noble.  She is less critical of her neighbors who might lack creative spirit but who are hardworking, essentially moral, and patient.  ‘Boosterism’, Lewis’ satirical characterization of America’s self-assured but sanctimonious belief in and promotion of small town values is less prominent in Main Street.  In the novel he has as much respect  for the town of Gopher Prairie as he does  for Carol who struggles for independence and individual expression.

Eudora Welty’s Delta Wedding (1946) is both a celebration of family as it is about the integrity of community.  It not only is the story of a multi-generational, closely-knit family but its simplicity extends beyond the plantation.  Welty chooses not to write about the Civil War or Reconstruction, both of which were only decades before her story of the wedding.  The plantation is a physical and historical enclave. 

The only past that has any importance for the Fairchilds is the one of their ancestors.  Welty makes occasional but only incidental references to the Civil War, who went off to it and who came back.  There is nothing about the War itself, the battles that were fought in the Delta, Radical Reconstruction, refugees, the dislocation of the planter class, the difficult restructuring of the slave economy, or the political and social upheavals that resulted.

Welty, then, by writing about a family isolated from the devastation of the War and its consequences and leading an idyllic and romantic existence, had another agenda

Some critics have suggested that the sense of place was really what gave her later works distinction; and that novels like Delta Wedding were examples of how the ‘place’ of the Delta and the Fairchild plantation was a metaphor for place and family: Place is vitally important to Welty. She believed that place is what makes fiction seem real, because with place come customs, feelings, and associations.
Place answers the questions, "What happened? Who's here? Who's coming?" Place is a prompt to memory; thus the human mind is what makes place significant. This is the job of the storyteller.

Today’s world feels and is very unlike those of Welty, Lewis, or Wilder who in Our Town writes of the same conservative values of Grover’s Corners and about the necessarily small interstices between its residents and how this social integrity is essential to individual life and community.  Our world not only celebrates classic American individualism but has turned it into a culture of identity.  Society has become so diverse sexually, ethnically, and racially that each group and sub-group must fight for air, space, and territory among many competing claims.   How can civility, manners, and mutual respect prevail in such a competitive  environment?

The dream of social integration first expressed in the 60s has been replaced by separatism in the name of civil rights.  The only way for gays, racial and ethnic minorities, and women to attain social and economic parity is to first fight for turf and perimeter.  Then, once parity has been attained, assimilation of identity groups can occur.

Aggressive individualism is taught in the home as well.  Self-worth, self-image, and personal identity are valued more than civility, respectful demurral, compromise, and accommodation. 
There is no way to impose a 1940s conception of  civility on 2016 America.  It is too late, and except for ironic revivals of old fashion, the past is dead and gone. 

Yet is it? Americans always refer to the wisdom of the Founding Fathers, the genius of the Bill of Rights, the principles of Jefferson, Hamilton, and Franklin; and the invocation of the past is never considered retrograde or antiquated thinking.  Why not the 40s for its graceful civility, manners, and polite respect?

Of course there was a dark side to the era – Appalachia, the Deep South, urban ghettoes were as much a part of the post-war period as the enthusiasm of the middle class – but such undersides exist in every period.  It is historically revisionist to focus on underclass when the middle- and upper-class were defining American values.

So, a re-visitation of Welty, Lewis, and Wilder might be good for a start; or a non-ironic read of Emily Post; or Dark Victory and The Talk of the Town.