A Recipe For Misery

Thanks to Shrinky Kitten for letting us know all about a brainwashing program teaching women to be doormats and men to be jackasses. To summarize, men are instructed to assert their dominance in all the tiresome "traditional" ways - demand control of the finances, sexual access whenever they choose, obeisance in the household, etc. etc. Women are of course taught that the success or failure of a relationship is entirely dependent on their willingness to submit.

I entered a towering rage when I read this piece, which is a great way to spend a Sunday morning. The first problem, as Shrinky points out, is that empirical evidence indicates that relationships based on equality are more successful than patriarchal ones. So the entire project collapses on its own terms in any case. There are logical fallacies as well. This conception of gender identity falls into the naturalistic fallacy that just because something exists in nature means that it is good. Right. How does everyone feel about a lifespan of forty? No takers? The other fallacy is of course the appeal to tradition, like traditions are always good things. Of course the dominant tradition of dealing with unwanted children was just exposing them on a hillside. Do the anti-choicers really want to fall back on tradition? And by the way, has it ever occured to these ignoramuses that the reason all these social changes have taken place is that people were unhappy with their lot in life? We embraced the new kind of life because the old one sucked.

It is obvious how this approach to gender identity is insulting to women, since it treats them like chattel. But what may not be obvious is how it harms men as well, and not just in the sense that men who don't conform are going to be attacked as not being "real men" with the ultimate "insult" of being gay. The message is that men are defined by their ability to dominate others, that the core of masculinity is to lord it over women and lessers. In that sense it is the mirror image of the traditionalist notion that it is women's nature to be submissive.

In an odd way this disempowers men, because it claims that one's worth as a person is dependent on the relationship with others. Any man who is not dominating others is "weak" and not truly a man. And given the importance they place on gender as the key to identity, a "weak" man becomes not just not a man but not a real person. They are stripped of all inherent value, as their worth becomes strictly relational. It's a pretty strange theory to say that value is based on "strength" and external relationships, given how dependent those relationships are on the decisions of others. Do I really want to say that my identity is based on what other people do?

I'm not just pointing out an abstract problem. This sort of social structure has real consequences. What do you think happens when men's sense of self-worth is tied up with their ability to control other people? (I'm going to leave aside women for a second, since the cornerstone of the project is to deprive women of any sense of value altogether). When a man is unable to assert his dominance over other men, then he decides that he is being feminine. Subconsciously he will submit to the more domineering males and act like a "woman" in his relationships with other men. This is how those strict hierarchies get created in male social networks. The only choice for a man to lose these feelings of being lesser - to escape being forced to obey - is to find some other group or person to oppress, or to find some way to rise up in the hierarchy. So you have vicious conflicts along identity lines, and fractious internal social relationships. What a recipe for a happy life!

This kind of social totalitarianism has a much more ambitious agenda that restoring the "traditional family." If successful, it will negate the entire effort to individualism, liberty and equality. Do you think that it's an accident that those societies with the most rigidly misogynistic family structures are also impoverished, violent autocracies?

What's so pathetic is how pointless this vision of humanity is, how impoverished and demeaning. There are better alternatives. We can compete with others on the basis of achieving excellence rather than domination. Better yet, we can cooperate in an effort to produce a greater good. This is why egalitarian marriages are so much more fun. Telling someone what to do quickly becomes boring. Much better to have someone you respect, who challenges you, so that you become better than you were. I'm sorry, but I'm more interested in creating a stronger notion of my own self, of achieving my inner potentials, than wasting my time trying to control someone else.

I could go on for hours more, but you get the picture.