The quote is quite telling indeed. Let's look at it again and I'll give my opinion (for what it's worth)
Clearly womyn have a better understanding of collective effort and in my experience, the level of dysfunction in the father's movement is, I believe, gender specific.
Ya know, I gotta agree with them, but not in the way the think. Men don't tend to WHINE collectively, such as it seems women do.
The big lie behind this is that:
womyn have a better understanding of collective effort Really? I suppose the concept of a TEAM, or a CORPORATION, or of NATIONHOOD, or any other endeavor that no one person could accomplish is NOT from men? I mean, they all existed before feminism, and the femi's are reaping the benefits of these "collective efforts".
I was thinking. (a dangerous and dubious thing on my best days!) It occurs to me that modern feminism is like this:
A man and a woman get together and get married. The man's wife and he realize they need a roof over their head and so the man labors to build a house. They realize that water from the river is too far, so the man digs a well.
Now, the wife is not some useless harpy in this at all, she supports him by cooking and doing other things that, though less physically strenuous, are just as important. She makes him warm clothes, and cooks their food. She takes care of their child, and keeps the house organized.
So the man continues to improve his world: he builds a road to the town so that they can have access to markets (invented by one of his now rich male buddies, but a haven for the women to trade) , he installs electricity, and eventually plumbing. He puts on additions to the house and when the new "time saving appliances" are built (by another man) he gets one for his wife.
His knees are aching, his back is tired, but he does this for love. The marriage has been up and down for both of them, but they're a team.
Then, one day when the house is fully set, and the man has got all the conveniences for his wife, along comes another woman. She waits till the "main bread winner" or "provider" of the house leaves and she takes the wife aside.
"You're a slave" says this new woman "look at how dreary your life is." She leans in to the woman's ear and whispers "You don't have to put up with this kind of life. You can have freedom. In the city there are many businesses now. They are run by men, who only exploit women, and use them for sex. Does your husband expect sex? He's exploiting you! Does he expect clean laundry? (from the machine she asked for and he bought to make life easier for her) Does he think his meals should be at an appointed hour?! (from the freezer/fridge to an oven on teflon pans, in time they used to call "dinner together" where they shared their thoughts each day, in a dependable and comfortable way) He has slowly made you a slave. And the worst part is you don't know you're a slave!"
The wife looks around, and says: "but, I don't want to leave ... I mean, it sounds exciting and intriguing, but ... I'll lose this home, and all the conveniences."
The new strangers glints her narrow eyes, and says: "we can fix that ...."
So, in the end the former wife and the hate-monger went to the magistrate. Knowing that the man would not go quietly, and for the "good of the relationship" (which was being destroyed by this "good") the wife said she felt "emotionally abandoned" and "unfulfilled" and the hate-monger chimed in: "and she has told me of his temper and loud voice, and that 5 times this year he was a drunkard. She is afraid he will become violent".
The judge asks:
"Has he or you cheated? Does he beat you? Is he a poor provider?"
The hate-monger step up and declares: "You too are a man! You wish to make her a legally bound slave! Why should she be a slave to men?! Let her have the freedom to leave, but since she has been his unpaid slave, and denied any chance to be self-sufficient, let her have the possesions so that she has a chance. That's only fair! Are you also a tyrant!?"
The judge realizes that the hate-monger has brought her friends, and that keeping his job is more important than doing his job. He grants the woman her divorce.
The man, who was now past his prime, was taken from a home he had helped to make, for no wrong doing had his possesions taken away, denied his children, and told to "go away" and to "start over". All the while he had to pay his ex-wife for work she no longer did for him, for comfort he no longer had, for children he saw at her ever mercurial whim, and this man was known to the law givers as one who beat upon women.~~~~~~~
My point is this: Feminism came in and saw the house built, the electricity running, the plumbing flushing, and decided that NOW they wanted to run the show. Despite that NO FEMALE DOMINATED SOCIETIES EVER rose to the same prominence as the "evil western patriarchy", they feel that now that we have made a world of convenience, they want us only as the fix-it men, the "salary augmentors", and all men in fear of making the new aristocracy angry.
Glenn Sacks said it SO right on his show: "This generation of boys and men is sometimes called the 'payback' generation."
----Tell me that doesn't ring true in the chords of your bones.
Steven
