‘The Weaker Goes to the Wall’

Posted on | January 21, 2016 | 95 Comments

Just ordered from Amazon another $98 worth of feminist books, including Rape: The Power of Consciousness by Susan Griffin (1979) and Undoing Gender by Judith Butler (2004). As I continued my research for the second edition of Sex Trouble: Radical Feminism and the War Against Human Nature this morning, I was reminded of something an early critic of feminism said:

“The fantastical project of yesterday, which was mentioned only to be ridiculed, is today the audacious reform, and will be tomorrow the accomplished fact.”

That was Robert Lewis Dabney, in an 1871 essay called “Women’s Rights Women.” Dabney was a Presbyterian theologian who, during the Civil War, served as chief of staff to Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. His theology and politics were firmly conservative and will strike most modern readers as shockingly “right-wing,” as Dabney condemned what he called “ultra democracy” and “infidel Radicalism.” Yet I think at this late date, after some 140 years of continued militance by the advocates of Progress and Equality, we may read what Dabney wrote and ask whether he was indeed a prophet:

God’s ordinance, the only effective human ordinance for checking and curbing the first tendencies to evil, is domestic, parental government. When the family shall no longer have a head, and the great foundation for the subordination of children in the mother’s example is gone; when the mother shall have found another sphere than her home for her energies; when she shall have exchanged the sweet charities of domestic love and sympathy for the fierce passions of the hustings; when families shall be disrupted at the caprice of either party, and the children scattered as foundlings from their hearthstone requires no wisdom to see that a race of sons will be reared nearer akin to devils than to men. In the hands ,of such a bastard progeny, without discipline, without homes, without a God, the last remains of social order will speedily perish, and society will be overwhelmed in savage anarchy.
Last: it would not be hard to show, did space permit, that this movement on the part of these women is as suicidal as it is mischievous. Its certain result will be the re-enslavement of women, not under the Scriptural bonds of marriage, but under the yoke of literal corporeal force. The woman who will calmly review the condition of her sex in other ages and countries will feel that her wisdom is to “let well enough alone.” Physically, the female is the “weaker vessel.” This world is a hard and selfish scene where the weaker goes to the wall. Under all other civilizations and all other religions than ours woman has experienced this fate to the full; her condition has been that of a slave to the male — sometimes a petted slave, but yet a slave. In Christian and European society alone has she ever attained the place of man’s social equal, and received the homage and honor due from magnanimity to her sex and her feebleness. And her enviable lot among us has resulted from two causes: the Christian religion and the legislation founded upon it by feudal chivalry. How insane then is it for her to spurn these two bulwarks of defense, to defy and repudiate the divine authority of that Bible which has been her redemption, and to revolutionize the whole spirit of the English common law touching woman’s sphere and rights. She is thus spurning the only protectors her sex has ever found, and provoking a contest in which she must inevitably be overwhelmed. Casting away that dependence and femininity which are her true strength, the “strong-minded woman” persists in thrusting herself into competition with man as his equal. But for contest she is not his equal; the male is the stronger animal. As man’s rival, she is a pitiful inferior, a sorry she-mannikin. It is when she brings her wealth of affection, her self-devotion, her sympathy, her tact, her grace, her subtle intuition, her attractions, her appealing weakness, and places them in the scale with man’s rugged strength and plodding endurance, with his steady logic, his hardihood and muscle. and his exemption from the disabling infirmities of her sex, that he delights to admit her full equality and to do glad homage to her as the crown of his kind. All this vantage-ground the “Women’s Rights women” madly throw away, and provoke that collision for which nature itself has disqualified them. They insist upon taking precisely a man’s chances: well, they will meet precisely the fate of a weak man among strong ones.

Some will surely find Dabney’s attitude toward women insulting, and will argue that he underestimated women’s fitness for “competition with man as his equal.” This may be so, but it is irrelevant to the more important point, namely that the subversion of parental authority and the destruction of the family — divorce “at the caprice of either party” — have produced exactly what Dabney predicted: A generation of young men “without discipline, without homes, without a God,” with the result that many communities are “overwhelmed in savage anarchy.”

Baltimore, St. Louis, Chicago — this kind of savagery is now so common in America’s cities that we take it for granted, just as we take for granted that there are more than 2 million inmates in our nation’s prisons, and that local, state and federal law enforcement agencies have a combined total of more than 1 million full-time employees on their payrolls. America is over-policed because American families are falling apart, and our society’s descent into “savage anarchy” is being hastened by the sort of Equality and Progress that have produced “a bastard progeny” of young men “nearer akin to devils than to men.”

When we hear feminists today lamenting “street harassment” and “rape culture” — a world in which all women “live in a state of continual vigilance about sexual safety,” according to Lindsay Beyerstein — we must not forget that the society in which we live today has been created in large part by the measures of “audacious reform” that earlier generations of “Women’s Rights women” demanded. Like an Old Testament prophet, Dabney tried to warn them, but they would not listen, and “the weaker goes to the wall.”

Category: Sex Trouble

Comments

95 Responses to “‘The Weaker Goes to the Wall’”

Evi L. Bloggerlady
January 21st, 2016 @ 9:20 am

It takes a crazy man to go down the rabbit hole of feminist madness…and come back to tell us about it.

I need to break out my Joseph Campbell!
robertstacymccain
January 21st, 2016 @ 9:47 am

Thanks for the compliment. I had not thought of myself as a latter-day Odysseus, but certainly the analogy is apt in many ways.
Ilion
January 21st, 2016 @ 10:19 am

RSM: “Some will surely find Dabney’s attitude toward women insulting, and will argue that he underestimated women’s fitness for “competition with man as his equal.””

That’s because “some” are intellectually dishonest.

While some women, as individuals, are more than capable of competing as equals with men, most are not (*) … and the more a woman touts herself as being a “strong, independent woman” who can “take care of myself”, the more you can be sure that she is the very opposite.

(*) Nor desire to be, nor even to attempt it … but, what many of them want is the accolades without the effort, much less the accomplishment, which is why the politicians and other bureaucrats who would rule us are always coming up with new ways to hobble the “lesser” men (that would be you and me, Gentle Reader) and give special privileges to “women”, all the while doing their best to criminalize anyone mentioning the hypocrisy.

A “strong, independent woman” is to strength and independence (and womanhood, for that matter) as an “independent living facility” is to independence and living.

Feminism can’t even exist without a certain class of male enablers-and-enforcers; that’s how “strong and independent” these “strong, independent women” are. Feminism exists because a certain class of male finds it useful as a tool with which to tyrannically rule over other men.
Evi L. Bloggerlady
January 21st, 2016 @ 10:57 am

Robert Stacy McCain: The Hero with a Thousand Harpies
physicsnut
January 21st, 2016 @ 11:08 am

amazing how many Red Diaper Babies
teach “womens studies”
and are otherwise “activists” or “journalists”

these are the clowns who think the Boy Scouts are the Hitler Youth.
AwD
January 21st, 2016 @ 11:50 am

I suspect that when I was a young teenager I might have been mildly offended by the “disabling infirmities” bit. The travails of the human reproductive system have since taught me better. Dabney is 100% right – even today, with all the wonders of modern medication.
Dana
January 21st, 2016 @ 12:40 pm

Actually, women are showing themselves much more able to compete as equals than they were when Mr Dabney wrote, because modern technology has replaced physical strength and animal power as a prime requisite for so many professions these days. Even in those fields in which strength can be an advantage — think of the building trades here — tools like circular saws and nail guns and electric drills have enabled those of less physical strength to perform productively.

I give no special privileges to women, but I do allow men and women, black and whites, everyone the opportunity to show what they can, and cannot, do.
RKae
January 21st, 2016 @ 12:52 pm

They insist upon taking precisely a man’s chances: well, they will meet precisely the fate of a weak man among strong ones.

ZING!

That does indeed sum it up!

Why aren’t those opposed to “the artificial gender binary” demanding that we end separate professional tennis matches for men and women? Is it because there would never again be a female tennis champion?
RKae
January 21st, 2016 @ 12:55 pm

My dad was a pilot and he constantly complained about women in his profession. I informed him, “You’re so proud of our technological achievements, pop! Well, it’s turned your job into sitting in a chair and pushing buttons! How can you still call it manly?”
RKae
January 21st, 2016 @ 12:56 pm

When you write your autobiography, you need to call it “Tied To The Mast!”
Fail Burton
January 21st, 2016 @ 1:20 pm

Why else do you think they want to shave points in American culture to enable equal outcomes? The problem there is when your army is marching around in red high-heels to prove a point, some other country is still thinking the Mongol way. Reality always guarantees you hit a wall. The question is if you can slow the impact enough to survive.

Third Wave Feminism will destroy the viability to produce success of any institution it touches. You’re talking about a cult so mental it literally calls “success” a “cult of meritocracy,” as if success is Devil-worship.
Fail Burton
January 21st, 2016 @ 1:21 pm

And where does “modern technology” come from?
Kerry: ‘Sure, Iran Will Use Prisoner-Deal Money to Try to Kill Us…’ | Regular Right Guy
January 21st, 2016 @ 2:29 pm

[…] ‘The Weaker Goes to the Wall’ […]
Robert What?
January 21st, 2016 @ 2:35 pm

Robert, do you feel like taking a long hot shower with sandpaper after immersing yourself in this feminist ideology?
Quartermaster
January 21st, 2016 @ 2:54 pm

More like a powered wire brush followed by a long soak in Lysol.
Quartermaster
January 21st, 2016 @ 2:57 pm

What was it Instapundit had to say about RSM?
Quartermaster
January 21st, 2016 @ 2:58 pm

Yes, Dabney was prescient. Prescient as only a Christian who looks at God’s way and sees where man’s way will lead.
RS
January 21st, 2016 @ 3:08 pm

Dabney is/was correct, of course. I note only that people were a lot more eloquent in the 19th Century. Your average 21st Century B.A. in English couldn’t replicate the style of Dabney’s words in a million years.
Squid Hunt
January 21st, 2016 @ 3:16 pm

That essay is epic.
NeoWayland
January 21st, 2016 @ 3:20 pm

Dabney was wrong.

The problems he described happened before the woman’s movement.

So did things like public drunkenness, wife beating, child labor, and child brides.

Perhaps I’m misreading, but much of this comes off as “putting a woman in her proper place.”

That isn’t going to do your argument much good.
Ilion
January 21st, 2016 @ 4:24 pm

Really? You mean Human Resources or Diversity Consultants?
Quartermaster
January 21st, 2016 @ 6:03 pm

If you consider what Robert Lewis Dabney was, it is not a surprise that you would misread him. Simply acknowledging what a woman is, and the facts of life is “putting women in their place,” then there is no way to deal with the facts of the situation as they are on the ground.

Yes those problems did happen before the Women’s Lib movement, but they have increased by several orders of magnitude since 3rd wave feminism kicked in. Dabney’s observations of the facts being what they were then, it is no surprise that he seemed prescient to those who think the 19th century was limned by a bucolic existence. The largest difference is the things he outlined were not common then, but they are more than just common these days.

As the country turns more and more away from God, those problems will increase in volume.
NeoWayland
January 21st, 2016 @ 8:47 pm

Dabney wasn’t talking about 3rd Wave Feminism. 1st Wave feminism was barely getting started, suffragism was just beginning. He didn’t know.

You can’t ignore the many other factors, starting with Reconstruction, Westward expansion, civil rights, prohibition and the rise of organized crime, two world wars, and at least six dozen others I’m not mentioning. Society is a fabric, you can’t point to one thread and say “this is the Root Cause of our problem.”

I don’t think unifying the country under one religion is a good answer. Neither did the Founders, they grew up with stories of the the English Civil War.
Jason Lee
January 21st, 2016 @ 9:24 pm

Every word of what Dabney wrote is precisely correct. And it will remain true until and unless genetic engineering changes us significantly. Only elite female athletes can compete with the average man physically:

http://www.unz.com/gnxp/men-are-stronger-than-women-on-average/

Intellectually, average women can compete with average men, but average intellect does not run this world and men have the advantage in elite intellectual power as well. Elite male brains outnumber elite female brains by ratios as high as 13:1.

On a level playing field average men and women seem equal, but the level playing field was designed, engineered, built, maintained and defended by the strength and intelligence of men.

We do no one any favors by pretending that men and women are physically or intellectually equal.

“In Christian and European society alone has she ever attained the place of man’s social equal, and received the homage and honor due from magnanimity to her sex and her feebleness.”

Unfortunately, Western women won’t miss this until it’s gone.
Jason Lee
January 21st, 2016 @ 9:32 pm

First Wave Feminism planted the seeds. Third Wave Feminism is the harvest. In Dabney’s predictions made that very clear.
Jason Lee
January 21st, 2016 @ 9:39 pm

“Dabney wasn’t talking about 3rd Wave Feminism. 1st Wave feminism was barely getting started, suffragism was just getting started. He didn’t know.”

The same ideas were tested by the Ancient Greeks. None of this is new. He did know.
Yobstrean_Bougadenzer
January 21st, 2016 @ 10:10 pm

Very true. It’s important to keep in mind that the things that Mssr. Dabney were likely opposing at the time – women’s suffrage, the right of a woman to divorce, the rights of women to divorce and own property, to hold normal jobs – all happened a long time ago. A man living in his time would naturally think that the world would always be a series of small hamlets and townships where the “strong” could forever dominate the “weak,” and could not have comprehended our modern society.

I’m supposing he’d also have issues with blacks and gays working alongside the blessed, incomparable White Man? Congratulations are in order, we have made fools of the grim prophets of the past. May they moulder in ignominy.
Mike G.
January 21st, 2016 @ 10:59 pm

Sorry dude, I think you’re trying to punch above your weight on this one.
Valerie Stewart
January 22nd, 2016 @ 12:25 am

Women being intellectually unequal or inferior to men is false. One major reason why there are seemingly fewer “intelligent”/higher IQ women is sampling bias, in particular non-response bias. Quite a few women would not take IQ tests or go into careers that would require such a high IQ if they are/were busy being mothers. Also, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that the desire and plan to become a mother by 30-35 and have an active, close relationship with the child(ren) would stop young adults from pursuing long, busy careers that require 4-10+ years of education first.

It was only until recent decades that more women went into more intellectually difficult careers, part of which was influenced by the requirement for both parents to hold down good-paying jobs, but overall there’s the omnipresent encouragement for younger women to prepare for motherhood and the mother-child(ren) bond rather than have a career. Of course, the proglibs would *love* to have the career-first, children-only-as-accessories philosophy as the norm just to hold onto whatever political power.

As politicized (by the proglibs) as it is, if you look at the neurology between males and females there are virtually no differences in intellectual capacity. Emotional? Yes, to an extent and it varies. But male and female hormones have very little to no influence on intelligence (however it is defined); it’s more like the other changes or “problems” of the brain structure that do.
Valerie Stewart
January 22nd, 2016 @ 12:30 am

Peer pressure and culture, ultimately, has a lot to do with and the “final say” in perceived intellectual capacity. This has been demonstrated in multiple incarnations throughout the decades: one groups says “X” is true despite the evidence, and eventually most of the subjects believe it, including math and science (lack of) talent.
Quartermaster
January 22nd, 2016 @ 12:43 am

He always does. Neo has not changed since he first came here.
Jason Lee
January 22nd, 2016 @ 12:44 am

…exponentially increasing male over-representation from average g and up, amounting to more than 8 males for each female at g = 3 SD (IQ 145).

http://eugenik.dk/static/pdf/nyborg-paid-2005.pdf
Valerie Stewart
January 22nd, 2016 @ 12:45 am

FWF only planted the seeds in the sense that they pointed out the inherent narcissism in men having the (unequal) privilege of voting, when women obviously were not inferior to man. The Third Wave Feminists then misinterpreted this as inequality being inherently bad no matter the context.

When the premise is “inequality is bad no matter what”, then everything else that follows certainly fallacious.
Quartermaster
January 22nd, 2016 @ 12:45 am

As usual, you rattle on about irrelevancies. Dabney was dealing with human nature, something that has not changed since time immemorial. Scripture is centered on sinful human nature, and its consequences.
Daniel Freeman
January 22nd, 2016 @ 12:45 am

You can’t out-crazy ~~Stacey~~ Stacy McCain?
Quartermaster
January 22nd, 2016 @ 12:49 am

Weeeeeeeeeeeee have a winner!
Daniel Freeman
January 22nd, 2016 @ 12:52 am

Women have a narrower distribution of IQ, with both fewer geniuses and fewer morons. As individual men are relatively expendable, and reproductive success for women is better served by avoiding idiocy than by attaining brilliance, Mother Nature experiments more with us.
Quartermaster
January 22nd, 2016 @ 12:54 am

Yet, what he wrote has been demonstrated time and again 100 years after his death. What Dabney wrote falls under “Gods of the Copybook Headings.” He wasn’t merely opposing suffrage. Human nature is a nasty thing that will come back to bite time and after time.
Daniel Freeman
January 22nd, 2016 @ 12:57 am

There are three paths for seeking Truth and remedying error: prediction, performance, and reasoning, and the last one is the weakest. Your reasoning is unpersuasive in the face of the predictive power of his.
Jason Lee
January 22nd, 2016 @ 1:00 am

Yes. More men at the extremes of IQ. At 3 standard deviations above the mean, the male:female ratio is roughly 10:1. High IQ runs the world and that’s one of the reasons men have always been in charge. Wishing won’t make it go away.
Daniel Freeman
January 22nd, 2016 @ 1:01 am

And I didn’t even have to search on it!
Jason Lee
January 22nd, 2016 @ 1:07 am

http://media.breitbart.com/media/2015/10/Screen-Shot-2015-10-02-at-15.21.50.png
Valerie Stewart
January 22nd, 2016 @ 1:17 am

First, I didn’t mean to downvote you; I was just trying to open the link.

Edit: Ugh, I’ll have to continue in a different comment. The browser hates ne right now. Hold on a second.
Valerie Stewart
January 22nd, 2016 @ 1:52 am

@ Jason Lee and Daniel Freeman:

Sampling bias, specifically non-response bias, has always been a giant issue with the cognitive and intelligence studies, which is compounded by the fact that several of the free-access studies did not report the demographics of the subjects, especially age and how and to what degree they were educated. This factor is incredibly important and undermines the researchers’ hypothesis.

There are multiple issues in claiming that men (or women) are smarter than the opposite sex. In regards to the premise of men “being smarter”, it faces three huge discrepancies: that IQ isn’t that reliable of a marker in intelligence; that higher intelligence is correlated with mental disorders, which women “have more” than men; and the simple logic of certain characteristics of the brain “ought to” produce specific results but don’t.

(Continued in next post.)
Valerie Stewart
January 22nd, 2016 @ 2:03 am

For the IQ controversy, I could point out the Wikipedia page for a concise summary.

More relevantly, the second point in the paragraph, once again, is because of sampling bias: women are liker to report mental illness and get help for it than men. But does that mean that men are more afflicted by mental disease, especially the ones that are correlated with higher intelligence like OCD and schizophrenia? Nobody knows for sure.
Valerie Stewart
January 22nd, 2016 @ 3:00 am

His mistake was to blame the suffrage movement and not the super corrupt liberal media controlling the narrative. Though, I can’t blame him for that; back then, it was probably unthinkable for the media’s complicity in such corruption.

I don’t think I need to remind anyone of the media’s coverage on ObamaCare, homosexuality, and Obama vs. Romney & McCain just before Election Day.
Jason Lee
January 22nd, 2016 @ 3:58 am

1. You’re oversimplifying the issues of sex differences in general intelligence.

2. I’ve been reading the myriad and sundry politically correct explanations for politically incorrect IQ test results for more than 20 years. The politically correct explanations have been beaten to death over and over again. They’re simply wrong.
Valerie Stewart
January 22nd, 2016 @ 4:17 am

I’m oversimplifying the issues by pointing out the major issues in such a complex field and data interpretation?

Politically (in)correctness of research does not make it automatically right. Also, sometimes the opposition can be right even for the wrong reasons, and just because you’ve studied something for however long doesn’t automatically make you correct.

How have they been beaten to death? By picking out a tiny facet of a “intelligence” from a small part of brain and neurological research? Did the people who have supposedly beaten it to death even know what “statistically significant” meant?

(Yes, I have battled with someone who tried to prove that homosexuality was a good genetic trait, even when he didn’t know what statistically significant meant.)
Fail Burton
January 22nd, 2016 @ 4:26 am

Without drunkenness and beating put in some kind of factual context, they are worthless statements. Most child labor in 1860 was on farms and there has never been any great movement of child brides here. You’re 0 for 4.
Fail Burton
January 22nd, 2016 @ 4:29 am

I don’t agree. Third Wave Feminism is riding in a Trojan Horse called “feminism.” TWF is an anti-white, anti-male lesbian psycho-sexual cult which has nothing to do with rights or equality.