Why the Blame Game Doesn’t Work

Posted on | January 13, 2017 | 1 Comment

 

Dalrock had an excellent discussion of a “reflexive tendency to denigrate men” as responsible for the decline of marriage, an attitude he says “comes not from a sincere fear of a shortage of good men, but from a sense of extreme and everlasting abundance.” In other words, we have a natural tendency to believe that the future will be more or less contiguous with the past. Suppose you are the married, middle-class mother of a teenage or young adult woman, you are probably at least in your 40s, which means you were a teenager yourself during the 1980s or early ’90s. Whatever adolescent sturm und drang you went through circa 1985-1992, this did not prevent you from attracting a mate and forming a family. Therefore, you expect, your own daughter will ultimately do the same. So, however unimpressed you are with the general quality of your daughter’s male classmates and/or boyfriends at high school and college, you are likely to assume that, a la Snow White, some day her prince will come. From this assumption arises the “sense of extreme and everlasting abundance” of good men that Dalrock describes. When the reality fails to match your assumption — if all your daughter’s boyfriends are lazy, uncouth and selfish — you are then apt to blame these young men, or men in general, for the loneliness and misery your daughter experiences.

You can read the entirety of Dalrock’s discussion, but what caught my eye was the headline on Adam Piggott’s response:

Your daughter probably isn’t that special

Ooh, that’s cold, man. However, this is a possibility that parents may not consider amid a cultural climate of feminist “empowerment,” where teachers and the media constantly tell girls they can all be rocket scientists or senators or software company executives, and therefore need not concern themselves with finding a husband. Well, fine — believe that if you will, and after you’ve spent a couple hundred thousand bucks to send your daughter to an elite school where she majors in Gender Studies (not rocket science), don’t be surprised when she’s past 30, living in a tiny Brooklyn apartment with her bisexual “roommate” and her cats.

Feminist “empowerment” rhetoric inspires hubris among young women, who are taught in their Gender Studies classes that marriage is an oppressive institution imposed on women by heteropatriarchy.

 

Because 21st-century feminism is not only anti-male, but also anti-religion, anti-marriage, anti-motherhood and, ultimately, anti-heterosexual, the young women’s middle-class, middle-age mother is unlikely to realize how feminist hate propaganda affects both her daughter and the men who might otherwise become her daughter’s boyfriends. By relentlessly inciting young women’s distrust and contempt of males, 21st-century feminism makes it increasingly difficult for young men to develop attitudes of admiration toward their female peers. If he consistently encounters hostility from young women — an attitude feminists encourage in young women — the young man is apt to interpret this as evidence that all women hate him and are his enemies.

And why shouldn’t he believe this, when feminists like Jessica Valenti incite young women to take pleasure in male suffering, so that the “empowered” young woman never speaks to any male except to insult him with accusations of “misogyny” and “rape culture”?

 

Politics is, proverbially, a war of ideas, but Ideas Have Consequences, as Richard Weaver said, and the Democrat Party’s constant promotion of this kind of anti-male hate propaganda, as part of its doomed campaign to elect Hillary Clinton, has had social and cultural consequences.

If a woman’s political beliefs are based on the claim that all women are victims of male oppression (e.g., “These Discourses of Heterosexuality Which Particularly Oppress All of Us”), how does that affect her daily interactions with men? And if young people are being indoctrinated into feminist politics by our education institutions (e.g., “At Yale University, Special Snowflakes™ Are Traumatized by Republican Victory”), should anyone be surprised that young women are full of anti-male rage?

 

 

 

Considering how prevalent radical Third Wave feminism has become on university campuses, shouldn’t we expect young men to resent being the targets of such irrational hatred? How do we expect men to react to feminist rhetoric that treats males as demonized scapegoats?

Adam Piggot conveys his own resentment toward this attitude:

To put it simply, women behave as if there is an abundance of marriageable men while complaining that there are no good guys out there. Which is true?
I am of the opinion that there are many more men who are quietly getting on with earning their daily bread and going about their business in a dutiful way than is recognized. Of course, this attempted shaming tactic by women for men to “man up” by getting married is ridiculous. You don’t “man up” by doing what a woman wants you to do. Making a woman the center of your existence is a recipe for disaster. . . .
Times have changed. It’s not the 1950s anymore. For all you fathers out there with daughters getting itchy feet, I’ve got news for you. What makes you think that your precious little snowflake is at all deserving of a good man to marry her? It’s no longer a case of suitors lining up to display their good manners in an attempt to gain the approval of your little darling. The reason is because your little precious daughter is a dime a dozen.
You don’t find many young men suitable for your daughter? Don’t make me laugh. I look around and I don’t see very many young women who even come close to being suitable wife material. Maybe we should all consider the possibility that the reason that young people are not getting married in their previous numbers is not from a so-called dearth of suitable men — it’s due to there not being many suitable women out there. . . .

As a father of both sons and daughters, I don’t like Adam Piggott’s reaction any more than I like feminism’s anti-male rhetoric, even though I completely understand why he sees it the way he does.

The young man who has overcome disadvantages to make something of himself, as Piggott has done, does not enjoy being told that men are always the problem in relationships, and that all women are helpless victims. When we say that young women are not getting married because there is a shortage of “good men,” a bachelor like Adam Piggott is apt to roll his eyes in disbelief: Really? Have you taken a look at the freak show of irreparably broken women that 21st-century feminism has produced?

“I have dated seven members of the same fraternity, which is both objectively a bad idea and classic slut behavior. . . .
“I have herpes and thus I am a degenerate slut.”
— Ella Dawson, Sept. 24, 2016

“To destroy systems of injustice. So the most marginalized among us have their voices heard. For the people we love to be able to take up space. To end violence against women — down to the last microaggression. To celebrate difference. For every woman, everyone who experiences intersections of oppression, to be liberated. This is why we need feminism.”
— Hannah Rose McShane, March 2016

When I call attention to these cases of Feminist Derangement Syndrome, some readers may suppose that I actually enjoy seeing women reduce themselves to clichéd stereotypes of lunatic man-hating absurdity. The feminist who blames “patriarchal society” for her ill-fated career as a stripper and camgirl may not be an entirely innocent victim, but she is nevertheless the victim of a culture that has failed to teach young people the importance of moral virtue. There are such things as right and wrong, good and evil, and it is not only feminism, but also the toxic cultural poisons emitted by Hollywood, which cause young people to imagine they can pursue a life of wrong and evil without paying a price for their foolish decisions, their selfish attitudes, and their degenerate behavior.

I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.
— Deuteronomy 30:19 (KJV)

Turn away from the right path, and you can “be sure you sin will find you out.” We cannot evade responsibility for our own weaknesses and failures by blaming others for the harmful consequences of our bad decisions.

Do I take pleasure in seeing feminists ruin their lives? Is it amusing to watch Ella Dawson make her name a synonym for “herpes”? Is it merely a joke that Rose McShane is psychologically incapable of any sentiment toward males except hatred and contempt? Of course not. It’s frightening and sad. These are young women whose parents once hoped that their little girls would grow up to be happy and successful, and what a horrible experience it must have been for those parents to witness their daughters transform into deranged hate-filled monsters. Feminism’s consequences are tragic, yet this needless destruction and misery is celebrated as “empowerment.” Does this mean mental illness is “power”? Sexually transmitted diseases are “power”? Loneliness and confusion are “power”?

Go read Ella Dawson’s recap of her experiences in 2016, where she’s congratulating herself on her own awesomeness and then, just to remind yourself of the pathetic reality of her wrecked life, go read her account of her mental illness. When you’re 24 and taking antidepressants just to be able to function, that’s not awesomeness, nor is it “empowerment.”

What is it then? It’s the natural result of the blame game. By telling young women that they are never responsible for their own problems, because they are oppressed victims of heteropatriarchy, feminism encourages them to believe in their own essential helplessness. By denigrating morality, feminism encourages young women to engage in behaviors that are unhealthy and emotionally damaging and, when the results are predictably catastrophic, feminism says: “Not your fault! Blame men!”

Accusatory finger-pointing doesn’t “empower” anyone. Vindictive rage against male scapegoats may help her feel better as a rationalization, a defense mechanism, but when she’s finished ranting about “intersections of oppression,” she is still trapped in the wreckage of her life.

“How’s your daughter, Mr. McShane?”
“Oh, she’s a man-hating lesbian Gender Studies major.”

“How’s your daughter, Mr. Dawson?”
“Oh, she’s a herpes-infected degenerate slut.”

What a tragedy it is for parents to raise daughters who deliberately bring such grief and shame to their families, and call it “empowerment.”

When parents bemoan the shortage of “good men” as an explanation for why their daughters are not married, they simply are not taking account of the poisonous effects of 21st-century feminism. Young men coming of age amid this epidemic of lunacy are not living in their parents’ world circa 1992, when a college boy could flirt with a girl and expect her either to flirt back, or else give him a brush-off. That kind of pas-de-deux of romantic play is dangerous on the 21st-century campus, where boys are accused of “harassment” merely for talking to girls. Given the pervasive mood of anti-male hostility that feminists have created, smart young guys — those “good men” who seem so scarce — minimize their risk. They are exceedingly cautious in their interactions with women. It’s not that guys fear rejection, but rather that they fear the potentially life-ruining repercussions of making the wrong move in a climate where more than 100 male students have filed lawsuits saying they were falsely accused of rape and denied due process in campus kangaroo courts.

Maybe your daughter isn’t a vindictive man-hating Gender Studies major, and maybe your daughter isn’t a herpes-infected slut, but amid this epidemic of feminist lunacy, how can a young guy be sure? What if he takes a chance and makes a move and — BOOM! — he finds he has stumbled into a minefield of psychotic craziness?

There are still good guys out there, but they’re very careful nowadays. And the bottom line is still the same: Winners win and losers lose.

Young people still fall in love and get married — it happens every day — and if your daughter can’t find a husband, maybe Adam Piggott’s right: “Your daughter probably isn’t that special.” She’s a dime a dozen, not even close to being suitable wife material. Feminists would congratulate her on being empowered, resisting the patriarchal institution of marriage. And she can enjoy her empowerment alone, or perhaps with a roommate, in a tiny apartment with her cats, and a cup full of “male tears.”

How'd that work out for you, Amanda? #WhyTrumpWon #FeminismIsCancer pic.twitter.com/yQIKDXIe9K

— The Patriarch Tree (@PatriarchTree) January 13, 2017

 

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