Independent Women - An Important Piece of Feminist Mythology

"I am a very independent woman."

Who hasn't heard this? In fact, who doesn't hear this 18 times if the TV is turned on for only 15 seconds? And who doesn't hear it an additional 18 times during the day, from all three random women that one might run into and converse with during the course of the day?

But you know me... I very seldom accept things at face value. I have found that if you just ask one question more, all pretense gets blown away.


Woman 1

... is an attorney. Whenever she writes me a personal note, or wants me to relay a something to my wife, she phrases it as if she were channeling the spirit of Bob Dole. Instead of "Bob Dole says" she says something to the effect of "This INDEPENDENT woman says...."

Yet, I seem to remember a day in which her husband came to the office and the two of them managed to have a very public argument about money. He owns a business in a field which has been hit very hard by the recession, and needed a bit of an advance to make his books balance out. In the middle of her assertions that he was asking her for "her money," he sputtered:

Your money? You didn't have any money when I found you! You only had a passle of kids to feed and no money and no job! I put you through college and I put you through law school! Your money? You wouldn't have anything at all, money or otherwise, if it wasn't for me!!!

She admitted that this was true. She still refused to "lend" him "her money."


Woman 2

... is a medical functionary that I had occasion to meet. She, more than being "independent," was also "strong" and "capable of meeting men on their own terms" and "kicking life's a$$."

"So what do you mean by 'independent?,'" I asked.

"I mean," she answered, "that ever since I got off welfare and food stamps I have paid my own bills, clothed my own children, and advanced in my career."

"Food stamps?" queried I. "Welfare?" Follows, a story on leaving her first husband and being on welfare and food stamps for two years while she completed her education, with these two additional tidbits thrown in: her parents lent her $15,000 as a downpayment on her house, and she received government grants and a government job while in college.

"So you are 'independent,' just like a man?" asked I (always the master of the inconvenient question).

"Yes," said she.

"But," I said, "has it ever occurred to you that your male peers never had welfare or food stamps or a government job while in college? And most of them didn't receive government grants [in fact, based on the specialty, NONE of them had government grants]? And all but a miniscule number would have been mortified to go to their parents and ask for a sizable loan so that they could buy a house? And besides, none of them ever received alimony or child support, either!"

"How did you know I received alimony and child support?" she asked.

"Lucky guess."


Woman 3

She was an "independent single mother." She took great pride, the pride of a victim, in being an "independent single mother." She said it all the time. Once, she said it at a poker game, to the amusement of some, and the mortification of others.

"So I had Charlie come over the other day and fix that old motorcycle that was in the shed," she said.

"Charlie?" queried I.

"Yeah, some guy I used to date. He likes spending time with me."

Knowing her personality, I doubted that. Knowing her bra size, I suspected it might be something else entirely. "Maybe he is hoping his act of kindness will encourage you to date him again."

"Oh, no, I'd never do that. He's not my type," she said, smugly.

"I see. He's not your type, but he is the type who... fixes motorcycles?"

"Well, I had to sell it. I needed the money and it was just taking up space out in the shed."

"Wasn't that your husband's motorcycle?"

"EX-husband," she snooted. "And if he weren't three months behind on his child support, I wouldn't have needed the money so badly to begin with!"

Closing in for the kill, I said, "But I though you were living rent-free in a house he owns? Doesn't he get any credit for that?"

"The judge said that was entirely separate and did not relieve him of his duty to pay child support," she replied, with all the confidence of a woman who had been through the judicial system enough to know that it was firmly on her side.

"So, uhhhhh, how's that new car your parents bought you working out?" I asked, changing the subject, but, I thought, making a valuable point.


Now, these are certainly only a few women - all of them real and all of them personally known by me - but I have chosen them because they are representative of the entirety of the group of women who have crossed my path. I can confidently say that I have never in my life met an "independent woman," if "independent" means the same thing for a woman as it does for a man. I have never met a woman who, at some point in her life, was not wholly dependent upon a man for income, child support, or alimony, or who has never been on welfare of some sort, or who has managed to pay her own bills without the aid of a friend, boyfriend, parent, or ex-husband.

Women convince themselves, because women have the innate ability to re-define words in ways that suit them, that they are "independent" because they truly value independence in men. Yet there are precious few, if any, women who have made it through their adult years without being dependent upon a man, a parent, or the government. But such lack of dependence in men is the rule, not the exception.

Feminists, because they hate men and children (and truthfully, they hate women as well, but that's another blog entry), and thus the family, have tried to convince women that they can be as independent of men as men are of women. Yet in convincing them to abandon their families, they have merely convinced women to exchange the natural dependence that women have on men for a much greater reliance - bordering on slavery - upon government. And, let's be honest here, this option for such reliance is not available to men. So much for the famed femtard concern about "equality."

I know many men who have managed to make a life on their own without any sort of assistance on women, parents, ex-girlfriends, or the government. I have even known many such men who desperately needed the kind of help that "independent women" expect to receive, and receive, as a matter of course.

And I have learned that there is a special term for a man that needs the kind of help that women get routinely: homeless.

Everything Men Can Do, Women Can Do Better, Except....

"Women and responsibility go together like salt and snails...."

Feminism = Professional Bitchery: Will the Bitching EVER Stop?

So, yeah, I get it, chicks have a unique perspective and have been silenced by The Patriarchy and we need affirmative action to open up more channels of dialogue for chicks to give us their opinions about politics and family and the economy and strappy sandals and whatnot.

So recently, the Washington Post, in an attempt to bend over forwards for the femtard hoards, started a new blog especially for women, and featuring women, called "She the People." Clever title. If you are in fifth grade. Which is actually four grades more clever than the average Women's Studies program in grad school.

Now, of course, the dirty little secret, unknown to all except for everyone outside of politics, academia, and feminism itself, which is to say, known by almost everyone, is that feminism's only tool is bitching about this, yielding only to bitching about that, and taking breaks on rare occasion to bitch about the other thing.

So professional bitch... errrrrr.... feminist... errrrr.... bitch, Jessica Valenti, whose life is "complicated" enough to get excited about such things, posted her uncompromising approval of the idea of... affirmative action??? Who knew???

Apparently, she feels (for all feminists feel rather than think) that women should, by sheer virtue of their womanness, be given the headline on the front page, regardless of their talent. It is not enough that the Washington Post has devoted an entire blog to the inane drivel and sheer psychosis that is feminism, and it is not enough that, by virtue of such blog, several women are employed who, by virtue of their Master's Degree in Women's Studies from an Ivy League institution, are fit only to be the Assistant Manager at Burger King. No, Valenti believes that those who have talent (and trust me, we are talking about the Washington Post here, so the whole idea of "talent" is quite relative in this discussion) should simply step aside, forfeit their work and compensation, and yield to the femtard hoards. Maybe she wants femtards to take over the Washington Post, and then just devote a sub-blog to the real writers?

Who knows, maybe Valenti and the other femtard "writers" got a new set of crayons at Christmas...?

So she bitches, quite bitchingly:

Here’s the thing: I will always want more women’s (and feminist) voices in the mainstream media, particularly in politics. There’s an overwhelming byline gender gap and that needs to change. But The Washington Post’s new lady blog, “She the People,” is not a step in the right direction. In fact, I think it’s pretty terrible.*

I’m all for WaPo featuring more women covering politics, but why oh why can’t they just - I don’t know - feature more women covering politics on the main site or pages? As Steph Herold tweeted earlier today, “why do women need a separate blog to write about politics?”

The logo doesn’t exactly help things either. I mean, “she” is underlined with lipstick?

The lipstick is the only redeeming part of the blog, in my opinion. Chicks are so hot in the right color lipstick. Just sayin'....




So, let's follow the progression of femtard bitching, shall we?

1) "There are not enough women writers in the mainstream media." (YAWN)

2) "The mainstream media should devote more space to women writers and so-called 'women's issues.'"

3) "Now that the mainstream media has devoted more space to women writers and so-called 'women's issues,' we don't like the way in which that has been done, because our psychotic, barely-able-to-construct-an-English-sentence, vocabulary-composed-only-of-variations-of-the-words-victim-and-empowerment writers are being kept in a femtard ghetto rather than splashed all over the front page, in spite of the fact that Newsweek is quickly tanking with their experiment with femtardism we still think all media should be given to us so we can talk about ourselves and our shoes and how abortion is so hottt!, so dammit, give us the front page and all you real employees of the mainstream media go home and await further orders from the jackbooted stormtroopers of feministing."

What is the lesson here? Feminism is not about defending victims of anything, nor about obtaining equality in anything. It is about getting just a little bit more. There is nothing that you will ever say or do, and no society that could be designed in either reality or imagination that will placate the professional bitchery of the femtards.

(I won't get into the psychological or metaphysical here, but one would be tempted to speculate that the constant inability of the femtard hoards to be satisfied with anything is more reflective of an internal state typified by emptiness, rather than any outward reality of genuine denial, but I digress....)

Feminism's only tool is professional bitching. And no matter how much you give a feminist, the bitching will never stop.

Feminists truly do believe that they are entitled to whatever they feel they want, regardless of their level of ability or accomplishment or the contribution (sic) that they make to society. Notice that Valenti never attempts to establish that women are doing a job sufficient to get a "real job" with the Washington Post. Because skill doesn't matter to a femtard. They are entitled, dammit!

But does anybody actually believe that if there were ANY feminist writer with the talent to write for the mainstream media, she would be denied a job?

If you doubt the lack of talent among feminist writers, simply read Jessica Valenti. After a couple of minutes of reading Valenti, you will be craving something sensible like, "See Spot run...."

Promise Me You Will Never Let Go: Role Reversal?

Above are two scenes from art.

Art, of course, is where we are free to envision the impossible. Art encapsulates science fiction and alternative historical endings. It argues for the future. It sees the impossible as present.

Yet, it is amazing how utterly... conventional... is the message encapsulated in the above pieces of art.

Feminism tells us that men and women are equal. Women can do anything men can do - only better - and while having babies and being morally superior. Because, while women will never lie about being raped, men will certainly lie about raping.

Yet, in the first scene, Enrique Iglesias gives his life for the woman that he is fleeing with. Eventually, running into a group of gangsters, he makes a willing decision to take his licks and sacrifice himself for the woman that he loves. He singlehandedly stands down a group of armed gangsters in defense of... a woman. The words roll easily from his lips, and the concept is something that we all comprehend and find not to be foreign in the least: "Let me be your hero."

In the second scene, after the breakup and sinking of the Titanic, Jack tells Rose to take a deep breath and trust him while leaping away from the sinking ship and swimming, hopefully, to safety. While all hell is breaking loose, Jack is thinking. While everyone is panicking, Jack is in a lower zone of existence, thinking five steps ahead to what the woman that he loves will need - to escape the undertow of the sinking boat, to reserve a big supply of oxygen, to find an ice floe upon which to await rescue, and to possess the resolve, in the form of a promise, to survive. Promise me, he demands of her, that you will never let go. Because you will survive. You will go on and have a bunch of babies and die an old woman in your warm bed. You won't die like this.

You won't die like I will... tonight.

Now, think with me.

Is it even intellectually possible to perform a role reversal in these two scenes?

Is it even theoretically possible that the woman could be singing to Enrique Iglesias, "Let me be your hero while I sacrifice my life in the midst of these crazed gangsters. Let me fight and die to protect you."

OK, stop chuckling.

Could any sane person conceive of Rose protecting Jack as the Titanic breaks up and sinks? Could any sane person conceive of Rose thinking of the undertow, the oxygen, the ice floe, and the need for resolve? Could any sane person conceive of Rose floating in the water with Jack on the floe, and while sacrificing herself for him, telling him that he would not die this way, on this night?

These pieces of art do not "perpetrate a sexist stereotype." They present the only view of reality that rational people could ever possess.




Because as we know, in history as in art, it was the men who stayed behind when the Titanic ran out of lifeboats, allowing the women and children to escape. It was only a man who could utter the phrase, "That's the end boys. We've done our duty," and be satisfied - because only to men does duty matter more than life. And then, only men could finish their lives, waiting for drowning, by singing "Nearer My God to Thee." To postulate that women would stay behind and respond with such dignity and to imagine that women might show such preference for men is even beyond the bounds of legitimate art, which is built upon imagining the impossible.

The limitation, I suppose, is that the impossible has to be presented credibly to represent good art. And while the human mind can credibly conceive of a giant lizard persecuting Tokyo or a city without roads populated by hovercraft or even such odd ducks as a "Wookie," the human mind could never credibly imagine the above two scenes working out in any way other than the way in which they were presented.

The very idea, whether in either the case of armed thugs or a sinking ship, or in the case of history or of art, is more than the human mind can conceive. To even begin to postulate such a scene stretches the limits of sanity and believability. To try to reverse the roles in the above scenes would immediately turn a heroic music video into a gigglefest. It would turn a somber moment into a moment of comic relief. It is not that the role reversals won't happen - they couldn't happen.

Men and women are far too different. And in any moment of need in which a woman did not have a political axe to grind, like mere moments before perceived trouble or death, we all know that she would be turning to the nearest man for her salvation. To postulate any other denouement would far surpass even what we could conceive in science fiction.

Even in the realm of the imagination, we betray more unintentionally than we can ever muster by mouthing tired old feminist phrasings on purpose. The truth is, we all know that men and women are not the same, not equal, not whatever. And to try to pull off a scene that is heroic, dramatic, sad, or virtuous - even in the realm of art - it is necessary to cast the man as the hero, coming to the rescue of the fair maiden. That is, if one is to avoid having one's art degenerate into the boorish, the campy, the sophomoric, the psychotic, or simply the cartoonish. To try to imagine these two scenes ending consistently with the purported feminist world view would immediately elicit the challenge of, "You're kidding, right?" or a quick call to the nearest mental institution.

Even in the realm of art, where our task is the design of new possibilities and alternate realities, we recognize that every single affirmation of feminism is not just wrong, but inconceivably silly.

Female Radio Personality Describes the Historical Rationale for Feminism, and the Legal Basis for Sexual Harassment, in a Single Concise Rant

Who says chicks can't do philosophy? I was extremely encouraged to hear the following rant by a local radio personality in which she alternately describes the historical basis for the feminist movement, the legal basis for sexual harassment claims, the origin of the Latin language, and the meaning of life (rumored to be, "42"). Next week, catch Carmen's lecture on the relationship between bipolar disorder and the space-time continuum...!

"The feminist movement was started by a bunch of ugly women who wanted special treatment. Feminists do not want equality. They want special treatment. These are a bunch of women who want to be promoted and make their way up the ladder without being qualified.... [Feminism has succeeded] because men are a bunch of wussies, and you [guys] let this happen.... If your [fathers] had not been doormats we wouldn't be in this situation today. Women have no interest in equality, because if they did, we wouldn't see the number of sexual harassment lawsuits that we see."

Carmen Connors, WRDU 106.1's Morning Rush (Raleigh/Knightdale, NC)

I Am the One Percent

Feminism: Evidence that Women are Weak and Dependent

The feminist movement is the ultimate admission by women that they are wholly dependent upon men. It is the externalization of a neurotic desire to design a world in which women can be cared for by men, and always have men accept responsibility for their weaknesses, while simultaneously asserting their moral and intellectual independence from men.

While maintaining that women are "strong and independent," women insist that government provide for them through the welfare state, that men provide for them through child support and alimony, that the justice system protect them from even imaginary threats (and the most minor of insults) mobilized by the lavish leveling of false allegations, and that both government and business be fully committed to the proposition of the self-worth of the individual woman through compelling that their hiring, promotion, and professionalization be increased via affirmative action, preferential promotion policies, and through divergent sets of rules for men and women.

Thus, the total dependence of women upon men is revealed by feminism's demand that men, and structures erected by men (such as government and business), continue to be responsible for the provision, protection, and even emotional health of women, who appear wholly incapable of standing on their own the more feminist they become.

BOOK REVIEW: "In Praise of Prejudice" by Theodore Dalrymple

I once heard a man speak about how the essence of wisdom is the ability to make distinctions. He said, "Eskimos have 14 (or some ungodly number - I don't remember the exact number, but you get the idea) different words for snow. In America, we have one: 'snow.' Now, who is wiser about snow?"

Whether he meant to or not, he was making the point that the ability to detect and express distinctions is at the core of wisdom. The book of Proverbs, the Judeo-Christian canon's most well-known book of wisdom, is essentially a list of arguments which encourages discrimination: wisdom is A, foolishness is B; a woman worth marrying is A, a woman worth leaving alone is B; a godly man is A, a heathen is B. So when you look around today and see nothing but fools, you can rest assured that one of the primary reasons that people are so foolish is that they have surrendered, either willingly or consequent to having been browbeaten into it, the ability to make distinctions.

The ability to make distinctions is known as "discrimination." We speak of a man who is a coniessuer of wine or cigars or fine cars as being possessing "discriminating taste." The notions that we carry around in our heads because we know a lot about wine or cigars or fine cars are, of course, called "stereotypes" (Maseratis possess superior cornering ability, Plymouths are unreliable, Cubans consistently make the best cigars, an older wine is - all else being equal - better). The attitude that certain things are to be preferred or rejected based on the knowledge that we already have of it is called "bias" or "prejudice."

Prejudice, in the modern world, gets a bad rap. Socialists in this country have convinced everyone that 1) prejudice is bad because racial prejudice is bad, and 2) that truly intelligent people walk around without preconceived notions of any kind, constantly trying to figure out the truth anew. In politics, we call this type of person a "Moderate." If you work on a construction crew, you call this type of person an "idiot."

Because all of us operate with stereotypes and prejudices, and life would be impossible without them. Your entire childhood, your parents tried to instill certain ideas in you so that you would understand how the world worked and would be able to function in it safely, only to send you off to a public university where some learned professor attempted to strip you of your "prejudices" and revert you to infancy once again.

For instance, every time that I walk into a room and see a switch on the wall, I assume that if I flick that switch, it will turn on a light - somewhere. This stereotype of switches serves me quite well. Rather than wasting a lot of time dialoguing with a switch when I come into a room to try and get to know it in its own right, I boldly, and with astounding regularity, correctly, walk over to the switch, flick it, and a light comes on somewhere!

Have I been wrong? Of course. I once lived in an apartment and within the first week of living there I flicked a switch expecting a light to turn on and instead heard a great roar as the garbage disposal was engaged. On a rare occasion, I have gone over and flicked a switch and nothing happens. Or at least seems to happen. Whenever I experience nothing after flicking the switch, I always envision that scene from a TV program I once saw in which an unidentified switch is clicked over and over to no apparent effect till we learn that the neighbor's garage door is groaning up and down.

But the number of times that I have been wrong has been infinitessimal. And I am clever enough, when I find a switch that does not seem to turn on a light, I quickly learn, "Oh, that switch is for the garbage disposal." Or the electric chair. Or an exploding booby trap in my neighbor's, last name of Grant, driveway (if only!). And the real point is, is it better to carry around the predisposition that those types of switches turn on lights and merely learn the exceptions, or to enter every room with an empty head and wait for the switches to prove themselves to us?

Political correctness would have us to waste our lives investigating light switches when we already know, with 99.99999% accuracy, what life is all about. It is impermissible to note that women are emotional, and not intellectual - though the number of intellectual women that I have met in my life is a small number, hovering around three. And then, there is Ann Coulter, of course, but I have never met her. If you know her, will you put in a good word for me?

It is impermissible to notice that ethnic minorities commit a disproportionate amount of all crimes, though Liberals themselves are more than happy to mention that imprisonment is a huge problem in various ethnic communities, but not because of crime! - Lord no! - but rather because of a lack of economic opportunity, or education, or transistor radios, or Wii's, or something. It is impermissible to notice that Democrats are the most anti-intellectual individuals on earth, though every study not done by Democrats actually finds that Democrats score very low on tests of factual matters related to politics. And so on....

Theodore Dalrymple goes much farther than argue that prejudice should be accepted and left well enough alone (which I am, myself, ready to do), but he actually encourages and praises prejudice. While my theory is that we should not reject knowledge that comes to us, Dalrymple encourages us to actually seek out occasions to exercise prejudice! OK, well, maybe not, but his book *In Praise of Prejudice* is nevertheless worth more than one read (I stopped at two readings).

Dalrymple encourages us to instill our prejudices about such topics as life, philosophy, religion, and politics into our children, on the grounds that, should we fail to do so, "children will always choose the same thing, the thing that most immediately attracts and gratifies them." They will choose to spend, not save. They will choose to lie to keep themselves out of trouble rather than developing moral character by telling the truth and accepting responsibility and consequences for their actions. They will choose to gorge themselves on sugar, and thus become the objects of Michelle Obama's disdain for being "obese." Perhaps Dalrymple is correct on this point.

Dalrymple further argues that some prejudices are true - as my illustration of the light swtiches above - and we risk, by refusing to pass along these prejudices that false prejudices (like the myth of Global Warming and the myth that Men and Women are the Same and the myth of the Entire Democrat Party Platform) coming along and replacing truth, and that ultimately, the failure to instill in others correct stereotypes and prejudices is an act of great cruelty, as it pushes children out into a world unfit to participate in reality. AND it makes them susceptible to snake oil salesmen and liars, like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. He further argues that prejudice is, after all, inevitable, as the former prejudice against blacks has, in American, been replaced by a prejudice against whites.

He argues, rightly, that neither authority nor custom, frequent instillers of prejudices, are wrong or abusive in and of themselves. In fact, matters that have been around long enough to be custom are more likely to be correct or true than matters which were adopted for the first time in 1968, and matters that can be spoken of authoritatively are far more likely to be true and right than matters that have to be hemmed and hawwed about and spoken of in vague allusions. "Hope and Change," anyone?

Dalrymple asserts that "discrimination" ultimately means "to make a proper judgment." And that Liberals, who never make proper judgments, have taken occasion from the association of the word with racism to dull the thinking faculties of three generations. He notes that, when he was younger, "A person who did not discriminate, or was undiscriminating, was a person without taste, morality, or intellect [and socially] was likely undiscriminating in his behavior." This explains the popularity of rap music.... And sadly, the intellectual life of Americans has become as polluted as its FM radio stations precisely because a lack of discrimination leaves men unfit to discern between truth and falsehood, beauty and ugliness, or even good and evil. This explains the Springer show.... In American intellectual life, as in American pop culture, kitsch has become the constant substitute for truth.

No less towering intellects than Aristotle, Plato (and Socrates through him), and Adam Smith believed in the irrefutable value of prejudice. Those who reject ten thousand years of intellectual history, philosophy, and religion, in preference for the vacant emotional mewling of the 1968 generation would do well to realize that it is not those of us who recognize that stereotypes sting precisely because those that we held to prior to 1968 were true, but that operating with the ability to discern between good an bad is a moral necessity. Such a realization is not an attempt to force our beliefs on anyone, but the radical notion that every man has the right to determine what is right and wrong, true and false, for himself, is an incomprehensibly self-absorbed and prideful idea. Though men capable of rendering a correct judgment will often be considered "arrogant" or "full of themselves" by the moral pygmies whose intellectual and moral diets are dictated by pop culture, there is no more radical arrogance than the wholesale rejection of 10,000 years of truth and wisdom for the right to design a world all of one's own making.