We’re in a time when the word “misogynist” is being thrown around far too frequently. Men, being men, appreciating a good beer, and loving tits is suddenly some sort of hate crime. It’s silly. But as a counter-response, “feminist,” with its bra-burning, man-hating, negative, lesbian connotation, is being thrown around too often, too. First of all, that’s not feminism; that’s misandry. It means man-hating, much like misogyny means woman-hating. Actual feminism just means that you believe that regardless of gender, you should have equal opportunities — you should be able to choose to be a stay-at-home parent or a CEO, and be respected as an equal of the other people who choose the same path.
But since feminism has taken on the meaning of misandry, and misandry has taken on the meaning of satanism, “girl power” must take on the meaning of feminism. “I’m not a feminist, I just believe in girl power.” It’s all semantics. Bottom line: you don’t want women to be subhuman. Good for you.
While both terms are thrown around too often as lazy counter-arguments in this ongoing battle of the sexes, it doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Misogynists are real. They are the types of men who try to make women feel guilty for wanting to be respected. They try to make women feel guilty for wanting anything that they deem unbecoming of a woman. This is America. We are founded on our freedoms to choose to be or do whatever we want, and if someone wants to make you feel guilty for those choices, he’s, frankly, an asshole.
Matt Forney put out a piece of garbage called “The Case Against Female Self-Esteem,” in which he explains why, well, women should be insecure and have low self-esteem. Let’s explore it.
1. Most girls have done nothing to deserve self-esteem.
…Women claim they want equal rights as men, but they don’t want equal responsibilities. As such, they demand respect not based on their merit as people, but for merely continuing to breathe. Most girls’ so-called achievements, the ones they take pride in, are complete jokes. Wow, you have a master’s degree in puppetry? In a world where everyone and their mother has a college degree—and where college curriculums have been dumbed down to the point of inanity—being able to squeak through an institution of higher learning is no great achievement.
If anything, having a college degree is a strike against a girl—unless it’s in something real like a STEM discipline—as it shows that she’s a conformist who thinks that credentials are a substitute for knowledge and experience.
The same goes for having a job. The vast majority of girls work useless fluff jobs: government bureaucrats, human resources and various other makework positions that exist to give them the illusion of independence. The jobs that keep the country running—tradesmen, miners, farmers, policemen, the military—are still overwhelmingly dominated by men. If every girl was fired from her job tomorrow, elementary schools would have to shut down for a couple days, but otherwise life would go on as usual.
If every man lost his job tomorrow, the country would collapse.
Feminists can screech as loud as they want, but they will never change this fundamental reality; men accord respect based on merit, and if girls want to play in our world, they’ll have to obey our rules.
Forney’s claim here is that the only way to earn respect is to be successful in a traditionally masculine field. Women don’t tend to enter traditionally masculine fields as often as men do, because, frankly, those fields are not as generally interesting to them. They’re not traditionally as good at them. While I believe that a woman can and should do whatever she pleases, women’s brains are hardwired for different things than men’s, generally speaking. Women take on jobs in human resources and in schools, and as social workers, because they are better at them. Just because these jobs are different from men’s jobs doesn’t make them less important. The gatherer is just as valuable as the hunter, if you will. The gatherer can’t hunt as well, and the hunter can’t gather as well. We take on the roles we’re best at. We work together, and without each role, as a family unit, we are incomplete.
The world could not survive on masculinity alone. We need people to teach our children. We need people to support a family emotionally, and that’s just not something that men are traditionally good at. Without women to provide that, we’d be living in an angry, emotionally unstable world — NOT that women can’t have high-powered jobs, or that they have to find themselves in traditionally feminine roles, of course. The point is, traditionally masculine and traditionally feminine roles BOTH need to be fulfilled, regardless by whom, or the world couldn’t work.
It’s unfair to judge a woman, and to say she can only be respected, garnering herself a high self-esteem, based on her ability to complete a man’s role, if it’s not what she’s best equipped to do. Men and women are like magnets. You need both the negative and the positive side to make them work, and they are equally important. If you’re judging a positive side on its ability to act as the negative side, it will fail every time. That doesn’t mean it’s unsuccessful at what it’s set out to do. That doesn’t make it less important. Shouldn’t a woman, so long as she is good at what she does — whether that be keeping a home, teaching in a school, or performing brain surgery — be respected? Merit comes in more forms than the narrow construct Forney’s provided for it.
2. Insecurity is integral to femininity.
…Insecurity is the natural state of woman. How could it be anything else? Given their lack of physical strength, a woman on her own should be frightened as hell without men to protect her. If society were to collapse, all the Strong, Independent Women™ who read Jezebeland xoJane would last about five minutes before they either found a man to cling onto or got raped and killed. In the bellum omnium contra omnes that is mankind’s default existence, a woman who is alone is a woman who is already dead.
One of the most commonly repeated tropes of feminists and manboobs goes something like this:
“You should be happy that women nowadays are independent, because it means that they’re with you because they WANT to be with you, not because they’re dependent on you.”
This is a fundamental violation of the relationship between men and women. Part of our identity as men based in women needing us, if not necessarily in a material sense, then in an emotional one, though material and emotional vulnerability often go hand in hand. That female insecurity is a crucial ingredient for unlocking our inner masculine instincts. If a girl needs me, feels that her life would end if she were to lose me, I’m doubly inspired to be there for her, to shield her from the cruelty of the world. Frankly, it’s pretty hot. If she just wants me, could take me or leave me, my gut response is one of apathy. “Yeah, whatever babe.”
Some of Forney’s points here are valid. In a savage world, in which we had to rely upon physicality to survive, he is right. Women would not survive without men. They are stronger, and we would need them for protection. I understand the psychological and instinctual implications of this. Perhaps, at our cores, part of us wants to feel like we need our man, and he wants to feel needed. I’d argue, again, that that goes both ways. While we may “need” them physically, they “need” us emotionally. Have you ever heard of a guy spilling out his heart to his boys? Of course not. But every guy has a lady, or a best girl friend, in whom he confides when he needs to. They “need” to be taken care of like we “need” to be provided for.
I can understand the argument that men and women depend on each other in a way. Though, I think we’re in a day and age when anyone could easily survive without a counterpart, but it’s nice to have a yin to your yang. The glaring flaw with Forney’s point here is that he is blatantly confusing dependence with insecurity. You can be a confident person and still rely on someone. There’s no reason not to. You don’t have to think lowly of yourself to think that having another person in your life could enhance it. Confidence doesn’t mean that a woman doesn’t have the capacity to feel that her man enhances her life. It just means that she knows she deserves the positive influences he has over her, and that — more importantly — if he were suddenly not to be in her life any more, she could easily find a different man, if not as good, better, to replace him. If that mindset is a turn-off to you, to know that you’re replaceable, that speaks not to her confidence, but to your own insecurity.
3. Women don’t want to have high self-esteem.
In their bones, girls know that their toxic, feminist you-go-grrl ideology is a lie. Why do you think the average urban slut machine is downing enough Prozac to poison the water supply? Pharmacological assistance is the only way she can make it through her day without slitting her wrists, or alternately realizing that her life is a complete lie. Every day, women show through their actions that they despise their strong, independent lives.
They want nothing more than for a man to throw them over his knee, shatter the Berlin Wall around their hearts, and expose the lovestruck, bashful little girl within.…
At the end of the day, there are no Strong, Independent Women™. There are only shrews pleading for a taming. All the posturing, the pill-popping, the whining and demands for “equality”; they’re a cry for help. Girls don’t want the six-figure cubicle job, the shiny Brooklyn 2BR, the master’s degree, the sexual liberation, none of it. They want to be collectively led back to the kitchen, told to make a nice big tuna sandwich with extra mayo and lettuce, then swatted on the ass as we walk out the door.
I want a confident man, yes. I want a manly man — that’s true, too. Personally, I’d like a man who exudes a facade of dominance, though I was secretly calling the shots. Wanting a confident man, however, doesn’t mean I can’t be confident. Even if every woman in the world wanted a man who was more confident than she, and every man in the world wanted a woman less confident than he, I still see this as a sliding scale. The insecure women get the insecure men — beta betch for the beta man, and the confident women are with the confident men — alpha betch for the alpha male. A secure, confident man doesn’t need to find a woman who’s so unsure of herself that she’s stuck with him. He wants to be with the woman who knows she could have any man who wanted her, but chose him anyway. Dominance and submission has nothing to do with security, unless a woman is so insecure that she cowers into submission as a means to keep a guy around — which we all know doesn’t work. Giving a guy exactly what he wants is more likely to make him leave than it is to make him stay.
You, Forney, are a misogynist. College guys who aren’t ready for commitment are not. The men I come into work with every day, who make dick jokes, and talk about their love for a nice set of naturals, are not. But you — who think that, not just your woman, but all women need to be filled with self-doubt and fears of inadequacy, because they don’t deserve to feel something else — are a misogynist, and it doesn’t make me a man-hating “feminist” to say so.
[via Matt Forney]
Image via blog.melschwartz.com
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Veronica Ruckh
Veronica (@VeronicaRuckh) is the Director of Total Sorority Move for Grandex, Inc. After having spent her undergraduate years drinking $4 double LITs on a patio and drunk texting away potential suitors, she managed to graduate with an impressive GPA and an unimpressive engagement ring -- so unimpressive, in fact, some might say it's not there at all. Veronica has since been fulfilling her duties as "America's big," a title she gave to herself with the help of her giant ego. She has recently switched from vodka to wine on weekdays. Email her at veronica@grandex.co
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