by MzNicky
Population-wise, U.S. women outnumber U.S. men, 51 to 49 percent. For some, this seems to indicate that the females of this country, composing as they do the “majority,” can now sit back, relax, and “stfu” already. Besides, these particular individuals are prone to disingenuously point out, “we” have already “given” women the right to vote; “we” have decided they may earn (almost) as much money for doing the same work that “we” do; and “we” have granted, theoretically, women control of their own uteri—sort of, sometimes, in some cases, void where prohibited by law—until such time as “we” decide to “take” it back again.
The embedded assumption here is that it’s a “man’s world,” and thus men are the possessors of rights, privileges, and legal protections, theirs to dole out or rescind as they please. And because of a persistent clinging to this age-old assumption rattling around, unexamined, somewhere in humanity’s collective unconscious, many seem genuinely surprised when, given all the goodies men have thus far seen fit (albeit grudgingly) to "give" women, the occasional ungrateful harridan still pops up, wanting even more.
This is when "they" resort to backlash behavior, expressed with all the exasperation and pent-up resentment of a parent trying to deal with a recalcitrant child. “What about the men!” They wail. “There's more money spent on breast cancer research than on prostate cancer!” “Women already get favoritism in the workplace!” “Title IX discriminates against boys!” “Save the males!” And so forth.
Which is all meant to obscure the facts that:
1) Until NIH revisions were instituted in the late-1980s to early 1990s, women weren't included in most medical-research clinical trials—including those involving breast cancer. (Yes, that’s right. Breast-cancer research studies used men only as subjects until those whiny feminists started complaining about it.) As it turns out (who'd a-thunk it!), women's bodies often function differently than do men's. For example, the realization that heart attacks, the number-one killer of women, symptomatically present differently in women than in men is a relatively recent one. And increases in breast-cancer research only occurred when, during the early 1990s, enough feminists got fed up with the spiraling rates of the disease, coupled with its stagnant survival rates, to organize at the grassroots level and go to DC and demand it.
2) Women still get the short end of the stick on payday: Median income in 2003 for American males was $40,668; for women, $30,724—a wage gap of 75.5 percent. Given that for decades women were considered incapable of performing many—nay, most—jobs at all, and were thusly excluded from the work force, we are apparently supposed to "stfu" and be grateful that rewards for our labor aren't currently of comparatively less monetary value than they once were.
We’ve now endured more than 30 years of whining over Title IX—you know, the argument that the 1972 Education Amendments imposed federal “favoritism” for girls and women, which grousing usually centers around sports (although the legislation applies to discrimination in other areas as well). Neatly omitted from such demurring over the concept that females are U.S. citizens, too, is the given that, if the playing field in such school activities had been level in the first place, and of course it was not, there would have been no need for the amendment.
Feminists are also treated to what some feel is the trump rejoinder, which usually goes something like: “If women really want equality, why don’t they register for the draft? Feminists just want to have it both ways, blah blah blah.” Well, let’s have it both ways, shall we?
The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), first drafted in 1923 and still being introduced at every Congressional legislative session since, was lobbied into defeat in 1982 by Phyllis Schafly and others of her ilk, who successfully demonized the proposed Amendment with visions not only of unisex bathrooms and men being forced to change diapers, but also of women being drafted into military service, just the same as men! And now that the very equality the ERA would have ensured is only a distant memory in the American psyche, the sticking point, amazingly enough, is now dusted off and used to berate feminists with a braying version of “Oh yeah? What about the draft, you hypocritical bitches?”
Please note, if you will, the rabid sexism inherent in the notion that female offspring are somehow more valuable than those who are male and thus should be “protected” from such unseemly possibilities. This is what we mean by gender discrimination. It cuts both ways.
Hurts, doesn't it?
Feminism Backlash Equality ERA Gender Discrimination Patriarchy Misogyny
Posted by egalia for MzNicky
