We often hear feminists – particularly of the male studies variety – speaking of “toxic masculinity,” and how we must redefine masculinity to save society. Aside from the fact that the world is a better, safer and more humane place than it ever has been (largely due to the sacrifices of men) which renders this argument somewhat odd, there is precious little work being done on the part of these feminists to actually reward men who take on nontraditional roles.
The biggest and most important role, of course, is childrearing. This also happens to be a role that many men, taking into account the vast amount of custody litigation, clearly want. Additionally, given higher male unemployment, you’d think a lot of men could be doing more for society by helping raise their children rather than piling up child support arrears.
However, as much as you’ll hear feminists whining about how they have to do all the work raising kids, as soon as a father asks for more time with his children he’s immediately fingered as a bum who just doesn’t want to fork over the child support.
This one issue – parenting – is the most important of all when it comes to relationships between men and women. In fact, it is the very reason men and women have relationships in the first place. Recognizing men’s equal role as parents would do more to promote equality between the sexes than anything else, but when it comes to who gets the kids after divorce or separation, feminists either wholeheartedly support mother custody or remain silent. I can’t think of one single prominent feminist who has promoted equal parenting, despite the fact that most of them claim to be all for equality in everything else.
Now, for the most part these feminists would say “it’s in the best interests of the child,” but they don’t really care all that much about children. If they did, why would they reflexively support late term abortion of viable infants, which is legally recognized as murder in most states? Why do they throw their support behind child murderers such as Andrea Yates? No, it isn’t that they are worried about the children — it’s because it gives women the upper hand. And this is because men tend to care a a great deal about their children.
Gloria Steinem once wisely remarked that the most important thing for feminists to control was reproduction, and although she didn’t put it in such explicit terms, this is because having complete control over childbearing and childrearing allows them to hold the most valuable hostages of all — our children.
There is plenty of research indicating that children with present fathers have far better prospects in life, and that biological fathers are less likely than any other caregivers, including mothers, to injure their children (some feminists include boyfriends and stepfathers as “fathers,” thus distorting the data), and children who grow up with single fathers tend to do better than those growing up with single mothers. And, of course, ideally both parents participate in raising children, but it’s pretty clear that a child’s biological father is rarely a risk to his children, and far more likely to exert protective influence.
If feminists really want to force men to do their share of domestic work, there would be no better means of accomplishing that than mandating shared parenting. While I have my kids over, I do the equivalent of a ten hour day every day they are with me. Housework with the kids around is about 500% harder than without them, and that may be an underestimate. You have to do a couple loads of dishes a day, do a wash a day, pick up after them, drive them around, cook, shop, etc. It is real, honest work.
So why don’t the Michael Kimmels and Gloria Steinems of the world, if they really care about equality, support equal parenting after divorce? Why do they focus on penal re-education for men, support odd, aberrant and useless things like transsexualism (i.e. castration), and focus on haranguing the relatively few men left in higher ed?
It’s because they don’t really care about equality. They are hypocrites. What they want is power for themselves and their confederates. Kimmel wants to sell books and keep his department “relevant.” Steinem has faded from public view, presumably to enjoy an inheritance from David Bale. As much of a disaster as feminism has been for most of us, it’s been a great perk for many privileged men and women alike. Given that it’s been so useful for certain people, why ever would they want to pursue effective solutions when maintaining a high level of conflict between men and women has been so profitable to them?
