By Andrew

I’ve always been interested in what feminists think of the military draft, given it just kinda goes against the grain of their ‘men have always been privileged’ view of the world. I guess we need to give them a little credit on this issue (very little, as you’ll soon see), as they typically oppose it.

However, in opposing the draft, they trivialize it and turn it in to an issue that’s bad for both women and men. Just read National Association of Women’s policy statement on the military draft in its entirety:

“BE IT RESOLVED, that NOW opposes the reinstatement of registration and draft for both men and women. NOW’s primary focus on this issue is on opposition to registration and draft. However, if we cannot stop the return to registration and draft, we also cannot choose between sisters and brothers. We oppose any registration or draft that excludes women as an unconstitutional denial of rights to both young men and women. And we continue to oppose all sex discrimination by the volunteer armed services.”

Hmmmm, so “any draft that excludes women” denies rights to “both young men and women.” I guess that’s technically true. After all, Jim Crow, technically speaking, denied rights to both black people and white people.

Why can’t the draft just be one issue in which men got shafted and the Selective Service be an example of men getting shafted today? The answer is simply that if such concessions were made, the ‘women are always victim’ paradigm would fade away into a more nuanced and intelligent view of historical gender relations. And of course there are many such examples of this.

Feministing for one, deals with the old ‘women and children first’ policy that was sacrosanct in the 19th century and is still used today, by simply pretending it doesn’t exist.

Search “women and children first” on their site and you come up with two hits, the first celebrates the 30th anniversary of the charity Women and Children First and the second is an interview with an author who references a bookstore named, you guessed it, Women and Children First.

So feminists take an issue that only affects men directly and turn it into a two sided issue and then ignore another obvious issue that affects men. These examples, however, pale in comparison to my favorite example of feminist moderation in the face of absurdity; feminists ambivalent treatment of the outrageous. Take this article by XX Magazine on the horribly difficult question of whether or not to imprison “deadbeat dads.”

The article makes no bones about it; it’s called “Deadbeat Dad’s and Debtor’s Prison.” They know we’re talking about debtor’s prisons here, which were abolished in the United States a generation before slavery.

Unbelievably, the story is not about whether it’s moral to jail “deadbeat dads” but rather, as KJ Dell’Antonia opens “Can the state jail a “deadbeat dad” without providing him a lawyer?”

That’s like asking ‘is it OK for a bank to jail a delinquent homeowner without providing him a lawyer’ or ‘can a property manager to jail a delinquent tenant without providing him a lawyer.’ Why the hell is that even an issue? Why can the state jail someone for being delinquent on a debt? Debtor’s prisons are an anachronistic form of tyranny feminists appear to be completely comfortable with as long as the only victims are male. (I should note this is nothing new, according to Warren Farrell, back in the early 19th century, husbands were routinely jailed for debts their wives incurred.)

The lunacy of her discussion about these “hard cases” continues:

And then there’s the question of what “can’t pay” means. What of the parent who’s lost his job and is now balancing the mandatory child support payment with supporting children from a new marriage?”

So a guy either provides tribute to his ex-wife and lets his kids starve, or provides food for his children and deal with getting harassed by child support agencies and perhaps imprisoned by them. Why, it seems to me you’re missing something here KJ.

So, if any of you ever find it a mystery how feminists can be so blind to the problems men face, just look at how ambivalent they are toward blatant oppression.