Last week I described the recent urban legend of the “Rule of Thumb.” The fact its opposite is true (it has never been legal nor even acceptable for a man to beat his wife; men have always found their identity in protection) suggests it is an intentional smear against men. The fact women commit as much or more domestic violence as men makes the last three decade’s of gender-focused domestic violence campaigns equally a gender-hate crime. Violence has never been gender-specific, but domestic violence has been politicized as a weapon for gender wars. Consider the mythical deadbeat dad. The emotion used to justify persecution of every divorced father is that 34% of single mothers (and, hence, their children) live in poverty. The assumption is that all those fathers live on the Rivera and all we must do is force them to pay. It is a similar smear. In truth, if every one of those mothers married the father of their children, just as many children would still be just as poor. If 34% of single mothers are poor, what do you suppose about the fathers? But our child support enforcement policy is, “inability to pay is no excuse” (men can’t possibly be poor or deserve compassion), and since 1986 it has not even been possible to reduce arrearage when new evidence comes to light, even having been in a comma. Child support is used as another opportunity to blame men for any plight, but this one nicely dove-tales with those who want to blame poverty on the poor. Or at least on poor men, not women. These social campaigns are mass vilifications along strictly gender lines. For all men they create what feminist like to call a hostile environment when done to them. If it’s wrong done to women, what makes it right done to men? In response to the recent spat of trials of adult women discovered having sex with underaged boys, Chicago Tribune columnists Eric Zorn and Mary Schmich wrote that this should not be a crime. It should be a crime when men have sex with underaged girls, but when women do the same thing the boys should be punished because they should know better. An adult women should not, she is “just having a relationship.” This is another expression of, “All women are caring, all men are predators.” If there was sexism before the 1970s, it’s nothing to what we have now. Jean Bonhomme is a male black doctor in Georgia who grew up in 1960s Atlanta. In a recent article about the buttons teen girls are now wearing (“All boys are stupid,” “Boys are great, everyone should own one.”), he says, “It does not appear to me that discrimination is being eliminated, but merely shifted from one group to another.” Since the Industrial Revolution annihilated any distinct female identity, it is understandable for women to seek new ways to distinguish themselves as women. But when self pride can only come at the expense of pride and justice for others – when it’s only source is projecting one’s own evil onto others in a superiority game; when rights for women can only come at the expense of any for men – it is not pride but prejudice. It is not assertive but defensive, and not social progress but regression. There have been social changes during my lifetime. There has been no social *progress* nor movement for gender equality. Not if equality means equal dignity and respect for all. ©2010 KC Wilson To nourish children and raise them against odds is in any time, any place, more valuable than to fix bolts in cars or design nuclear weapons. - Marilyn French
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