A SELF-DAMNING OPINION
Some thoughts on Feminism

The movement seems to have begun in reaction to the prevalent bad attitude of the 19th century towards women, one which at best ignored them and which at worst held them a lower class of human. Either way, they were not held or treated as equals with men. The feminist movement seems to have attempted to right this wrong by seeking the right for women to DO What Men Do, and assumed that this will make men and women equal and everything will be fine.

This creates a problem for men, because society just happens to define manhood as What Men Do. So we grow up thinking that we'll go to college, get a job, probably get married, and therefore we'll achieve manhood. Then we see women pursuing and indeed doing exactly the same things, and we get confused. The manhood we've been seeking all our lives turns out to be identical with womanhood. Which is, to say the least, confusing. It's not that we resent women for doing well in college, for getting better jobs than we do, or for doing anything else that we do--it's just that it leaves us with nothing by which we can win our spurs, as it were.

I suppose the question that I have to answer is why men need to win their spurs anyway, or, more succinctly, I need to explain why manhood and womanhood should NOT be identical. I'm not certain what I can say save that such an identification runs contrary to everything I have observed in myself and in those around me, both men and women. We ARE different (and not only biologically), created for different tasks and roles. Equal tasks, and equal roles...but still different.

Let me get at the issue from another perspective. Only a weak man will want a woman weaker than he is himself. Only a man who feels himself insufficient and helpless wants a woman who is less than he is. A real man will not be content unless his wife is his equal in spirit, in intellect, and in strength (emotional and perhaps even physical). A weaker woman only serves to stroke the ego of a weak man.

A man desires a companion, a partner, a (dare I say the word?) helpmate. Not an advisor, not a second-in-command, not an aide-de-campe, but an equal. The ideal is that they act as a unit.

Here is my hypothesis. I contend that within the constraints of that unit, the man is--forgive me, I find it nearly impossible to find a fitting word to describe his proper role. Every word I wish to use is insufficient, and worse, has been so misunderstood as to render it useless to communicate what must be said.

Let me put it this way. If the unit errs, the man is to blame. Always. If it does well, if it succeeds, if it accomplishes something, then both man and woman are to be praised equally, but if it fails, the blame is the man's. Without exception, without excuse. The man is responsible.

That is not to say that women cannot make mistakes. Nor to say that they are by nature incapable of leadership, or responsibility, or any preeminence. It is fiercely evident that such is not so. Nevertheless, within the constraints of a relationship between a man and a woman, the man must accept the responsibility both for himself and for her. Not power over her, or possession of her, or even leadership, not as we (unfortunately) understand the word today. The man must bear the burden of the relationship and all that flows from it.

I'm not even saying that this decreases the woman's responsibility for these things. Simply that the man must (must as in: it is decreed in the nature of things), when he marries, take on more responsibility than is naturally his own when he is alone. He must devote himself to the protection of his wife, without in the least thinking less of her or thinking her incapable of protecting herself. To put it in practical terms. A good man's ideal wife will give her life for their children, and will protect them as well as he will, but he must himself stand between her and any danger. Not because he thinks her helpless, but because his life is hers. He must always give his life for her and yet always respect her as his equal (or even his better).

This, to my mind, is the essence of true manhood. Let it be underlined, italicized, put in bold and shouted from the housetops. When men fail in this, marriages fail, families fail, churches fail and society fails. And, strange but true, when men fail in this, women feel betrayed.

So this is the tale I would tell of the feminist movement. In the 19th century--no, this is a tale of all of history, not just the 19th century--too many men, individually and collectively, were complacent and selfish and failed to simply be men. They felt insufficient and inferior in their failure, and compensated for it by demanding that women be less, so that they might feel themselves to be greater by comparison. We still didn't like the result, but it at least masked the pain of self-loathing so we could live with ourselves.

In the 19th century, women got fed up with it. I'm not sure why it happened then--perhaps men got particularly bad then. Women demanded equality, because the world was going to hell in a handbasket and they were damned if they'd stand by and watch the men let it happen. Across society women stepped in where men failed and worked to fix the problems. And all the while, they despised men for making them do it, because it wasn't what they were created to do, and in their heart of hearts they knew it as well as the men did. For the men did know, but they looked around and despaired of ever being worthy to stand beside these new women, and they sighed and returned to their complacency. And far too many learned to hate or despise or resent women, though they did not understand that they resented them only for being what they themselves refused to be.

And now that it is done and woman can do anything man can do, we are all lost and confused. We both have a false ideal for ourselves--the same ideal--to excel in school, rise in business, beat the competition and bring home the bacon. The traditionalists offer nothing--they blame the feminists, tell women to stay home, tell men to be leaders, and tell children to obey. The brave new world hears in their words the fading call of an old bondage, and slavers in rage or laughs in scorn--but the laughter is forced, because nobody is any happier in the brave new world than they were in the old.

And women can't fix it, because it's not their fault. Feminism can't fix it by going away--it is itself only a symptom. The problem is the weakness and laziness and complacency of men--and we are the only ones who can fix it.

Because the world was made for women AND men. And, while a woman can do almost anything a man can do, she still can't do everything.

She cannot be a husband. She cannot be a father.

And she cannot be a man.