You know what we rational people have been observing about feminism for years, don’t you?
It’s simple, really: Feminism claims to be all about equality, but, it’s really been relentlessly trying to make the claim that women are superior to men, and that feminism is actually about establishing a caste society in which women are on the top.
You and I hear it all the time. All the snide remarks, the off-color jokes that men supposedly used to direct at women, are strictly verboten now, but those very same comments when directed at men are just fine and, in fact, uproariously funny.
I spent a comical day several months back in a roughly half-and-half mixed-sex group of a dozen of so people, working on a wiring harness for a piece of equipment. One of the women spent the entire six hours making comments like, “Oh, that doesn’t work? A man must have made it.” And, “This is all messed up. You can tell a man did it.” Or, “This is really stupid. Must have been designed by a man.”
Over the six hours, she made many, many dozens of such comments. And at each one, everyone in the room, man and woman, laughed. The men laughed somewhat uncomfortably, because they knew full well that to make the exact same remarks, only about women, would be an HR incident, with probable firing as a consequence.
The whole thing was a remarkable display of the extent to which people soak up the dominant zeitgeist and, knowingly or not — generally not — incorporate it into their daily lives.
The current zeitgeist has nothing to do with women’s equality, and everything to do with an imagined superiority of women.(1)
Where is all this leading? Simple: the Sexual Weirdism Grievance Industry is ascending. It’ll possibly eclipse feminism, at least for a short time, and its goal is not “tolerance,” or “respect.” No, its goal is a zeitgeist in which sexual weirdists — you know, the “LGBTQIAPK community”(2) — are actually superior to the sexually normal.
You can pick a reason: either it’ll be that all the long-time oppression they imagine they’ve undergone has made saintly creatures out of them. Or, it’ll be that their inner pain and struggle have led to greater emotional and intellectual depth , or some other whack-a-doodle tommyrot.
Mark my words, though: as surely as feminism was always about women’s superiority, the Sexual Weirdism Grievance Industry (The SWGI) is all about bending the zeitgeist to incorporate the notion that the sexual weirdists are actually superior to the sexually normal.
— xPraetorius
Notes:
(1) I said, “imagined,” because to try to make an argument either way — that one sex is superior or inferior to the other — is ridiculous. There are too many apples-to-oranges comparisons in the exercise to make it valid.
(2) Here’s an interesting snippet from someone who actually believes that the “LGBTQIAPK community” is a legitimate thing:
This is my official petition to add the letters “P” and “K” to the more widely accepted LGBTQIA acronym, and to emphasize other “A” and “G” identities. This would make room not only for myself, but for all those who already identify as genderqueer, androgynous, asexual, pansexual, polyamorous, and those who are part of the kink community. Perhaps seeing those additional letters will help some of the folks out there who haven’t been exposed to these identities understand themselves a bit better and feel they too have a place in the queer community.
The blithering nitwit who wrote that gobbledygook really thinks it should be: “the LGGBTQQIAAPPK comunity!”
Yeah. Okay.
Someone (really: a whole bunch of someones) has way too much time on her hands, and needs to find a real job. If you read the feature under the above link you find out that the author, one Lyla Cicero (cool name!):
Lyla Cicero has a doctorate in clinical psychology, and focuses on relationships, sexual minorities, and sex therapy. Lyla is a feminist, LGBTQIAPK-affirmative, sex-positive blogger at UnderCoverintheSuburbs.com, where she writes about expanding cultural notions of identity, especially those surrounding gender, sexual orientation, motherhood, and sexuality. Follow her on Twitter @UndrCvrNSuburbs.
In other words, she’s never wanted to work for a living.
You read it here: She’s an “LGBTQIAPK-affirmative, sex-positive blogger” and “writes about expanding cultural notions of identity, especially those surrounding gender, sexual orientation, motherhood, and sexuality”
And I used to think I could throw the bull!!!
The Praetorian Writers' Group 
Yep, you nailed it.
Thanks, IB!
You write it better, though. You write of the brokenness of us all, and you write it with such a full-throated, sincere and intense desire for us all to be unbroken — healed, healthy, whole, hale hearty and happy.
I love that about your writing!
I frequently pick up my inspiration to write from NPR, which, as you can tell, puts me in a grumpy mood. As a result, what I write comes out, I’m afraid, a tad mean.
I think it tends to be accurate, but you write better.
I think that when people read what I write, people can become better informed, but when they read what you write, they become better. A rare gift!
Best,
— x
Funny that you wrote this. First let me say that my wife and I strive very hard for a good, Biblical marriage. Any thing we screw up is because we are stupid sinful humans, not because we are trying to be jerks.
But the other day, we were driving down the highway; she was actually. She passed a person who was pretty much an idiot. Any way, her comment was “Gee, that must be a man driving.”
It actually turned into a slight row between us, as it really pushed my buttons a little bit. But, honestly she meant no harm, it is just how she has seen people talk. She didn’t really realize that it came across as very negative and stereotypical to me. Just another sign of how the world has free reign to heap scorn, ridicule, and disrespect on men. But every other group of folks in the world has to be treated correctly.
Good post, it really resonated with me.
Thanks, Wally! I agree with you. She probably didn’t mean any disrespect to men in general, but the casually tossed-off generalization painting men as idiots is extremely common. I encounter it at least once per day (on average), and frequently more. It’s often from women who then turn right around and ask me to do something they can’t do. (I’m a very large dude.) What strikes me as funny is that I actually hear it from men too!
I’ve told a story in these pages of my former neighbor. She was convalescing at home from surgery during a difficult winter. Each time it snowed, and it was quite frequent that winter, I went over and made sure that her driveway was cleared of snow, so that if she needed to get out, she could. One time she came out, and we conversed a bit as I shoveled. She ended up mentioning a former boyfriend of hers, and just casually tossed off this remark: “As far as I’m concerned, the only good man is a dead man.” Direct quote. As I was there clearing her driveway for her. I just laughed, expecting that she’d say something like “Present company excepted, of course,” but she didn’t She just kept on talking about whatever our larger topic was.
The zeitgeist is a very powerful thing. He — or in this case, she — who controls the zeitgeist, controls the language, and therefore the laws, rules, regulations, customs, traditions, pop culture, the givens and the conventional wisdom, of everyone in that zeitgeist.
The reason? Simple: so many people put their intellectual lives on auto-pilot, allowing “received wisdom,” no matter how ridiculous it might be, to be their “thinking.”
Best,
— x
Do you have children -x? If you do, have you noticed that on any show, for the most part geared toward young people, that the dads are invariably bufoons and/or jerks?
I didn’t really notice until one of mine started really being dismissive and somewhat disrespectful. Then came the realization that she was acting the way the kids on that stupid TV were acting.
Yep. I have two kids — a daughter and a son. We’re very close. I have noticed the way pop culture portrays dads, and we’ve discussed it here.
My kids are part of kind of an odd arrangement. My ex is a very bad alcoholic who divorced me when I (finally) cut off the booze money.
Instead of simply rolling over, as I think she expected me to, I demanded a family study, and ended up getting a pretty good arrangement (relatively speaking!). I knew my ex would not be able to handle a 50-50 custody arrangement, and a psychologist’s evaluation recommended that the children live with me.
However, in CT, where I spend most of the time, this report — that was devastating to my ex — wouldn’t have swayed a typical CT judge, who are generally known simply to grant to the wife all that she asks for. So, my lawyer suggested that I play it relatively safe and settle for the less than horrible terms that he negotiated.
Bottom line: I’ve been paying her child support, while the kids (really: one adult, one 15-year old) live with me. Yes, yes, I know… It’s the price I paid to be sure to be able to shield them from their mother’s alcohol-fueled abuse, and to give them as stable, stress-free a home life as possible.
And that is the bottom line. They live with me. It’s long been a hard and fast rule in my house that we talk things out, and that we don’t just sulk. As a result, we may not resolve everything, but we air what everyone is thinking, and we all have a great deal of respect for each other.
My daughter and I have spoken in very great depth about what she observes in the world around her, and she often points out to me the casual man-bashing that is everywhere. To her everlasting credit, she doesn’t tolerate it. She’s probably more pro-men than I am, and I’m really pro-men! I sometimes have to tell her how awe-inspiringly wonderful women can be, as she’s sometimes prone to saying some withering things about them.
I don’t have to do that so much with my son, who is very pro-women (as I am too), but sometimes have to remind him about how great men can be! All-in-all, I’ve found that the difficulties my family has experienced have drawn us closer, and have made it so that each person is very mindful of the things that each other person does for him or her.
They know that I work my tail off for them, in order to give them things, security, love, support, more love… and they appreciate it. They give me lots and lots of love right back, and I count myself a really lucky daddy.
I try to do things that I think are important, and extra, too. For example, today I texted my son in the middle of the day to tell him that I was thinking of him, and that I thought he was just the most wonderful son there is, and that I’m really proud of him, and really grateful that God let me be his dad. I do that kind of thing a lot with them, and I know that they appreciate it. It’s a simple thing, and it requires very little effort, but the words are true, and sometimes these little things can help cement strong bonds between father and child.
Not sure where I’m going with all this, but I wanted to give you some background as to why my children haven’t really demonstrated the disrespect you mentioned, except in very rare, very mild form. Oh, they’re not perfect by any means, and they’ve done the occasional disrespectful or dismissive behaviors, at which point they’ve heard about it, and heard that they aren’t to do it again. And, generally, they haven’t.
I found that one thing that made a big impression on them was when I apologized. Let’s face it, we parents aren’t perfect either, and sometimes we act from grumpiness or crankiness and we say things that are overly abrupt, or mean or the like. Every time I’ve recognized that I’ve done something like that, I’ve taken them aside and apologized for it, and said that I’d do my best not to do it again. I think that made it okay for them to apologize to me as well, and they do.
Parent-child relationships are so much about laying solid groundwork, and building on that groundwork! Thank goodness God gave us both His own example, and that of His Son!
I have two really great kids, and I am a really lucky daddy! I suspect you’re a really lucky daddy too, and that you have really great kids… even if they show the occasional petulance! 🙂
Best,
— x
Thanks for sharing all of that; I am honored you did. Well, my story as a Dad is not so hot, at least at the beginning. I was not a Christian until the age of 45. By that time my son and daughter were grown and their mother and I were quite divorced after 25 years together. They were not raised in the faith, and are not believers even today. I did a really good job of teaching them every single objection to faith in the universe, and they learned them all very well.
We are finally sort of putting our relationship back together after 10 pretty rock years.
In the meantime, I remarried a Christian woman with two children of her own 10 and 6. One of them is grown now and our daughter(Step, really, but she’s mine by all intents), is 16.
So, the Lord gave me another chance, a do over if you will. Hasn’t been perfect, but far better than the first time. Amazing the difference God makes in a family. Our son, in fact, is a preacher in our work. Oh, the irony….a God called preacher being raised by a man who was very shortly before a raging heathen. Don’t’ say God has no sense of humor.
Thank you for that, Wally!
Yours was a lot more courageous to write than mine!
I suspect that you and your children will grow ever closer as time goes on. That — and that they all grow ever closer to God — will be my prayer! Just so you know — all my prayers have been answered. Every one. Rarely in the way that I meant when I prayed them, but always answered, and always in a way better than what I meant when I prayed them!
I have a story for you, also about second chances: One day, I was visiting my mom. I had two of the greatest, most wonderful parents a man could ever hope to have, and realized that only after my dad had passed away. Anyway, my two kids — then roughly ten and four years old, were behaving as they usually did — wonderfully. My mom pulled me aside and said in kind of a stage whisper, “X, you really don’t deserve those children.”
I had to admit, ever so ruefully, that she was absolutely right, and I thank God often for theabsolutely priceless gift that my children are nothing like how I was when growing up.
I have a nearly firm belief that, for the most part, nearly all our “baskets” are about the same in life. The same amount of hurt, love, laughter, happiness, sadness, joy, exhilaration, tragedy, triumph. What counts is how we react to all these things. Each thing that crosses our paths represents an opportunity to be closer to God, and in that way at least, is a really good thing.
I’ve been so blessed that my children have been nothing but 22 years of obvious, in-my-face, no-foolin’, as-plain-as-the-(rather handsome)-nose-on-my-face, unsubtle, uproarious, beautiful, breathtaking gifts, and I’d be a colossal fool if I didn’t acknowledge it on bended knee before Him whose love surpasses all understanding. 🙂
They, also, are my second chance — to atone for having been such a rotten kid! And other things, of course!
May God bless you and yours with ever greater happiness and ever greater love, life, laughter and thrills in all your second chances!
Best,
— x