Why is it common to talk about "violence against women" and policies that "affect women" and "hurt women" when men experience equal harm, or in many cases greater harm, from the same policies? For example, women getting killed in Mexico generate headlines despite far more male homicides happening in Mexico, and the same goes for Native American stats.
Briefly the reason is that it makes sense to protect women and children above adult men. Morally women are much less capable of defending themselves and (for most of history) providing for themselves. Practically it's important to protect women from hostile forces because it's harder for one woman to birth many children than one man to father many children. Needless to say, a woman is also at a much higher risk of rape (unless they live in the Congo), and rape will severely damage anyone physically and mentally, let alone pregnancy, which directly changes the makeup of the next generation. A society that lets their women get roughhoused and killed at the same rate as men will not last very long.
The reason these concepts seem outdated in the 21st century is because women have largely brought their security up to parity with men through economic, cultural, and technological means. Modern women are capable of meeting and exceeding male earnings due to the white collar economy and affirmative action policies. Advancements in public safety allow unaccompanied women to move about freely. Cars, gated housing, professional services, and guns obviate the need for physical capability. However, the human psyche has not changed, and women's inherent desire for protection is sublimated into calls for economic protection as well as physical. Since women have more economic opportunities than men already, this creates and entrenches a female supremacy.
The next question is, where to go from here? Corporately, we can either attempt to hold women to the new standard (treat them as interchangeable with men culturally and legally, remove all protections) or go the other direction and restore traditional gender roles. The second option is a complex issue that has no real solutions at this time, but the first option is impossible to implement totally because of the indelible nature of the human mind. Male soldiers have been shown to instinctively move to protect female soldiers, regardless of their training. Women will always clamor for protection and assurance. Moreover, even if women were truly forced to exist on an interchangeable level with men, they would be cut down economically and even physically, since they literally have to play by different rules just to survive. Social decay and death will follow.
The final point is that conservatives have to decide which end goal they're driving for. "Equal rights for equal lefts" is a fun way of thinking, but ultimately unworkable and an acceptance of the utopian doctrine that men and women are equal. Taking away economic protectionist measures for women (such as women in STEM programs) is a great idea and necessary, but moves to push women into men's hardships, such as making women eligible for the draft, must only be conceived as accelerationist measures intended to ultimately restore traditional roles.
That, and women are the ones who get pregnant. That's the foundation for all their traits.
In our current culture, where weakness is a virtue, being weak has become much more significant. But, historically, weak men do not fare as well as women.
I don't believe women, even the majority of today's conservative women, are allies and I don't think I implied that.
Historically speaking it's a different matter. I could talk about female anti-feminists, but that's sort of beside the point since the fundamental truth is that women were allies of the prevailing order in every traditional society. Men were not the sole authorities, only the greater one. Women, under the influence of men, had to police themselves, molding the femininity of the next generation while at the same time guarding it. cf Victorian norms, women's societies, sewing circles, midwives, and scores of other female organizations.
For obvious reasons, men can't show teenage girls how to handle their period or teach them how to maintain a home. Either you're letting the fox in the henhouse or they don't have time for it.
Yes, agree.
The nature of time is change, and when the time comes it's useful to have a hardened core of ideas to consolidate a movement. If anything, the last couple of decades have been characterized by incredibly rapid change.
In my own Christian denomination, for example, the movement to allow female ordination had its high water mark a few years ago when it was narrowly defeated. The global backlash is on the rise against the vapid American membership.
The erosion of female-specific initiatives and scholarship programs would be a very significant, but realistic start. On an equal playing field, women and female influence will be easily outcompeted in male careers (which is most of them).
Right, it wasn't directed at you as an attack. It was simply saying that you are putting it in terms of a binary that isn't really the case.
Its easy to take a sip of alcohol. Its a lifetime journey of struggle to never take one again. These rapid changes can only happen in one direction, and its a massive uphill struggle to even begin to roll the other way.
This is along the same lines as my reply to your other post but yes, of course it isn't a binary. However, men and women have certain concrete irreducible differences that all "traditional" societies built on, or else they would've collapsed, so the spectrum of values isn't that nebulous. Conversely, most egalitarian notions are obviously just wishful thinking. In many cases the difference is as stark as reality vs. fantasy.
That's a great analogy and probably communism's trump card, but we also have a trump card: a society that believes 2+2=5 will eventually break down.
One reason I still have a little hope is my own personal journey. I went from supporting the Bush-McCain suite of beliefs (gay marriage, Iraq, climate change, amnesty, and soft racial justice) to race realism and pragmatic isolationism, and it only took a few years of race riots and Trumpian disruption. Exposure to the facts can work wonders.
There's no way I can claim to be representative of the slothlike center, but there are also important mainstream and conservative bellwethers like Megyn Kelly that have crossed from soft liberalism (attacking Trump from a feminist angle) into principled conservatism (defending Trump and rejecting gender ideology). Like early tech adopters, the bellwethers are pretty important.
And I have had much the opposite. I have been anti-feminist since I was a lad, and my views haven't changed much in the broad since. But I've been able to spend all that time trying and failing, learning what people will and won't do in regards to it, and seeing many of the pitfalls along the way.
Which is why I feel so strongly on it, because I've been at this for a long time and most of the things I see said I've already watched fail.