Western Civilization has a long history of misogyny. Male superiority was an unquestioned cultural norm in ancient Greece and Rome. Aristotle said, “silence is a women’s glory”. The advent of Christianity brought little relief. Eve committed the greatest crime of all time when she picked the forbidden fruit and corrupted Adam. Henceforth women were condemned to be ruled by their husbands (Genesis 3.16). In 1486 AD the infamous tome Hammer of the Witches characterized women as “unescapable punishments, necessary evils, natural temptations, desirable calamities, and domestic dangers.” In the US, women did not obtain the right to vote until 1920. Through the 1960s, the proper role for a woman was considered to be a mother and homemaker.
Times have changed. There is no institutional or private employer in the US today that openly discriminates against women. Barriers have been removed, but inequalities remain. Men continue to dominate areas such as engineering and the physical sciences. The stubborn persistence of inequalities in these professions has been explained by a fashionable aggregate of dogmatic beliefs. Male domination is invariably attributed to hostile climates, negative stereotypes, and imperceptible but all-encompassing societal biases. All of these explanations are invisible, undetectable, and therefore irrefutable. Implicit is the belief that human biology is infinitely malleable and that there are no inherent sex-based differences in abilities and inclinations–a view that is contrary to all scientific research and human knowledge. The process of educational and professional training is claimed to be analogous to a “pipeline” instead of a sorting operation. Women have to be pushed through the pipeline even if it runs contrary to their natural inclinations and temperaments. The nebulous concept of Diversity is invoked as sort of a pagan idol that we are supposed to worship without question.
In response to tenacious inequalities, institutions have adopted explicit hiring biases wherein strong preferences are given to female candidates. Bias and discrimination are known by the euphemism of “affirmative action.” The announcement of nearly every job opportunity in academia is followed by the oxymoronic notice that the institution is both an “affirmative action” and an “equal opportunity” employer. In academic and professional circles, the bias against men has evolved within a few short decades into a universally accepted cultural norm.
The old generation of principled feminists who fought for equal opportunity has been replaced by a new cadre of shrill, neurotic harpies that demand preferential treatment. These self-serving oppotunists characterize every inequality that works to the disadvantage of women as an inequity, but are oblivious to the advantages that US women enjoy.
Women in US colleges receive better grades than men and are more likely to graduate. On average, US women live five years longer than men, and therefore receive five additional years of Social Security payments. Wouldn’t it be fairer if the retirement age for men was five years earlier than for women? Ninety-three percent of all people incarcerated in US prisons are men. If equity is synonymous with numerical equality, then why don’t we start paroling men earlier and begin prosecuting women more vigorously?
I prefer the honest biases of the nineteenth century. Men denied opportunities to women, but not out of selfish motives. Women were discriminated against because of deeply but honestly held cultural values. No one had the effrontery to describe discrimination as “equal opportunity.” Nietzsche said that there was no point in men trying to grant equality to women because women will never be satisfied with mere equality. The war between the sexes is eternal, peace can only come with victory and the total subordination of men. The present generation of feminists appears to be proving him correct.
David Deming is an adjunct scholar with the Prometheus Institute and associate professor of Arts and Sciences at the University of Oklahoma.
