The 12 December 2009 Wall Street Journal included a full-length article entitled “Debtor’s Dilemma: Pay The Mortgage Or Walk Away?” The article discussed how many house owners, who are not having personal financial difficulties, are now choosing to employ so-called “strategic default,” where they walk away from a house that is “underwater” (market value is less than loan balance). The vast majority of words in the article were devoted to the pros and cons of pursuing a strategic default, as if to help home owners make an informed decision one way or another. The fact that this decision is dealt with in such a cavalier, bold, calculating and open fashion, with such a selfish and “get what you can” attitude, is indicative of the kind of society that America has become.
If you look around, you can find many other examples of not only individuals, but government agencies and business firms too, acting in a similarly selfish and morally-ungrounded manner. For example, the mortgage firms that issued mortgages to people who they knew would not be able to pay — the same firms that repackaged these mortgages in collateralized debt obligations, so that they could be sold to others, so that the high risk of default would be transferred to others — these firms likewise acted in a selfish and morally-ungrounded manner. And because the mortgage firms were acting this way, it encouraged home owners to act this way. As a society, it appears that increasing numbers of us are doing these things, because, well, everyone else is doing it…
Our country in many ways is acting as though we are a bunch of criminals without morals, getting away with whatever we can get away with. Many of us deem the selfish things we do as acceptable so long as we don’t get caught, and so long as we avoid the limelight of publicity. This same trend is, not surprisingly, evident in radical feminist circles. What exactly is the morality of Tiger Woods’ wife, Elin, walking away from her marriage with a renegotiated pre-nuptial agreement worth $55 million? Wasn’t the $20 million that she already stood to receive enough? Or is her behavior acceptable because, after all women going through a divorce these days have both legal and social support to take their man to the cleaners? Surely Elin does not need all this money to take care of Tiger Wood’s children, nor does she need the money to pay the bills for the balance of her life. She is just exploiting him, getting all she can get.
What about Heather Mills, the ex-wife of Paul McCartney, and her $50 million divorce settlement? Surely she wasn’t in need of money, because she was already worth $16 million before the divorce? She was just milking Sir Paul for all she could get. With good reason many people doubted her claims that she was going to use some of her settlement to support charitable causes. Elin Woods and Heather Mills are not rare cases. Sure, the numbers in their cases are noteworthy because they are astronomical, but the selfish and predatory extrication of as much money as possible from ex-husbands has become standard practice these days.
There is a card that has not been played much in the game of contemporary American man-woman relationships. That card is morality. It’s a dangerous card to play, because it could backfire, but when it works right, it’s very effective. It is an especially powerful card because it is women who have, in many instances, taken the moral high ground, claiming that men act immorally. Exposing women who engage in these predatory and selfish activities is a good start. Men need to continue to get the word out about what women are doing in divorce court these days, such as exposing the tactics they use (like false abuse allegations and parental alienation). Expanding the media coverage of the true situation in this area is a very good idea. Even more importantly, men need to point to the moral bankruptcy and unfairness that often characterizes the behavior of women going through a divorce. Too often we men assume that the recipient of these reports is also coming from an honorable and moral ideal, as many men have been, for generations. These days, that may no longer be true. We need to explicitly identify the relevant moral and/or ethical issue, not simply leave it to the reader to reach a certain conclusion on their own.
There is another angle to this conversation that is not generally understood. When someone uses another person for their selfish purposes, does not engage with them in a mutual give and take, does not consider the needs and personal reality of that other person, then that other person has been “objectified.” Radical feminists have been ranting and raving about the objectification of women for decades, but men have not adequately challenged and deconstructed these claims. If indeed these claims of the radical feminists are analyzed, one can readily see that these women are claiming that because a man temporarily focuses on a part of a woman’s body, perhaps her ass, then the woman is being objectified. I’m sorry to inform the radical feminists but this is not objectification. It is natural for all of us, women and men, to focus on certain things, and later to focus on other things. Sometimes we pay attention to a specific thing; sometimes we take in the big picture. It is part of how the mind works. It does not in reality demean anybody. People can appreciate a part of another’s anatomy without using that other person for selfish and egocentric purposes. In other words, just because we men admire or appreciate a woman’s ass, that doesn’t mean that we are objectifying her, that doesn’t mean that we don’t appreciate that she is a whole person with many other aspects.
But if a woman egocentrically and selfishly uses a man to get money or other assets, does not engage with him in some sort of mutuality, does not consider his needs, then she is objectifying the man. So we see that radical feminists have turned things upside down. For men to admire women’s bodies is a natural and hardwired (inherently biological) thing to do. No doubt that fact has something to do with the success of the pornography industry. Recent brain research indicates that men are more graphic in their orientation to life than women, so of course heterosexual men are going to watch and admire women’s bodies. So we have a natural and instinctual behavior of men that is being demonized and said to be immoral, but the gender relations conversation meanwhile has been hijacked away from focusing on the behavior of women, who are in many instances engaging in the objectification of men.
