The Chivalry Papers, Part Two: Supine or Fall

May 11, 2004

A while back I had a woman write me an obnoxious email about a piece I wrote concerning “The Quagmire of Older Women.”  It was a few months after the fact so it took me awhile to initially realize to what she was referring.  However, amidst the Bernbashing, I discerned the reader make a statement that it is unfortunately all too common as she ended her correspondence with the conclusion, “you must hate women.”

Why would she make such an accusation?  Well for one thing because I dared to disagree with her.  Apparently, my insisting that men should only marry younger women and never the older ones means, in her mind, that I am disdainful of the gender on the whole.  How could this be? It cannot.  By recommending that one marry at all, in lieu of the inordinate fiscal and emotional risks that a man uniquely faces today, I am downright touchy feely on the topic.

I suppose though that somewhere within her false consciousness this reader understands that her attack was unjustified, but she is so in the habit of calling men who disagree with her, “haters of women” that she could not stop herself.  The lure of the cliché is most powerful indeed.  Women like this one often use names like “hater” or “chauvinist” as a crutch when they have nothing more to say.  Rather than deal with the arguments put forth they instead resort to lies after becoming enraged. 

The sole reason that I decided to write this piece is that I have noticed that, in our society, any time a man defends himself or his brothers against the charges of radical feminists (or their media minions) he is immediately labeled a hater of women.  

I realize that asking feministas to think logically is to display inner utopian tendencies as even the womynstudites would regard such a request as being proof of a desire to oppress, as opposed to blind, them with science.  Yet, I thought the subject had to be broached as the familiarity with which women turn to this stalwart non-sequitur whenever they are challenged is troubling.

Such a situation just recently happened to me at work after a co-worker heard that I had a low opinion of her competence.  She responded by telling others that it was due to my hating women.  That’s very silly as I don’t even hate her let alone an entire gender.  Yet, I suppose it was more effective a tactic for her than admitting that she is an ineffective worker who has no clue how to perform her duties.

On another occasion, shortly after writing a lengthy column about the current state of our voluminous sexual affairs, I found myself inundated with anti-psychologists judging that my conclusions were completely based on my, you guessed it, hatred of women.  Well, you can read the piece and decide for yourself.  Their slander mostly stemmed from a paragraph concerning the unsuitability of the female player [read: slut] for marriage.  At one time such an argument was correctly regarded as “common sense” and not evidence of abhorring half the population . 

It seems that men are not only legally inferior through unfair divorce laws and affirmative action, but we are also theoretically inferior as we’re not supposed to make observations concerning the way women behave.  We are expected to like our meals any way they are cooked, and if we don’t then it is presumed that we despise food in general.

If women really are equal (you could make a convincing case that the societal default position is that they are not equal but are overwhelmingly superior to men) then dealing with men who assert themselves should not be so traumatic that one has to result to lying about their worldviews.  I have seen many women quite surprised by my refusal to label men  as “the shallow sex.”  We are not and my belief is solidly supported by research that confirms that the nature of our sexual preferences has helped the species survive for tens of thousands of years. 

Maybe its time we stop letting these things go.  The sixties and seventies are over (thank God!).  Women are more than the equals of men today in terms of privilege and status.  It’s time to stand up to those who bully us and not let them get away with nursery rhymes disguised as arguments.  If we fail to do so we betray our fathers who came before us and condemn ourselves to a cultural state of serfdom.

Bernard Chapin