Saturday, April 28, 2012

Feminism and the Something-for-Nothing Mentality of Humans

Humans, by and large, are driven by a desire to get something for nothing. This is reflected in all advertising, which is designed to make people feel like they're getting a "good deal" (for less than it's worth).

I believe that this attitude is reflected in social movements as well. People support social movements in part because they believe they will come out on top if the movement is successful. And that is the attitude that feminism is increasingly representing.

When feminists started out, they wanted to achieve equal access to employment, freedom from sexual harassment, and other noble, practical goals, but I don't believe those things in themselves gave feminism the "kick" it needed to truly become popular among women. Plenty of women wanted to remain homemakers; plenty dreaded the workplace for legitimate reasons (office work sucks). Plenty wanted to keep their feminine charms. There had to be some other motivating force to get them to support the movement, and that was the desire to get something for nothing.

If you look at the modern-day legal system, hiring system, university system, benefits system, economic system, and just society in general, you'll notice that it's all geared toward women.
  • Legal system: Women are given automatic benefit of the doubt in custody (default mother custody.) Women are recipients of both formal (Title IV) and informal (boss wanting to fill up his office with hotties) affirmative action. Women are given the benefit of the doubt in rape accusations. creating a perverse incentive to inflict suffering on innocent men, even if the charges are eventually thrown out.
  • Hiring system: As stated, the soft affirmative action. Women and feminists are constantly pressuring various industries to accept more women in their ranks, despite the fact that many women just don't match up. Women are often fast-tracked to managerial positions quicker than their merit warrants.
  • Benefits system: Women receive arbitrary child support awards that are often disconnected from the economic realities of the father. Men who discover that their child is not theirs are left few options once they are determined to be custodial. More on why child support is so punitive in another post.
  • Economic system: TV and a large majority of consumer goods are marketed and geared almost solely toward women. Women have ancient foraging instincts and this leads to a compulsion to go shopping and buy things, and businesses have long been aware of this. It's interesting to note that if anything, feminism has magnified this female tendency by giving women direct economic power. Women never shamed other women for compulsively shopping; men were the only restraint.
  • Society in general: Women are just given the benefit of the doubt. Not only that, but they have a strong lobby as they are 50% of the population. Anyone who runs afoul of the opinions of the female horde, or criticizes the excesses of female behavior, is practically crucified (see: the Slutwalks.) Women have also gained an enormous number of privileges that used to be the sole domain of men, but have acquired few of the responsibilities expected of men. For instance, women don't have to register for selective service, and are not expected to approach men to achieve romantic happiness (if a woman is single or not approached by men, it is blamed on men.)
This setup sure looks like women getting "something for nothing!" In fact, many of these "gains" came at the expense of men. How many of them are legitimate? In my opinion, very few. A lot of this stuff is very questionable if looked at from a neutral perspective. I won't deny that women have difficulties in the current system, but a large number of their gains are ill-gotten, and seriously degrade the quality of life of many innocent men.

I doubt all these freebies and benefits are an accident, since they were required to get women on board with feminism. Or, less politely, they were required in order for feminists to ram through their agenda in a society that was skeptical of their aims. Now we have a system that's biased towards women, but is everybody really better off? Or has society become more atomized and ruthless?

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