#MeToo: Why it’s past time for men to be men again
Reality check: Liberal feminism and the idea of gender fluidity is nonsense. Worse, it is ruining our country by disrupting the very roles that make society function well. Men are by nature protectors and providers. They have been from the earliest days of human civilization. Don’t blame the messenger here, but despite what recent generations have told you there are actual differences in the minds and bodies of men and women. Neither are better per se, they are just different. Who or what is responsible for this? Science. Genetics. God. Does that mean that a woman cannot hold her own and take care of herself? As a single mother, I’m responsible for protecting and providing for my children so clearly it’s not an either or proposition. I’m not talking about individual cases I’m talking about society as a whole. We need more men. Real men. Strong men. Courageous men. We are better off as a society when boys/men were taught and encouraged to be strong mentally and physically and to stand up against injustices against women. Yes, I know, I know what you’re thinking the modern feminist movement was all about empowering women to stand up for ourselves. Yes, we can do that too but being able to is not the same as having to. Note: There’s a big difference between the liberal feminist movement and the original. The current feminist movement at it’s core challenges or devalues masculinity and gender norms. These are the feminist that say our boys can’t play with toy guns but they can wear dresses. These are the individuals who love science until science says life begins at conception and that chromosomes determine ones sex. Those feminist want us to believe that allowing someone to decide their gender or heck letting them decide they don’t have a gender at all then providing them safe spaces and trigger warnings can solve our problems. I watched my Facebook feed yesterday as women of all ages, races and backgrounds from around the nation posted “Me, too,” to signal that they had been sexually assaulted or harassed in their lifetime. What struck me was not only the sheer volume of women I know who have experienced trauma in their lifetime but also the reactions of the men who said that they stood with us. I wonder how many men would be committing these atrocious acts against women if more fathers, brothers, boyfriends and males in general took to standing up to them and telling them it wouldn’t be tolerated anymore. I’m talking toe-to-toe in-your-face confrontations. Am I supporting vigilante justice? Well, maybe. In the sense that boys and men can police one another’s behavior and words in school or a fraternity house, on sporting teams or in the office. Imagine if every man took to protecting the women in their midst, treating them with respect and not allowing others any room for get away with anything less than the gold standard. Imagine a world where predators like Harvey Weinstein don’t get second, third or fourth chances. Where those in a position of power don’t turn a blind eye towards their deeds or the gossip about them. Our fathers, our brothers, our husbands are suppose to be ready, willing and able to stand up and go to war, literally and figuratively, to make sure we women and our children are safe. It’s time we women look to them to do so again. Laws, rules and human resources guides aren’t cutting it when it comes to protecting women. Statistics show that. What we need now is real empowerment; not the type that comes on a tee shirt of bumper sticker but women feeling empowered to speak out and men who will have their back when they do. Here’s the thing that gets me about most harassment and the behavior that leads to sexual assault. It can be recognized early on in most men. While we can never predict with 100% certainty who will be a harasser or assailant. We know the type those who don’t respect boundaries, feel as though the rules don’t apply to them and crave attention and power. Remember sexual assault is more about power than sex. Men used to be raised to rise up against injustice not run to safe spaces and cower in the fetal position. Boys used to be taught that they have a responsibility to stand up to the bully, the aggressor, the bad guy. Not always, but frequently there’s tell-tale signs of the guy who says things he shouldn’t, touches women in ways he shouldn’t, acts aggressively and those men need to be shut down with a quickness by the men (and women) around them. A big part of getting us back to where we need to be, is to stop acting like the real world is a gender neutral place. Let’s encourage little boys to rough house, play cops and robbers and line up their GI Joes for war at home and in classrooms. I want boys to play games of saving the damsel in distress and I want girls to know that while they can save themselves it’s okay to need help and to ask for it. It’s okay to trust men. Boys need to develop their intuitive sense of protector without fear of some overzealous liberal saying it poses a threat to their delusional version of Utopia. Teaching a boy to be a man doesn’t mean we don’t teach them that girls are incapable of taking care of themselves, it just means that we teach them that they shouldn’t have to. The fact is all of the victims of Harvey have brothers, fathers, male friends and colleagues. And in a different day and time this wouldn’t have lasted decades because the men around Harvey and his victims would not have allowed it.
Presidential race shows evolving gender roles in politics
Carly Fiorina has a husband who quit his career to further hers. Chris Christie boasts of his wife being the family’s top earner. Hillary Clinton is looking to get back into the White House, but this time as president. In the 2016 presidential campaign, a modern take on gender roles is increasingly on display in both parties. With two women running for president, a number of high-powered career spouses in the mix and an increased focus on policies to support two-income families, 2016 is shaping up as a different kind of election, said Anne Marie Slaughter, who four years ago wrote a popular essay in The Atlantic on why she left a job in the State Department to spend more time with her family. “I think what is changing is, this is the year of the family,” said Slaughter, now president and CEO of New America, a Washington-based nonprofit. And that means more attention on “how you support the family with policies for women and men.” While more women have been running at a state and local level, this is the first time both parties have a woman running in a serious way. This gives former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm reason to hope decisions about running for office are no longer just being made “based on one’s plumbing.” Compared with her 2008 run, heavy on national security, Clinton this time has heavily stressed issues that are meant to appeal to women and families: health care, pay equality, education, child care, family leave. She says “these aren’t just women’s issues, they are economic issues that drive growth and affect all Americans.” This is murky territory for Clinton. She has a long record as an advocate of women’s advancement and speaks often and passionately about her baby granddaughter. But her potential Republican rivals have raised questions not only about her husband’s past infidelities but about how she might have contributed to efforts to discredit some of the women known or alleged to have been involved with him. Donald Trump flatly accused her of enabling Bill Clinton‘s philandering. Among Republicans, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio has proposed increasing the child tax credit and creating a tax credit for employers that provide family leave. Rep. Paul Ryan asserted his need for family time when agreeing to become House speaker. Christie says voters are meeting a new generation of candidates with “different types of marriages and different types of relationships than people in the generation before. It really is necessitated by the increasing role and prominence of women in the workforce and by necessity, too.” Dianne Bystrom, director of the Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics at Iowa State University, said that in recent years there has been a shift in both how female candidates talk about their personal lives and family-oriented policies. The political reasons are clear. “The Democrats have to mobilize the base and the Republicans have to whittle away at the women’s vote,” said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. Support from women, who typically lean toward Democrats, was vital for President Barack Obama, who won re-election in 2012 with 55 percent of female voters, while Republican opponent Mitt Romney won 52 percent of men, according to exit polls analyzed by Walsh’s center. Obama won about the same percentage of women in 2008 as he did in 2012. The two-career marriages on display in the campaign are in keeping with the rise of women in the workforce. About 58 percent of working-age women were employed in 2012, compared with 38 percent in 1963, federal statistics show. Mothers work at even higher rates – with about 70 percent of women with children under 18 working. Christie’s wife, Mary Pat Christie, was a former Wall Street executive who out-earned him for most of their marriage. Heidi Cruz, wife of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, is on leave from her job at Goldman Sachs. Jane Sanders is a key adviser to husband Bernie Sanders. And Fiorina’s husband, Frank, was a corporate executive until he retired early to support her high-powered career. With a more diverse group campaigning, the role of political spouse may get a reboot. Ex-President Clinton and Frank Fiorina are campaigning in Iowa as potential “first gentlemen.” Many of the other spouses are out on the trail. The campaign has also gone beyond the usual (and still ubiquitous) sugar-coating of family life of the candidates, as Fiorina discussed the stepdaughter she lost to drug and alcohol addiction, Jeb Bush opened up about the daughter who’s struggled with drug abuse and Christie acknowledged a complicated marital history. Still, stereotypes tend to die hard. During a recent Republican debate, Christie seemed caught in a time warp back to the 1950s when talking about Los Angeles families dealing with a terrorist scare. “Think about the mothers who will take those children tomorrow morning to the bus stop wondering whether their children will arrive back on that bus safe and sound,” he said. “Think about the fathers of Los Angeles, who tomorrow will head off to work and wonder about the safety of their wives and their children.” And then there’s Trump, who has tossed various sexist insults at certain women – saying at one point that a debate moderator had “blood coming out of her wherever” – yet insists at rallies that he would “cherish women” as president. Republished with permission of the Associated Press
