Rescue men too: Skepticism about neo-feminism
By Joe Schembrie
web
posted June 12, 2000
Even if Maureen Dowd says so, I just can't believe that feminists are throwing in the towel. So far, they've gotten everything they wanted . . . and now, I suspect, they want even more.
Yet according to Cosmopolitan's June issue, a young career woman today just wants to get married to ". . . that cute associate two cubicles down and embark on a full-time stint as his housefrau." Youth Intelligence, a New York market research firm, says 68 percent of women say "they'd ditch work if they could afford to." A Cosmo (must be true!) poll confirms the same.
Maureen Dowd, in her recent piece, "Rescue Me, Please!" says, "What an arc: from powder puffs to empowerment to powder puffs."
Well -- excuse me, please! I sense an escalation of feminism -- not a return to traditionalism!
Before we go further here, let's make it clear this isn't a Men vs. Women diatribe. It's a Men vs. Women plus Governmental Coercion diatribe. Most men have no problem with women achieving equality through free market competition and voluntary association. It's when feminism becomes politicized and uses the power of government to oppress men, that we protest.
And somewhere along the line, the welfare state became a feminist tool of oppression against the male.
It starts with welfare itself, which will pay a woman to have a child out of wedlock: free food, clothing, shelter, medical care -- and enough discretionary income to afford cable and a microwave. Nice work if you can get it.
By the way, who pays for the welfare state? All too often, it's the tax-paying male.
But the war of the Feminist State against the male of the species didn't stop there. It gave us the marriage tax, affirmative action, and sexual harassment guidelines so liberal that any male boss not named Bill Clinton is fair game. And let's also mention no-fault divorce and a heavy judicial-system bias toward women in matters of alimony and child custody.
Adding insult to injury, virtually every public university is infested with feminist professors teaching courses in Male Hating.
It would be unfair to say that all women have been in on the feminist scam. A significant number of women do not look upon men as mere cash objects. I hope to marry such a woman someday. But all too many feminists carry an unbridled 'nurturing perspective' into the voting booth -- with oppressive results.
I recall, for example, the story a female co-worker once related, about a young woman who lived with a guy and got pregnant. The guy walked off and the woman was forced by financial circumstances to keep working until the day she gave birth -- and then she had to drive herself to the hospital. My co-worker concluded that the company should be required by law to provide full medical benefits and maternity leave for pregnant women.
But hey -- wait a second! I didn't get that woman pregnant. Yet the money for her pregnancy benefits will come out of my salary, through taxes or government-mandated deductions -- and it'll go not only to her, but to every woman foolish enough to get pregnant from consensual sex with a guy she didn't first marry.
Is it cruel to call her 'foolish?' No, it's cruel to tax me exorbitantly. It's cruel to punish me for something I didn't do. I didn't have sex with this woman, and I don't want visitation rights with her kid (no offense, kid) -- and yet, I'm stuck with the bill! Where's your compassion toward me?
If you think I'm insensitive to call a woman foolish for having a child out of wedlock -- well, I would have driven her to the hospital if she'd asked. And I'll gladly take back any offensive remark, if you'll gladly give me back the thousands of dollars I've been taxed to support the feminist welfare state.
The money won't be coming back, will it? And despite neo-feminist moaning, their political policies won't change -- not for me, and not for that cute guy in the cubicle you wanted to marry. Neither of us has enough money, thanks to high taxes, to afford to keep a wife at home.
The Neo-Feminist still wants an oppressive welfare state, only now she also wants a guy slaving away at the office on her behalf -- while she retains the right to divorce him and expropriate half his net worth as community property before the honeymoon is even over. Such a deal, it's a wonder young men aren't stampeding to get married.
I don't know every detail of how this neo-feminist arc will work out,
I just expect it's going to cost men more money and freedom. Can someone
rescue us, please? 
Joe Schembrie is a senior writer for Enter Stage Right.