The Incapable Women of Feminism and Training Wheels

Suppose I maintained the proposition that women are the weaker and more vulnerable sex. Suppose I said that they do not have the intellectual, physical, and emotional capacity to think or fend for themselves. Furthermore, suppose I said that it is the duty of men everywhere to be the protectors, providers, and guardians of women (as if they were developmentally on the same level as minors). Do you know what the reaction of many people would be to this set of propositions? I most certainly do. I would be summarily condemned as a sexist cad for dismissing the capacities of women.

Now suppose this: That it is not a man who upholds these propositions, but our government. What would you say, then? “How sexist! How patriarchal!” No, dear friend, it’s “how feministic!” Yes, you heard me correctly. It is the feminists and their politicians who uphold these propositions, unwittingly or otherwise. It is they who make women out to be a powerless group in need of special protections against their own imputed stupidity and amorality. Here is what the agenda of the feminists and their political enablers implies:

1. Women don’t have the intellectual means to compete with men in the job market. They cannot form their own companies and attract a customer base with superior products. No, they must depend on males to provide the existing corporate infrastructure for their successes. They need all sorts of affirmative action programs to give them that needed extra boost that their aptitudes alone could not give. They are intellectually powerless to challenge the stratagems of their male coworkers and supervisors, who know how to cleverly execute their misogynistic agenda on a macro scale. Who could anticipate that men were such diabolical geniuses? This, in spite of the fact that many women come from the same socioeconomic class as their supposed “male oppressors.” This, in spite of the fact that more than half the students in higher education are women.

2. Women don’t have sense enough to keep their pants on, so let us, as a society, not hold them accountable for their unwanted pregnancies the way we do the respective fathers.

3. Women don’t have means to practice self-control, so let’s not hold them accountable for violence in domestic dispute cases the way we hold men accountable.

4. Women don’t have the means to think rationally about what is right and wrong. No, their actions constitute an innate response to external stimuli (must the same way as a leech curls up when heat is applied to it). Hence, let us not hand down the same verdicts and apply the same strict sentencing guidelines for female criminals as for male criminals.

I could go on and your hackles may be raised at my observations. Consider the following illustration, however:

Imagine that you are a kid and that you have a baby sister that is always trying to engage in one-upmanship with you. One day, you are riding your bike with the other kids in the neighborhood when she suddenly rolls up on a small bike with training wheels. She exclaims, “Ha! I can ride a bike just like you and leave you in the dust!” If you were an adult, you might be charitable and play along with this misguided sentiment. But if you are a kid, you would most likely be much less magnanimous. You might say, “You stupid baby! You’re riding a bike with training wheels! Get lost!!!” Your younger sister would then crawl back up the street, bawling to your parents. You wouldn’t care, though. You’re a kid and the truths you observe are more important than the tactfulness and dissembling of the adult world.

We could learn some things from children. Maybe candidness is often the best medicine for arrogance. In my opinion, many women in today’s world are the cultural equivalent of the baby sister on training wheels. Somebody should inform them that it is in their best interest to get rid of the training wheels if they want to take up cycling. In other words, they need to cut loose of the special entitlements, protections, etc. afforded to them as women by government and society. No more howls of “glass cliffs” or of “patriarchy.” No more tear-jerking pleas for “protecting women” as a class. If your bicycle hits a bump and you fall flat on your face, get up, wipe the dirt off and get back on the bike. If a bully down the street kicks your bike over, tell his parents, but don’t blame the rest of the boys in the neighborhood. Children know what is required to earn respect for riding with the “bigger boys.” It’s time for adults to acknowledge the same.