Model 1
According to a wide-spread belief,
societies are ruled by the men. Even though men and women have equal rights
according to the letter of the law, women are actually oppressed. Our societies
are built up like this:
♂ ♂ ♂ ♂ ♂ ♂ ♂ ♂ ♂ ♂ ♂ ♂
♀ ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀
This seems to be the belief of most people,
not just feminists. Also, men, as well as women in many parts of the world
(e.g. Japan) tend to have the opinion that that's how things should be.
Evidence for this theory is not hard to
find. Indeed, an overwhelming majority of heads of state, members of
governments and parliaments and such have been in the past and still are men,
regardless of the political system in one or another country. Men's average
salary is significantly higher than women's. In most parts of the world,
domestic tasks are still considered to be women's job and the man is
considered the head of the family. Last but not least, men are clearly stronger
and more aggressive than women, while women are more acquiescent.
Claims of women having been oppressed by
men throughout millennia are something each one of us has heard countless times
ever since our childhood, and we encounter them virtually every day whenever we
read a newspaper or watch television.
Model 2
However, Model 1 has fatal flaws. Let's
look at the two most obvious.
In most countries of the world, men have,
upon reaching a certain age (usually 18), the obligation to serve as the
government's slaves for a significant period of time – usually around a year,
sometimes several years. They are separated from their homes, families and
activities, deprived of contact with women in their most virile age, submitted
to a uniform prison-like routine and harsh discipline, and forced to perform a
variety of hard and often dangerous or demeaning tasks while having to endure
any humiliation which the supposedly superior personnel chooses to subject them
to.
That grave violation of human dignity is
being justified with the need to defend the country from a possible military
attack – a task for which women are too weak.
It remains unclear, though, how it's then possible
that some of the men (the so-called conscientious objectors) are being freed
from the military slavery. That fact seems to suggest that it's not inevitable
for the national defence to enslave ALL young men. How many slave soldiers are
necessary then? I don't think the proponents of male slavery (who rant about
the military service being every "real" man's "honourable
duty", or even the very experience that turns a boy into a man) are asking
themselves that question very often. More strangely, they seem to turn deaf
when confronted with the well-known fact that the strongest military powers in
the world (like the USA) can not only defend themselves but conquer other
countries without even having a slave army.
Secondly, for some bizarre reason, men who
are excempted from the military slavery for "ethical" reasons, are
not set free. They still have to serve the same (or sometimes a slightly
different) amount of time as slaves in the so-called community service
(sometimes referred to in English with the German term
"Zivildienst"). What would be the overwhelming national interest to
justify that?
Thirdly, even admitting that we can't make
women shoot rifles and dig trenches, it remains unclear why can't they be
forced to serve a certain time in community service, like male conscientious
objectors are.
Those three contradictions seem to suggest
that, apart from national defence, mandatory military service is also (or perhaps even
mainly) motivated by the society's desire to enslave their young men. (I have
some ideas as to why, but that would require a separate article.)
Fourthly, feminists insist that women's
physical weakness is the result of gender discrimination, and it will disappear
as soon as the discrimination disappears. If that is so, shouldn't the society
try to help that process by forcing women into military service, so that they
could overcome their oppression-induced unnatural disadvantages? No, this is
the point where feminists turn deaf. That is clearly the part of equality they
are not interested in.
The purpose of this article is not to
discuss whether or not military slavery is good or bad. The point is: even if
we disagree with the feminists and hold that warfare is men's job, as women are
simply not up to it, there remains the question: if men have the duty of
military slavery and women have no obligation even remotely comparable to it,
how can anybody seriously claim that men and women are legally equal, or even
have the nerve to suggest that women are being oppressed?
Another screaming obvious rebuttal of Model
1 (which applies even to societies which have abolished military slavery) is
everything that is related to having and raising children.
In spite of the lip service paid to the
parents' supposedly equal rights, having or not having a child is entirely the
mother's decision. If a pregnant woman does not want the child, she has the
right to have an abortion without the consent of the child's father. When he
doesn't want the child, though, he has no legal means to force her to have an
abortion. To bring an extreme example: a woman can take a condom that has been
thrown into a trash can, stuff the sperm in it into her vagina and get
pregnant, and the man whose sperm it is is still going to be obliged to pay
child support to her, even though he did everything he reasonably could to
avoid pregnancy. In the case of divorce, it is routine practice to give custody
to the woman and oblige the man to pay child support. The child's father will
have to hand a significant part of his income over to the woman, even when she
has a new husband or boyfriend, and even when he himself has a new family to
support.
And let's not forget the other side of the
coin – a woman can give birth to a child and raise it without ever even telling
about it to the child's father.
One could ask: why on Earth should one
person be responsible for something that happens in another person's body, as a
result of that person's voluntary and informed choice? But that is not the
point of this article. The point is: even if we agree with the feminist theory
that the system of child support payments is there for the child's and not the
woman's benefit, it is still undisputable that, for all practical purposes, the
rights concerning the child belong mostly to the mother, and the obligations mostly
to the father. The claim of parents' equal rights and obligations is one of the
most blatant, absurd, shameless, outrageous lies of our times.
There are numerous other examples of men's
being discriminated in various countries' legislation and legal practice, but
the above ought to be enough to crush the myth of women's being the oppressed gender – at
least as far as Western countries are concerned.
Of course, I am nowhere near the first one
to draw attention to those things. Indeed, the existence of obvious proof of
blatant massive legal discrimination against men has long ago prompted men's
rights activists to come up with the theory that it's women who actually rule
our societies and men are the ones that are oppressed. The masculists argue
that our societies are built up like this:
♀ ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀
♂ ♂ ♂ ♂ ♂ ♂ ♂ ♂ ♂ ♂ ♂ ♂
According to that theory, the means with
which women enforce their rule over men is their sexual attractiveness. As
almost every male reader knows (and as hardly any woman is ever capable of
understanding), men suffer horribly from the lack of sex, and a man who hasn't
had sex for a long time, is usually willing to do virtually anything to get it.
Any woman who isn't very ugly has the power to free him of that suffering. All
she has to do is to take off some of her clothes, lie down and spread her legs.
The benefit to the man would be huge, the cost to the woman is near zero. But
she doesn't have to do it if she doesn't want to. That legal right gives women a near-absolute power over men.
The apparent male dominance in the
government, in business and at home is, according to this theory, an illusion.
Men who hold formal power positions, are nothing more than their sex
partners' puppets. The latter actually rule the former with the threat of refusing
sex. One can be sure that the overwhelming majority of women, even in the
feminist Western countries, would much rather be the president's wife than the
president. As "first ladies" they would get all the luxury and fame
without having to do any work apart from looking good at official receptions.
Same thing with members of parliament, corporate executives and so on. The
women would even have the option of enforcing their own political ideas, should
they have any. If an MP's wife inists that he vote in a certain way, there is a
good chance he will obey rather that risk being left without sex for some time.
(This may be different in those democracies where party discipline is extremely
strong, but then the men who make party policies have also wives.)
Confusion
I think Model 2 has one huge flaw. It fails
to answer this simple question: How can a woman refuse sex?
Suppose that a man and a woman are
together, alone, and the man is determined to have sex with the
woman. What on Earth can she do to prevent him? Fewest women are capable of
defending themselves with physical force. I would estimate that in an unarmed
combat, an average man could defeat three or four average women. So I've been
asking: "how can a woman refuse sex?" and I'm still waiting for an
answer.
Leaving aside the exceptional cases when
the woman is unusually strong or skilled, or the man is unusually weak, or very
drunk or something, the woman seems to have only two defences.
Firstly, she can scream for help and hope
that someone strong enough (in the best case, several men) will come to her
help.
Secondly, she can threaten the man that if
he forces her to have sex with him, she will file a rape complaint with the
police, which is almost certain to result in the police officers (usually
several strong armed men) coming to him, forcefully taking him to the jail and locking him up for a very long time.
Imagining other conflict situations that
can occur between a man and a woman, will lead us to the same conclusion. The
only practical way a woman can force her will (like, not having sex) upon a man
is by finding (or threatening to find) other men who would use violence against
him. In the overwhelming majority of real-life situations, it is easy. After
all, most men are more than happy to damage another, weaker man when a woman
asks them to. (The reason why they do it is their hope of making the woman like
them, and so increasing the chances of her agreeing to have sex with them
someday.)
This insight reveals the main principle of
the women's so-called power: a woman can exercise her power over a man only by
finding other men who will enforce it for her. Now, what kind of a power is
that? If there is no one to defend her, and if the man is too excited to
reasonably consider legal consequences, or too desperate to care, the woman is
completely helpless. All her sexual "power" is worth nothing.
Thus, Model 2 explains why a woman would
have the power over a man in a one-on-one situation or in a small group, but it
fails to explain how can all the world's women as a group have the power over
all the world's men as a group.
Model 3
So, we are left confused. On the one hand,
men's power over women seems much more real than women's power over men. On the
other hand, men's military slavery and fathers' servitude still obviously
exist. In other words: theoretically, men should have the power, in practice,
women seem to have it. Which one of the Models 1 and 2 is right, then?
I say: neither. Those who have the power
are men, and those who are oppressed are men. Our societies are built up like
this:
♂ ♂ ♂
♀ ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀
♂ ♂ ♂ ♂ ♂ ♂ ♂ ♂ ♂
The society is, of course, ruled by men. It
can't be ruled by women, as women have no force to rule with. However, the men
who rule societies are relatively few in number. (Less in absolute monarchies,
more in modern democracies, but still a rather small minority.)
The primary goal of rulers is to remain in
power. As they are a minority, they can't rule with brute force. All the men
could subdue all the women with force, but a minority of men can't subdue the
majority of men with force. Therefore, in every society thoughout history, the
rulers have had to use some kinds of deception tactics, to keep the ruled
population from directing their force against them. (This is, by the way, not my discovery.)
One of the historically most used tactics
is religion. The peasants are made afraid that if they challenge the power of
the nobility, they would go to Hell after death. In modern times, though,
religion has lost nearly all its influence and is therefore being increasingly
replaced by other tactics. One of them, very efficient as well as sneaky, is to
grant privileges to weaker groups of the population, like racial and national
minorities, women, children, cripples, the poor. The purpose is to make the
stronger group experience discrimination and thus feel embitterment towards the
weaker group, and at the same time to make the weaker group feel that they
still haven't got enough, and feel embitterment towards the stronger group.
When the rulers are clever enough creating enmity between parts of the
population, nearly all of the ruled people's aggressive energy is directed
against other groups of ruled people, not against the rulers.
A special case of that strategy is to
create privileges for women, while continuing to tell women that they are still
being oppressed and need even more privileges. Men, in turn, experience the
actual oppression and feel anger towards the privileged ones – women. I am
convinced that there are very few men in the world who realise that the
oppression of men is not women's fault, and that the rulers want men to
hate women, so that they won't hate the rulers. (I mean, look at the masculist
websites. I don't think I have ever seen one masculist writer who realises that
our enemy is not the women.)
Of course, the rulers can't make sexual
discimination selective. A law that states that women are to be treated
favourably in one or another situation can't make an excemption for a small
group of powerful men. That is, on paper. In reality, the rulers can use their
ruling status to largely or entirely avoid the effects of discriminating laws.
For instance, the rulers can pass
legislation that enforces monogamy and prohibits prostitution. That will
greatly decrease most men's access to new sex partners, but the ruling minority
will retain access to plentiful women who desire them because of their powerful
status, or are simply paid with the money politicians appropriate from the
public coffers.
The rulers can oblige other men to take up
arms and risk their life and limb in war, but excempt themselves from most or
all of the danger and hardship – after all, somebody needs to plan and lead the
war.
The rulers can enforce the law that public
offices or even private enterprises have to employ equal numbers of men and women,
without regard of the competence, but of course that doesn't apply to the
members of the government, or party leaders who actually determine the
country's politics.
The rulers can rule that women have to be
paid as much as men, no matter if they are actually capable of producing as
much value, but of course if doesn't affect the rulers themselves, as they have
the entire nation's resources at their disposal anyway.
Needless to say, the above is taking place
in pretty much all societies, no matter what the social order. Women's legal
privileges in the former Soviet Union were somewhat different from those in the
USA, but the general principle was the same. And I believe that the only reason
why there isn't blatant legal feminism in Islamic countries, is simply because
religion is still so strong there that rulers don't need to rely on sexual
discrimination to keep men from challenging the system.
Now let's make things a little more
intriguing
At this moment, I can see no flaw in Model
3. However, there is a different theory which is also plausible. The book
"The Art of Seduction"
offers a hypothesis that could justify Model 2 after all. The theory is that
women's power is not based on their ability to refuse sex (which they clearly
don't have), but their seductiveness – their ability to provide something
hugely valuable that can't be taken by force. In simpler words, she can't
actually refuse sex, but she can do things that make you feel so good that you
want her to do it, but you can't beat her into doing it like you could beat her
into stripping and spreading her legs.
The book is not about power relations
between sexes. It touches upon it very briefly in the introduction and moves
then on to describing different types of seducers (both male and female).
However, the ideas in that introduction would enable one to make a very strong
case for Model 2.
Now, one could argue that not many women
are hugely seductive, and there are also men who are very seductive to women,
but I don't think that would invalidate the arguments in that book. The thing
is, seductiveness as described in "The Art of Seduction" is merely a
special case of psychological manipulation. A woman can use a variety of means
of making a man do what she wants, apart from making him feel so good that he's
willing to do anything to get more. And I think it's undisputable that most
women's skill of psychological manipulation greatly exceeds that of most men.
So it seems a plausible hypothesis that
women do rule societies – by their superior skill of sneakily leading men's
minds. They let men have external, formal power positions, because they (the women) don't
care about them anyway, but they make sure that the men, while believing to be
the masters, actually spend most of their energy on taking care of the women.
To put it bluntly – maybe the woman, being
weaker but cleverer than the man, has succeeded in making him work for her,
just like man, being weaker but cleverer than the horse, has succeeded in
making it work for him. It's a horrible thought, but it's totally possible.
Conclusion
It would seem that Model 3 and the revised
Model 2 are both theoretically justifiable, and it's not difficult to see (if
you know what to look at) them both working in the real life. At this moment, I
am not sure which of the two is the dominant one. My money is on Model 3, but
there is still much to be figured out and I would greatly appreciate
intelligent insights from my readers.
