This in the Name of Equality

By Clare Nowak

The great crimes against femininity are committed not by men, as today’s society

would have you believe, but by the great, so-called “feminists.” I say “so-called” with

great derision for the phrase because these “feminists” are vehemently against the

feminine. They tell women the only way for a female to be worth anything is to cast aside

all the glory and beauty of the feminine in exchange for masculinity. We’re told to bury

emotion and gentleness and compassion and maternal instincts in exchange for the cruder

roughness of masculinity, which disfigure and distort women. These “feminists” tell girls

their worth is entirely based on how manly they are. Feminists are, in fact, all about

ridding the world of femininity—the very thing their name suggests they support.

Motherhood is seen as the great abandon of life, when, in reality, it is the epitome

of human ability. If a woman suggests the greatest thing she can do is become a mother,

the feminists cringe and writhe as if they’re in tremendous physical pain. What these

feminists can’t comprehend is this: bringing children into the world is the greatest thing

any person could ever do. Men, for all the great and wonderful things they’ve

accomplished in history, have never come close to the incredible deeds of women. Men

have invented all sorts of contraptions and created cures to diseases and built civilizations

—but women are the ones who keep the world turning. Women are the ones who bring

people into the world. Women are the ones who make things possible. Men are like the

soil. Women are like the sun. Without the ground, there would be no basis for plant life,

no shape to the land, and the Earth wouldn’t be nearly so interesting to look at or live on.
However, nothing would live without the sun. If a man lines up all his accomplishments

—all the sales he’s made, all the friends he has, all the money he’s got, all his

possessions, all his finest achievements—and compares it to a mother of one child—of

only one child—who’s done more? Sure, the woman had a little help from a man—

biologically. But, isn’t it true that man had a considerably larger amount of help from the

woman who birthed him? In suggesting motherhood devalues women isn’t so much a

crime against women, but a crime against people as both male and female come from

mothers.

Feminists tell girls that allowing a man to save and protect her is a crime against

all women. This is one of the greatest, most backward of all their outlandish claims. The

President has the Secret Service. Legally, morally, spiritually, and physically the one

willing to take the bullet and the one the bullet is intended for are worth the same. For the

greater good of country, the Secret Service member takes the fall. Who in their right

mind would say the President is a coward for this? Or weak? Men are obligated to protect

women, not because women are weak, but because women, who care and protect and

nurture, deserve this sign of respect. I’m disgusted when I hear men proudly proclaim

their pro-women ideals embodied in their refusal to open a door for a woman. The simple

act of opening a door for someone isn’t a sign of her inferiority—it never has been. In

fact, a man opening a door for a lady, or pulling a chair out for her, or allowing her to go

first is, rather, his acknowledging her value and worth. Historically, men were supposed

to treat all women in this way—if for no other reason than as thanks to their own

mothers.
 Instead, today, everyone is neutered in the name of equality. The radical

supporters of this gross de-sexing of people claim it’s all a “social construction.” They

say people and society have invented these variations in girls and boys to suppress girls

as they have throughout history. This is utter nonsense. Consider this: the evocative,

sexual messaging we’re bombarded with every waking hour (through movies,

commercials, advertisements, books, songs, clothing, posters, photos, etc.) is far greater

than all of this “subliminal messaging” they claim people (parents specifically) force on

the young. They say, “Well, a mother is more likely to allow her daughter to be scared or

cry than her son. This discourages his emotional growth.” If this were true, then the

whole population is affected radically by these unspoken, subtle signs. Then what about

those evocative messages? They’re painfully explicit, and yet? And yet less than half the

population of teenagers to young adults in the United States engage in sexual acts! There

argument is irrational! They take tiny instances and blow them up to preposterous

proportions! Parents may treat their sons more strictly, trying to toughen him up—but

how could that shape the behavior of males in every society around the world?

In no society did women ever stand as the leader until democracy came around.

This isn’t because men are naturally sexist but because their testosterone makes them,

generally speaking, better suited for the task. (Think the days in which the chief had to

battle possible candidates for his position—I’m not suggesting women are less suited to

govern. These were the days when emotion couldn’t get in the way of the “right” decision

—such as war between tribes.)

Sexism, I must say, is still alive and well today. It’s not seen as sexism anymore

because it looks nicer than sexism does to the modern person. They think women being
handcuffed to the stove, physically abused by their alcoholic husbands, or denied any

civil rights at all. No. Sexism today is much more sneaky. Sexism today is trying to turn

every girl into an object in order for her to be accepted as worthy of the most desired

thing in the world—love.

Sexism today is boy shorts that nearly reach their ankles and girl shorts that

hardly cover their underwear. Sexism today is boy swim trunks nearly as long as pants

and maybe two swim suit designs that aren’t bikinis. Sexism today is men’s underwear

ads the size of two pink erasers—depicting packaged boxers—while the women’s

underwear ad is blown up to cover the whole page with a model for every pair. How is

this not wrong? The media loves to take a gorgeous model and have her tell young girls,

“It’s not what you look like that matters,” right before she heads off for her annual face-

lift or to get a tummy-tuck or botox. The girls see these images and are miserable. But

what about what this does to the guys? It encourages them to live in fairyland among

beautiful fake faces while the girls are destroying themselves trying to be something

“better” than what they are.

Don’t even get me started on the music industry! Male singers, generally, require

only a good voice to make it big. (In my foolish days of youth, I believed that was what

any singer needed.) Modern female singers, however, require society’s beauty and the

willingness to flounce around as provocatively as possible. They’ve got autotune, so they

don’t need talent anymore.

But this isn’t sexist in the modern feminist’s eyes. In fact, they don’t even see it.

Still, if a man pulls a chair out for a girl, he condemns her as something weak and

below him. And these feminists continue to say there is no “natural difference between
males and females.” In an article I read recently for English class, the writer stated that

men had, over the course of history, taken all the best characteristics of people—strength,

power, etc.—and applied it to themselves, saving the worst stereotypical traits for

females. This is incredibly offensive to any female reading it, and it should be taken as

such. These weaknesses they talk of are things such as maternal instincts, emotion

detection, and tenderness. Males and females are opposite—complementary counter-

parts! Isn’t declaring all feminine characteristics weak and subordinate sexist? And how

in the world—if there’s no difference between men and women—did one sex get “the

upper hand” on the other for thousands of years?

The world grows increasingly strange to me. Every statement made seems to

contradict itself. For instance, one of the reasons folks are so eager to destroy the “gender

stereotypes” is to make everyone feel like they “fit in,” as the way it is now prohibits

some people from being “truly themselves.” If you were to destroy the sexes, you

wouldn’t be allowing people to be unique—their “true self”—you’d be making everyone

the same shapeless, sexless mess of limbs. The injustice isn’t only committed against

women, but against all people: neutered and mutilated in the most invasive way possible.

And this in the name of equality!