SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 05, 2006
KATE O'BEIRNE AND WOMEN
WHO MAKE THE WORLD WORSE
I was recently privileged to listen to Kate O’Beirne being interviewed on C-SPAN’s Booknotes for her recent work Women who make the World Worse and I must admit I was impressed with her. She answered all the questions put to her by the interviewer and was able to make a logical and coherent case for all of her views.
That’s pretty rare today.
She covered pretty much everything with one notable exception (which I will mention later) from single motherhood up to and including women in frontline combat in the military. She’s opposed to both, of course.
One unusual thing I found out about Kate O’Beirne’s background is that she was educated by nuns and feels this was very instrumental in her formative years. It’s interesting, as she mentions, how little attention is ever paid by feminists (or anybody really) to the basic ‘outside of the box thinking’ of nuns. They could really be seen as the first independent women of history, as they chose not to marry and instead dedicate themselves to education and serving their communities, long before this was a career choice for women btw.
Anyway she covered everything pretty much in the same vein as I might have with one exception which of course, is she ignored the whole issue of gender neutral custody and never even mentions that millions of fit, loving mothers that have lost custody of their children, many to never see them again. This is due in large part to these crazy gender-neutralized feminists and mens/fathers rights nuts. As those inherent differences she mentioned between men and women also involve women in their roles as mothers, not just the whole military and sports issues, which are minor blips on the radar to mothers compared to our children.
Obviously...
The current fashion today for mothers to lose custody stems from these crazy gender-neutralized feminist's ideas. It's actually seen as progressive today to give a father custody and ignore the mother/child bond. Even infants are at risk here of never having any contact with their mothers again, due to these feminazis social engineering of the court system. Kate O'Beirne admits the truth in this with some of her strongest arguments, even citing how various groups of gender-neutralized feminists heading professional and educational organizations have pathologized the mother/child bond. These unprincipled. gender-neutralized monsters have actually diagnosed a mother's attachment with her child as a sign of mental illness. Yet, she doesn't follow her own logical argument through to the most obvious conclusion and turns around and blames feminists for custody wars. When it should be obvious that it is not feminists at all who are encouraging these custody wars, as they have nothing to gain by mothers keeping custody of their children just the opposite from their point of view. Instead, it is ordinary women trying to keep custody of their own kids who are fighting these battles.
Mothers, properly, wish their children to be spending most of their lives with them, not involved in all kinds of nutty custody-sharing arrangements just to ensure fathers don’t have to pay too much child support. Feminists would LOVE for mothers just to turn their backs on their kids and walk away for some career. It’s ordinary mothers who aren't playing the game according to feminists' and fathers rights nuts' demented playbook.
So in this one area, I found Kate O’Beirne conclusions to be lacking...
Last point.
She does correctly identify men as the culprit behind the current explosion of single mothers. Men’s fixation on casual sex with many women, which was enabled by feminism, places many women today at an extreme disadvantage. As women appear to be still using the age-old strategy of sex as a way to build a relationship, with a pregnancy expected to close the deal via a marriage proposal. Unfortunately it’s not working that way anymore and the result is millions of women being left high and dry with a pregnancy that does not result in a marriage. Thus either an abortion or single motherhood follows.
Feminism appears to have lost women all their bargaining power in our society vis-à-vis male/female relationships. By convincing many young women that casual sex will ‘empower’ them, it has led to women who don’t buy into the ‘casual sex as empowerment’ party line to be operating from a strategic disadvantage on the dating scene. We even see this in the current proliferation of teenage girls giving oral sex to boys in school. These girls are obviously attempting to date boys in a climate where to refuse to have sex probably means a lot of Friday nights at home ALONE watching tv. This is the compromise they have come up with obviously, not having sex but some lesser version of it.
However, Kate O’Beirne seems to miss the point that this is not in the power of women, by ourselves, to change this situation so easily. For instance, her glib answer to what a disempowered single mother ought to do, for instance, “find a husband” doesn’t seem to realistically address the reality for most young women today who wish to be married and have families. Unfortunately men have changed their behavior, not women, so men are the ones who need to take the initiative in this area. Thus, she sidestepped this important social change that has left women scrambling along behind to pick up the pieces broken by the Hugh Hefnerization of our society.
It’s somewhat arrogant to assume that women can totally change this situation by themselves with no sincere wish to change it by the men who are advantaged by it. As I have often said, now that this genie is out of the bottle, most men would be very adverse to putting the cork back in and foregoing the casual sex on demand that is so common today. Anyway, I don't see it just happening because some group of women would like it to, that's for sure.
I mean there is a certain level of attention that a young girl receives for a good number of years as she acts out around men like a tramp or skank as they call it today. AND for many girls this appears to be enough. Thus, ordinary women have this as their competition as they continue trying to build a stable relationship during the years when young men appear more interested in casual sex, then making a serious commitment. BTW, I'm not talking about the competition as being prostitutes. Heck, prostitutes hate these skanks as much as ordinary women do, since they haven't been able to raise their prices since the 70s as so many of these skanks are giving it away for free over the last few decades.
So I think Kate O'Beirne is a little more optimistic then is warranted on the power of women to just turn this around now.
Other than this misreading of the casual sex business and the total ignoring of the custody issue for mothers, however, the interview was good, very thought-provoking. Thus, I look forward to more writing from Kate O'Beirne.
I was recently privileged to listen to Kate O’Beirne being interviewed on C-SPAN’s Booknotes for her recent work Women who make the World Worse and I must admit I was impressed with her. She answered all the questions put to her by the interviewer and was able to make a logical and coherent case for all of her views.
That’s pretty rare today.
She covered pretty much everything with one notable exception (which I will mention later) from single motherhood up to and including women in frontline combat in the military. She’s opposed to both, of course.
One unusual thing I found out about Kate O’Beirne’s background is that she was educated by nuns and feels this was very instrumental in her formative years. It’s interesting, as she mentions, how little attention is ever paid by feminists (or anybody really) to the basic ‘outside of the box thinking’ of nuns. They could really be seen as the first independent women of history, as they chose not to marry and instead dedicate themselves to education and serving their communities, long before this was a career choice for women btw.
Anyway she covered everything pretty much in the same vein as I might have with one exception which of course, is she ignored the whole issue of gender neutral custody and never even mentions that millions of fit, loving mothers that have lost custody of their children, many to never see them again. This is due in large part to these crazy gender-neutralized feminists and mens/fathers rights nuts. As those inherent differences she mentioned between men and women also involve women in their roles as mothers, not just the whole military and sports issues, which are minor blips on the radar to mothers compared to our children.
Obviously...
The current fashion today for mothers to lose custody stems from these crazy gender-neutralized feminist's ideas. It's actually seen as progressive today to give a father custody and ignore the mother/child bond. Even infants are at risk here of never having any contact with their mothers again, due to these feminazis social engineering of the court system. Kate O'Beirne admits the truth in this with some of her strongest arguments, even citing how various groups of gender-neutralized feminists heading professional and educational organizations have pathologized the mother/child bond. These unprincipled. gender-neutralized monsters have actually diagnosed a mother's attachment with her child as a sign of mental illness. Yet, she doesn't follow her own logical argument through to the most obvious conclusion and turns around and blames feminists for custody wars. When it should be obvious that it is not feminists at all who are encouraging these custody wars, as they have nothing to gain by mothers keeping custody of their children just the opposite from their point of view. Instead, it is ordinary women trying to keep custody of their own kids who are fighting these battles.
Mothers, properly, wish their children to be spending most of their lives with them, not involved in all kinds of nutty custody-sharing arrangements just to ensure fathers don’t have to pay too much child support. Feminists would LOVE for mothers just to turn their backs on their kids and walk away for some career. It’s ordinary mothers who aren't playing the game according to feminists' and fathers rights nuts' demented playbook.
So in this one area, I found Kate O’Beirne conclusions to be lacking...
Last point.
She does correctly identify men as the culprit behind the current explosion of single mothers. Men’s fixation on casual sex with many women, which was enabled by feminism, places many women today at an extreme disadvantage. As women appear to be still using the age-old strategy of sex as a way to build a relationship, with a pregnancy expected to close the deal via a marriage proposal. Unfortunately it’s not working that way anymore and the result is millions of women being left high and dry with a pregnancy that does not result in a marriage. Thus either an abortion or single motherhood follows.
Feminism appears to have lost women all their bargaining power in our society vis-à-vis male/female relationships. By convincing many young women that casual sex will ‘empower’ them, it has led to women who don’t buy into the ‘casual sex as empowerment’ party line to be operating from a strategic disadvantage on the dating scene. We even see this in the current proliferation of teenage girls giving oral sex to boys in school. These girls are obviously attempting to date boys in a climate where to refuse to have sex probably means a lot of Friday nights at home ALONE watching tv. This is the compromise they have come up with obviously, not having sex but some lesser version of it.
However, Kate O’Beirne seems to miss the point that this is not in the power of women, by ourselves, to change this situation so easily. For instance, her glib answer to what a disempowered single mother ought to do, for instance, “find a husband” doesn’t seem to realistically address the reality for most young women today who wish to be married and have families. Unfortunately men have changed their behavior, not women, so men are the ones who need to take the initiative in this area. Thus, she sidestepped this important social change that has left women scrambling along behind to pick up the pieces broken by the Hugh Hefnerization of our society.
It’s somewhat arrogant to assume that women can totally change this situation by themselves with no sincere wish to change it by the men who are advantaged by it. As I have often said, now that this genie is out of the bottle, most men would be very adverse to putting the cork back in and foregoing the casual sex on demand that is so common today. Anyway, I don't see it just happening because some group of women would like it to, that's for sure.
I mean there is a certain level of attention that a young girl receives for a good number of years as she acts out around men like a tramp or skank as they call it today. AND for many girls this appears to be enough. Thus, ordinary women have this as their competition as they continue trying to build a stable relationship during the years when young men appear more interested in casual sex, then making a serious commitment. BTW, I'm not talking about the competition as being prostitutes. Heck, prostitutes hate these skanks as much as ordinary women do, since they haven't been able to raise their prices since the 70s as so many of these skanks are giving it away for free over the last few decades.
So I think Kate O'Beirne is a little more optimistic then is warranted on the power of women to just turn this around now.
Other than this misreading of the casual sex business and the total ignoring of the custody issue for mothers, however, the interview was good, very thought-provoking. Thus, I look forward to more writing from Kate O'Beirne.
posted
by NYMOM | Sunday, February 05, 2006 
"Mothers, properly,
wish their children to be spending most of their lives with them, not involved
in all kinds of nutty custody-sharing arrangements just to ensure fathers don’t
have to pay too much child support"
So the only reason fathers want custody is so they can avoid CS? You really have a demented opinion of men Maggie.
So the only reason fathers want custody is so they can avoid CS? You really have a demented opinion of men Maggie.
As you have a demented
opinion of women...
NyMOM you are about as
wrong as you can be about why fathers get custody. Fathers get custody because
they have more money, more privilege, and face a court system made up of men.
O'Beirne herself uses the same crap all these feminist bashers use: statistics, anecdotes, biased sources and so forth. Frankly, if you're this off base, I'd rather you stop commenting on my blog.
O'Beirne herself uses the same crap all these feminist bashers use: statistics, anecdotes, biased sources and so forth. Frankly, if you're this off base, I'd rather you stop commenting on my blog.
Well I wasn't going to
comment for long.
As you know I'm not a feminist and we disagree on just about everything anyway...
I just commented due to the ONE issue we agreed on...but I'm fine with not going back...
However to your point of the court system being made up of men and thinking that's why so many mothers lose custody...on that issue you are mistaken. The court system is mostly made up of men at the upper levels, but the officers of the courts: lawyers, law guardians, evaluators, etc., many of THEM are women...and Judges make their ruling 90% of the time mirroring an Evaluator's recommendations, as few Judges have the time to research a custody case themselves.
AND even when we do get a female Judge, they are MORE vicious to mothers then a man could ever be...Look at that Arlene Goldberg with the Bridget Marks case, even OJ Simpson in California got custody of his kids from a female Judge...
Sorry.
I too initially wanted to believe that men were the source of these unfair custody rulings. Actually, I did believe it for a long time; until I actually got involved with the issue and spoke to many non-custodial mothers and guess what, it's not the fault of men that mothers lose custody...it's frequently the fault of other women.
Many of these mothers became non-custodial due to a vicious feminist Evaluator or GAL handing in a recommendation to a Judge who them ruled against them based upon it...
Sorry...
I didn't want to believe it either as it was soooo much easier for me to just blame men...
Easy, but not correct.
But I won't post on your blog again...
Good luck in your life anyway.
As you know I'm not a feminist and we disagree on just about everything anyway...
I just commented due to the ONE issue we agreed on...but I'm fine with not going back...
However to your point of the court system being made up of men and thinking that's why so many mothers lose custody...on that issue you are mistaken. The court system is mostly made up of men at the upper levels, but the officers of the courts: lawyers, law guardians, evaluators, etc., many of THEM are women...and Judges make their ruling 90% of the time mirroring an Evaluator's recommendations, as few Judges have the time to research a custody case themselves.
AND even when we do get a female Judge, they are MORE vicious to mothers then a man could ever be...Look at that Arlene Goldberg with the Bridget Marks case, even OJ Simpson in California got custody of his kids from a female Judge...
Sorry.
I too initially wanted to believe that men were the source of these unfair custody rulings. Actually, I did believe it for a long time; until I actually got involved with the issue and spoke to many non-custodial mothers and guess what, it's not the fault of men that mothers lose custody...it's frequently the fault of other women.
Many of these mothers became non-custodial due to a vicious feminist Evaluator or GAL handing in a recommendation to a Judge who them ruled against them based upon it...
Sorry...
I didn't want to believe it either as it was soooo much easier for me to just blame men...
Easy, but not correct.
But I won't post on your blog again...
Good luck in your life anyway.
7 comments:
Jane Smith said...
Feminists want women to lose custody of their children. In their convoluted mind this makes them "free." The reality of their revolution is that millions of women have their hearts torn out by the loss of custody protections which feminists advocated was necessary for women's liberation, work at dead-end jobs, are seeing their beauty fade when their husbands leave them under the sanctions of no-fault divorce that feminists argued for, men refuse to marry as they can now retain custodial rights without having to marry the mother and they can get sex with barely any effort on their part because feminists told women that there is no security so they mights as well forget romance and just have sex. In the "landmark book of women's liberation," "The Female Eunuch," Germaine Greer writes:
"When heredity has decayed and bureaucracy is the rule, so that the only riches are earning power and mobility, it is absurd that the family should persist in the patter of patriliny. It is absurd that people should live more densely than ever before while pretending that they are still in a cottage with a garden. It is absurd that peole should pledge themselves for life when divorce is always possible." (266)
"If women would reject their roles in this pattern, recognizing insecurity as freedom, they would not be perceptibly worse off for it." (274)
"They must not scurry about from bed to bed in a self-deluding and pitiable search for love, but must do what they do deliberately, without false modesty, shame or emotional blackmail." (300)
"A housewife's work has no
results: it simply has to be done again. Bringing up children is not a real occupation, because children come up just the same, brought or not. " (312)
"Men argue that alimony laws can cripple them, and this is obviously true, but they have only themselves to blame for the fact that alimony is neccessary, largely because of the pattern of granting custody of the children to the mother. The alimonized wife bringing up the children without father is no more free than she ever was...If independence is a necessary concomitant of freedom, women must not marry." (358-359)
"Even though there are more problems attendant upon bringing up an illegitimate child, and even friendly cohabitation can meet with outrage and prosecution from more orthodox citizens, marrying to avoid these inconveniences is a meaningless evasion." (359)
"In many cases, the husband is consoled by being allowed to retain the children annd can afford to treat them better with less anxiety than a woman could. he is more likely to be able to pay a housekeeper or a nanny than a woman is. And so forth. Behind the divorced woman struggling to keep her children there always looms the threate of 'taking the children into care' which is the worst of alternatives. A woman who leaves her husband and children could offer them alimony, if society would grant her the means."(362)
"Only by experimentation can we open up new possibilities which will indicate lines of development in which the status quo is a given term. Women's revolution is necessarily situationist: we cannot argue that all will be well when the socialists have succeeded in abolishing private property and restoring public ownership of the means of production. We cannot wait that long. Women's liberation, if it abolishes the patriarchal family, will abolish a ecessary substructure of the authoritarian state, and once that withers away Marx will have come true willy-nilly, so let's get on with it." (368-369)
"The first significant discovery we shall make as we racket along our female road to freedom is that men are not free, and they will seek to make this an argument why nobody should be free. We can only reply that slaves enslave their masters, and by securing our own manumission we may show men the way that they could follow when they have jumped off their own treadmill." (371)
12:19 PM
Hi Jane Smith,
I love when this type of comment is posted as it leaves room for a lot more discussion about the real issues facing mothers fighting to keep their children today from these crazy social engineers who have taken over all of the mechanisms of power in our country: the courts, social services department, public policy bodies, etc.,
One of the most unexamined issues of our time is how many mother just wind up finally giving up on the whole thing and abducting their own kids (not that I recognize that concept that a mother can 'abduct' her own child).
It's just mind-boggling to me that mothers,who in the past just accepted this sort of injustice passively, are striking back by just falling off of the grid and raising their babies alone...
No child support, no public assistance, nothing...maybe some family help...
This is an issue that you never hear any of the media discussing how these dumb-ass gender neutralized feminists have directly contributed to this happening...
Last point: mark my words that the next big issue for women is going to be dodging this draft (which is coming) as these same crazed gender-neutralized social engineers have gotten women into another fine mess.
Again...
Hi NYMOM,
I'm sorry I just saw your reply to me when I visited your website today to see if you had any recent posts. Yes, as for the last part I'm afraid you are right. Right now men's groups are suing the selective service because only men have to register. Now that they have lifted the ban on women in combat I'm sure they'll win. This is beyond terrible. Too many women cannot understand how feminism has possibly hurt women. But it has. The truth is that women's rights have regressed back to the early 1800s. I know my mother lost custody of me when I was 2 years old to a father that was dealing drugs. She divorced him because he wouldn't stop and he wouldn't compromise for my sake or for hers. I had a very terrible childhood as a result.
I may be a little on the conservative side advocating for traditional marriage laws but I have been working hard to spread the message to women. I have a website "What's Wrong With Equal Rights" here on blogger and Wordpress. I write about the legal issues that women face as a result of modern feminism. I have promoted your site on my "sister sites" page because I believe in your message here. The first step is to convince women that a movement that supposedly was all for their benefit has actually harmed them. This is not easy to do as the media censors and ignores the real issues and the only "anti-feminists" anyone hears about are these MRAs who spread lies about women or those like Phyllis Schlafly who have turned their back on women.
Sorry to hear about your childhood. I too had a traumatic childhood and I think it does make an adult ultra conservative when they actually experience the end result of these liberal ideas, especially on children...
BTW, I wouldn't say Phyllis Schlafly has turned her back on women but she's constantly under attack by the left and you get tired of always having to defend yourself...
If it wasn't for her I think women would be in a lot worse position right now as she was the one who led the fight against the Equal Rights Amendment. Women would have been facing these issues 30 years earlier if it wasn't for Phyllis Schlafly...
I think how ironic it is that the older Boston bomber was a stay-at-home dad while his his wife was forced to work an 80 hour week to support his lazy a@@. Meanwhile he used his time with his daughter to post radical crap on the internet and plot attacks against the US...
One thing I've noticed is that men (from both the left and the right) have no problem in sucking all of the good from the womens' movement and leaving women with everything bad...
But just to go back to Phyllis Schlafly I noticed a lot of people like her, when they are under constant attack, make errors of speech or thought even (in the heat of battle)...I probably do it myself. I don't hold it against them because you always have to be justifying your position against those who want to attack you for any mistake, oversights, etc.,so it can lead to you over-analyzing everything and making errors of judgement due to this tendency...
But in her favor, I think she saw where this whole gender neutral movement was leading to long before anyone else realized it and she slowed the process down for a while anyway...
But it's up to the younger generation of women now to continue the fight...and when I look around me I don't have a lot of hope that they are up to the challenge.
Thanks for your interest.
I will check out your site.
Have a good day.
Thank you. The only reason why I say Phyllis Schlafly has turned her back on women is because she is advocating for things like joint custody and proclaiming a war on fathers on her site Eagle Forum. She seems to greatly side with MRAs. She believes like a lot of MRAs that men should be able to recover damages for false paternity claims (which are only 30%- a small minority) but what about a woman's right to recover damages when she is left alone and pregnant without anyone to provide for or help her or her right to recover damages for him falsely denying his children? That is, after all, defamation because he has falsely accused her of being promiscuous and probably done more harm to her than she could ever do by just taking a small portion of his income. Most men don't pay their support anyways. Also, no word is ever mentioned about rapists getting custody and those fathers who decide after 5 or 6 years they actually want something to do with a child they have never seen before. Nope, she just goes on about how much men are victims and complains about mothers who "liberate" themselves (which is bad too).
I don't think stay at home dads are a wise idea. There is all kinds of evidence coming out as this is becoming more common that stay at home dads are actually doing more harm than good to children. For instance, a Minnesota study revealed that 2/3 of violent infant deaths were from male caretakers while their mothers were at work and new evidence also suggests that children raised by stay at home dads do far worse in school. I guess it's better than nothing but this arrangement should only be done if there is no other choice. Nature gave children to mothers for a reason. Since men don't bear the burdens of childbearing then they should be obligated to provide the support no matter how much the mother may be worth.
Sorry for the long comment, just wanted to explain why I said what I did about Phyllis. Yes, we women are forever in her debt for stopping the ERA. But I'm afraid ERA or not there is nothing to protect women anymore. States are even still trying to pass ERA to this day. I fear the one day they actually succeed.
Hi Jane,
I think you have to remember that Phyllis Schlafly is very old school...and who else could she look to as an ally being against the ERA except this MRA community...
This is an example of what I was saying about people who are right on one big issue making a mistake on another...
For instance, many times I've been identified as a radical feminist and have in the past had them posting on my website for a while until they understood me better...
As I often told them I am not a radical feminist, actually I'm more radical then most feminists...
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