Chivalry

Chivalry; the Real Women's Issue

By John Taylor; 19 January, 2006

I want to comment on some criticisms of feminism and of Canadian men
in an article by Mark Steyn in "The war on terror is the real women's
issue; Feminists whine about life in the West but they will not fight
the bigger battle." (Maclean's, January, 9, 2006, p. 54) His thesis is
that women's rights activists are too set in their ways; they are
beating a dead horse complaining of injustices in Western countries
where they won every major battle long ago. For example, 60 percent of
students in US universities are women. Exclusion from education is no
longer a bone of contention. Meanwhile feminists shy away from
confronting the real danger, the greatest threat to women in the
world, Islam. Of course, political correctness keeps him from putting
it that baldly. Steyn's article calls it instead the "war on terror."
But we read the code and understand.

For example, he points out that feminists in Canada do their best to
turn December 6th, the date when 14 women were shot in a Montreal
engineering school, into a national day of mourning for ubiquitous
violence against women. Except that commentators forget to mention
that the whacko who did it, Marc Lepine, was not a Western man but was
born Gamil Gharbi, the son of an Algerian Muslim wife-beater. He just
carried the universal aggression and injustice to women festering
inside Muslim families out into the open, in this case the school that
rejected his application and had accepted these women students. The
real problem this tragedy showed up was not his bile but the lack of
virility of the Western men present, according to Steyn.

"...the professors and the men in that classroom, who, ordered to
leave by the lone gunman, meekly did so, and abandoned their female
classmates to their fate -- an act of abdication that would have been
unthinkable in almost any other culture throughout human history. The
`men' stood outside in the corridor and, even as they heard the first
shots, they did nothing. And, when it was over and Gharbi walked out
of the room and past them, they still did nothing. Whatever its other
defects, Canadian manhood does not suffer from an excess of
testosterone."

Feminists, he says, has won the battle for equal rights by feminizing
Western culture, and Western men. No male feels a hint of the chivalry
once universal for the opposite sex. In fact, for decades females,
feminists or not, have actively discouraged boys from building up
feelings of solicitude for girls as they grew up. We all know that
from a purely physical point of view, there is no need for treating
women as weak and delicate, even when they are weak and delicate. Why
should men feel protective of a "weaker sex" that really is not only
not weak, but stronger in many important ways. Studies among soldiers
found that women troops have on average about twenty percent less
upper body strength but that on the battlefield they more than make up
for that with their superior stamina. Is a 15 percent weaker condition
anything for a young man to risk taking a bullet for, especially one
who has no training as a soldier or police officer? Clearly, those
engineering students on that December day thought not.

And now activists browbeat Western men every December 6th about the
fact (nobody denies it) that violence and harassment, far from being
eradicated by gains in women's rights, is actually increasing. Perhaps
the most telling, ironic sign imaginable is that many young women,
non-Muslims, in France are propositioned and assaulted so mercilessly
in the street that they have taken to wearing veils and chadors to
reduce the chances of being abused. Unbelievable. Western women in the
most female friendly culture you could ask for voluntarily fleeing
into what feminist leaders regard as rank symbols of male oppression,
and worst of all, fleeing not from Muslim men but Western men.

This, I tell you, has to have big implications. It is a sign of a
failure in moral ideas, one that will be impossible to ignore in the
long term. Steyn tells equality activists: you cannot have your cake
and eat it too. You cannot advocate for women's "rights to their
bodies," that is, pro-choice, pro-abortion, and expect the society
that follows through on that to grow and thrive. It is a contradiction
in terms.

"...the average Russian woman apparently exercised her `right to
choose' no less than seven times. Today, abortions outnumber live
births. As a result, Russia is at the start of a demographic death
spiral unprecedented in a relatively advanced society not at war."

Meanwhile in every Muslim country where Shari'ah law applies, women
quite literally do not have a right to their body, that is, a husband
has the legitimate right to rape his wife at will. Steyn does not
mention this, so I will spell out what he is implying: The birth rate
in misogynous Muslim lands is frighteningly high. Muslim women keep
their babies, and they grow up and swell the ranks.

At the same time, in feminized countries birth rates are shockingly
low, and dropping. Worse, marriages break up and there is a sense
families no longer are permanent or fit for raising children. Within
at least a generation, feminism and female dominated countries will be
overwhelmed by pure numbers. Already rich, developed lands are hugely
outnumbered in the UN by nations where female rights are minimal. The
only way to open to leaders to uphold female rights is to subvert the
fundamental democratic principle of representation by population.

This is a dangerous situation. Some new form of feminism has to be
worked out that is compatible with larger families, that teaches men
to look out for women, and does not browbeat them, and most of all,
that encourages growth in the population. If not, there will be no
feminism in a very short time. It is shaping into a confrontation of
cultures -- and let us call a spade a spade -- of religions too, on a
grand scale. Muslim men tend to perform "honor killings" (ignoring the
oxymoron) on women who seem to slip from under their thumb. Steyn
points out that after the terror bombings of last summer,

"In London ... police announced they were re-opening investigations
into 120 deaths among British Muslim girls that they had hitherto
declined to look at too closely on grounds of `cultural sensitivity.'"

That kind of sensitivity, complicity in murder, nobody needs and
nobody should be surprised that in such a sick religion and sick
culture it is easy for bigots to recruit and brainwash so many young
men into suicide bombers. One step leads to the next, run-of-the-mill
misogynists are molded into armed terrorists, for these young boys are
already all too familiar with how terror works in their own family.

Mark Steyn points out that feminist leaders fervently opposed the
rightist Bush-wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but now these countries
have a higher percentage of women parliamentarians than Canada.
Something is wrong somewhere. Steyn is a columnist and feeds on touchy
opinions but he makes undeniable points; he concludes, saying: "C'mon
gals! Anyone can beat up post-feminist neutered Western males. Why not
pick on a target worth the effort." Meaning Muslim men, I suppose.

What is the root of the problem? You will not be surprised to find
that I think it is in a failure to apply Baha'i principle. I will not
reiterate the principle of equality of the sexes here except to say
the following.

First of all, the cause of women is harmed, not helped, by contention.
Baha'u'llah categorically forbad strife, and for good reason. A person
in authority has to be a teacher first, not a bulldog. The Master
predicted just what is happening now in advanced countries when he
said that as soon as women have equal access to education, the
struggle will be over. "When men own the equality of women there will
be no need for them to struggle for their rights!" (Paris Talks, 163)
That is because men will see clearly that full equality is in their
own interest. Again, the Master said, "As long as women are prevented
from attaining their highest possibilities, so long will men be unable
to achieve the greatness which might be theirs." (Paris Talks, 133)
The greatness of Western men is the greatness of Western women, but as
long as feminists agitate and bellyache at them this crucial point
will remain obscure and they will not value what women do and have
done for them.

It is not just that the average Western male will sit back passively
like those students in the Polytechnique and watch as Muslim
terrorists, acting alone or in concert, attack their women. The point
is that unless Western men realize and value what equality has done
for them, if they do not love and protect their women, put them on the
pedestal they deserve to be on, just so long non-Western men will
continue to think of us as emasculated and weak. They will miss the
point that the truly emasculated man is an abuser not a supporter of
women.

Let me get down to what I really want to complain about here.

I mentioned earlier a neighbor woman who knocked on my door to
complain furiously that my son, Thomas, had bitten her son, who is in
the same Grade One class, on the finger. It transpired that her son at
the time was sitting on top of Thomas, refusing to get off. Biting was
the only way Thomas knew to literally get him off his chest. I later
mentioned this uncomfortable fact to that mother and she was not put
off by her error in the slightest. "Yes, I heard about that later."

Then she launched into a long litany of silly complaints about my son,
including carrying around a cat in an improper manner. It turned out
that long ago she had conceived a strange, surprisingly deep hatred
for Thomas. I recalled that earlier she had persuaded the boy's father
to come and complain that Thomas was climbing trees too high. "But I
allow that," I responded, surprised. They were afraid that Thomas's
bad example of tree climbing might persuade their son to do the same
thing. I wished him luck in that.

After she paused in her complaints about Thomas's wrongdoing, I
suggested that maybe teaching the Golden Rule to her son instead of
fighting and climbing onto others might save his finger from being
bitten. She took that in the wrong spirit and began swearing at me.
Since both of her children were present I pointed out that maybe
swearing in front of little children was not a good way to teach them
good conflict resolution skills. Now every day as she goes by to pick
up her son in the school halls she looks daggers not only at Thomas
but at me as well.

Though this is perhaps an extreme example, it does seem to me that
generally speaking the leadership skills of women and mothers leave
much to be desired. Any teacher who browbeats and abuses students
should be removed from the classroom immediately, since contention
reverses the fundamental goals of education. In the same way any lack
of cordiality by male against female or vice versa has to be addressed
immediately. We must never fight but always persuade, teach one
another what is best for all.

It is normal for mothers to shout at small boys, to spit bile at them
in terms that curl my hair, and that is regarded as normal, acceptable
behavior for a woman. I recall my own mother, who was as kind most of
the time as any mother I have ever seen, saying to me in anger once,
"You miserable little snit." These words, deserving as I no doubt was
at the time, pop unbidden into my head from time to time. Strong words
and they still hurt. Is it any wonder that later on boys thus verbally
attacked grow into men who do not respect women? By my observation,
young girls now swear much more often than boys. Unless there is
cordiality and politeness between the sexes, or even among members of
the same sex, how can goals of equality ever be advanced any further?

At root is a severe, crying lack of leadership qualities on the part
of feminist leaders, and not only the leaders but of western women
generally. Boys are not learning from them how to treat women. They
get mixed messages. That means that educators should devise chivalry
courses for both sexes. Starting from a young age girls and boys must
learn how to deal with, and mostly how to lead and teach, the opposite
sex; without that, how can they learn to be kind and polite, much less
truly love the opposite sex?

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com