Is Feminizing a BAD thing? Are we 'feminizing our schools"? HELL NO

A month ago, a conservative blog, True North, cross posted a piece of crap with the title
The Danger of Feminization, by an author I recognize as a conservative commenter on my friend's blog, Shot in the Dark who writes under the single nom de plume of Kermit.

My hackles bristle whenever I read the right fringies using the term 'feminizing' or 'femi-nazi' as a derogatory term.  Sadly, what they usually mean by it is they oppose civilizing, not feminizing. Identifying something as belonging to either gender should not be a means to impugn or disparage.

Doing so is asserting that being one gender is inferior to the other; and that direction tends to be to denigrate women and girls.  The first International Day of the Girl Child is the perfect opportunity to push back against this demeaning of women and girls, and the mischaracterizing of what is feminine.

Kermit wrote:

 “The World is governed by the aggressive use of force.” Nature is replete with examples of this rule, as the strong overpower and consume the weak. Survival is the paramount law which governs the natural world.

Why do these facts seem to be missing from the world view of so many Americans today? Why do so many seem to think that Man has somehow extricated himself from the natural world and is no longer governed by it’s laws?

This is a load of codswallop.

We are no longer a world where humans run around in skins with pointy stick grunting at each other.

The reality is that historically, through cooperation, humans hunted to extinction much larger and more dangerous prey, aka 'mega-fauna', wherever there were human migrations. 

Human survival is determined not by individual aggression, but by cooperation - including aggression which is both controlled and well-directed by each individual.  We have survived and come to dominate our environment not by brutishness, but by intellect. 

What has characterized the civilizing - not FEMINIZING - of human beings and human relationships, including advances in our systems of government, has been the pursuit of intellect over brutishness and violence; cooperation, and specialization, leading to innovation, rather than lone macho aggression.  Anyone who thinks survival is all about strength over weakness, and who ignores all of the other qualities necessary for survival doesn't plan to live to old age, doesn't plan - if male - to have a less large or strong female spouse survive violence, and doesn't hold out much hope for children living either, .  Most of all, such a concept of what constitutes survival doesn't allow for becoming part of a cohesive group.  Kermit is exalting a lack of discipline and self-control as masculinity; it is not.

Anyone with even a minimal knowledge of anthropology and archeology would know that Kermit's understanding of 'survival of the fitest', or 'the strong overpower the weak' is ignorant.

From a 2010  University of York press release on research  by Penny Spikins, Andy Needham,  and Holly Rutherford:

The second stage from 1.8 million years ago sees compassion in Homo erectus beginning to be regulated as an emotion integrated with rational thought. Care of sick individuals represented an extensive compassionate investment while the emergence of special treatment of the dead suggested grief at the loss of a loved one and a desire to soothe others feelings.
In Europe between around 500,000 and 40,000 years ago, early humans such as Homo heidelbergensis and Neanderthals developed deep-seated commitments to the welfare of others illustrated by a long adolescence and a dependence on hunting together. There is also archaeological evidence of the routine care of the injured or infirm over extended periods. These include the remains of a child with a congenital brain abnormality who was not abandoned but lived until five or six years old and those of a Neanderthal with a withered arm, deformed feet and blindness in one eye who must have been cared for, perhaps for as long as twenty years..

I would refer Kermit to the Smithsonian magazine on Neanderthals and other early developing hominids that produced our modern selves as distinct from other species. They note that what distinguishes us from less advanced species are things like toolmaking, speech, and the ability to teach complex skills using language.  What makes that kind of cooperation possible is the ability to master impulses and aggression, not giving them undisciplined free expression.

Kermit, misogynisticaly, went on to write -- wrongly --

I suspect it is an unforeseen consequence of the Feminization of America.

Far better writers than I have observed this societal trend in Western culture. This influence reaches every corner of life, from popular media, to education to our political institutions. Men are mocked by television programs, made into cartoons by most major films, ridiculed by elitists as “Neanderthals”.

THIS is not how we define masculine and feminine

,

Bullshit, Kermit; men who behave badly are mocked when they act like brutes and jerks.  There are plenty of examples of men behaving heroically - and intelligently - where that is not the case. If you wish to take a look at how the genders are caricatures, women are treated as boobs on stilts by men far too often, or as nothing more than baby incubators and housework robots. It has been right wing ideologues who espouse Kermit's same failed notion of gender who posited that women, because of menstruation, were incapable of competent decision making at the level of the supreme court, which is another example of bad gender stereotyping that goes hand in hand with the notion of feminizing as a result of penalizing violence. This kind of thinking is bad for BOTH men and women; it is wrong, it is inaccurate, it is ugly, and it doesn't work very well.

There is a great deal of room to criticize gender stereotypes, but Kermit has picked entirely the wrong examples for that criticism, and the opposite qualities to praise and exalt from what should be acknowledged and rewarded.

Kermit then goes on to write:

The tragic trend towards single parent, fatherless households exacerbates this imbalance in societal chakras. When boys have only thuggish gangster rappers, diamond encrusted sports figures or effeminate Hollywood “stars” for examples, how do they form identities?

I'm all for two parent households; but there is no strong evidence those parents must be biological, or that they can't be same-sex couples.  And seriously.......'societal chakras'? What kind of new age touchy feely nonsense is that?

And who says boys ONLY have thuggish gangster-rappers, etc. for examples? What -- there are no male teachers, uncles, older brothers, cousins, grandparents, neighbors and friends, civic leaders or male clergy?  There are no positive celebrity role models? Of course there are!

Kermit goes on to pile the manure of thought deeper with:

Our Public School system is equally to blame for this degradation. They just don’t want boys to be boys. The fear of trial lawyers and idiot parents is a major reason. One wrong, hormone-laced move and they are suspended. God forbid they get into a good old-fashioned punching match. We need “Conflict Resolution” and “Sensitivity Training”. Nowhere is this more obvious than here in Minnesota.

School is not the place for kids to be in fear of being punched; it gets in the way of learning, which is what students ARE in school to do.  It is another word for bullying.  Boys can be boys without beating the crap out of each other.  Men can be men without beating the crap out of each other as well. No parent should be willing to send their child, boy OR girl, to a school in expectation of them being hurt, or traumatized, by some other child, not in control of his aggressive impulses.

The point of education is to teach ALL kids - not just boys - what they are supposed to be learning.  That includes self-control and impulse mastery.  The notion that we are promoting anything of value by permitting or allowing or worse, encouraging  physical conflict, or any other kind of conflict, is ridiculous.  School exists to prepare kids for adult life, giving them the skills and knowledge they need to be both cooperative and competitive.  There is absolutely NO occupation, no profession, no field of employment that will reward 'boys being boys' punching each other......NONE, and that includes our military, which puts very strong restrictions on who can do combat with whom, either in training and simulated combat, or in real combat where emphasis is placed on following the limits of whatever rules of engagement are in effect with the strictest discipline, regardless of how you FEEL.

Kermit then goes on to write an even taller pile of crap:

This brings us to Nature. Nature abhors a vacuum, and this paucity of manliness will be filled, somehow. When we have a bunch of candy-ass Senators trying to tell a four-star general his business, sanity has fled. We need a kinder, gentler military that can answer the needs of inevitable adversaries. Never mind those needs are our destruction.

Last I checked, we had some exemplary former members of our military subsequently serving as Senators.  Last I checked, some of the toughest world leaders were not men at all, and were ladies who had never physically decked anyone, male or female, with a punch.  That would include women like Golda Meier, formerly a labor union leader and teacher from Wisconsin, who went on to serve as Prime Minister of Israel during significant times of war, where she was commander in chief of THEIR military, and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who was the ultimate authority over UK forces during both insurgencies in Norther Ireland, and the Falklands conflict.  There is a serious reason that we have civilian control of our military, and it has fuck-all to do with it being a good idea for any four star general to be doing ANYTHING WHATSOEVER OTHER than offering advise when asked, or following orders when told.

A perusal of our current wars shows that what has been essential in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in Libya was cooperation with our allies, and the winning of hearts and minds - not just punching or shooting or bombing.  So YES, we need a smarter, better thinking, more capable of coordinating and negotiating set of skills in our modern military, and cooler heads, not stupidly, brutishly aggressive ones. There are plenty of ways we teach controlled competition, and controlled aggression --- and we don't only teach it to boys.  Our girl children also learn those same lessons; they are not gender specific; increasingly, we see the same qualities in female c-class executives, CEOs, CFO's, and in aggressive litigators, and in our female military top brass too.  We live in an age that has female combat pilots....or maybe Kermit thinks those women who fly combat missions lack courage, and when required, controlled, directed aggression?

Kermit concludes, not getting any brighter with prolonged effort:

People around the World are watching us right now. As the putative “lone superpower” they realize that Nature dictates they must try to be stronger. It’s not just the Islamists who want their Global Caliphate. It’s also the Russians, the Chinese, the Indians, and other power blocks yet to arise. One unavoidable fact of nature: when an Alpha Male gets too old another dog tears it to pieces.

Actually, as the veteran of active pack management of dogs who actually DO hunt and kill things, including running multiple males, and both alpha dogs and alpha bitches.......NO, that is not what happens.  Bitches tend to be alphas much more often than males, and an approximately equal number of dogs and bitches divide up what is termed in packs, both wild and domestic, as the 'enforcer' role. The enforcer is the more active protector of the pack territory, usually backed up by the alpha.  There is no distinction between aggressive abilities either hunting or as 'enforcer' between males and females, and NO, when an alpha retires from the role in the pack, it is far more often NOT a conflict where another canid tears it to pieces, unless some other underlying conflict between individuals has been unresolved.  To do so would - as with people - be counterproductive to the success and survival of the group.  The role of a competent 'alpha' is to stop conflict between pack members, and to do so without causing injury.  Bite inhibition is the EARLIEST social skill taught to puppies by adults, the equivalent of teaching NOT to hit harder than safe play levels -- for good reason.

The notion that nebulous "Islamists" want a Global Caliphate is crap; there is no monolithic purpose among Muslims, who span a large spectrum of nations and regions with no unified language or national aspiration -- Kermit spouts pure ignorance and unfounded fear.  If we try to participate in global relationships like a dog, we will be shunned and marginalized.  That is NOT how nations operate any more than it is how individuals should behave.

From kids to countries, Kermit has it all wrong; he is the victim of failed thinking, ignorance on a range of topics and levels of knowledge, and most of all he is seriously wrong about gender identity.  Sadly Kermit suffers from the impediment of conservative ideology that is fact deficient and knowledge averse. Maybe he is impaired from having been hit repeatedly in the head by bigger, stronger boys while at school as a child. Women and girls are not a threat to the continued success of the U.S. in the world community; civilizing BOTH boys and girls (girls are not all sweetness and light EITHER, and can be every bit as aggressive, and violent, if not required to behave otherwise) is essential.  It is not 'feminizing'; time to correct the vocabulary of our discourse, in politics and education. It is a necessary adjunct to equality.

The example we set for the watching world should be - and will be - one of FULL equality and effective civilization, that engages in the least amount of aggression necessary, and never in impulsive violence, by either gender, against anyone.  Part of that example MUST be that we stop using gender as a pejorative term or concept.