Last spring, I was riding the subway from Manhattan to Brooklyn when a fight broke out between two teens and a middle-aged hipster. As the altercation escalated, I noticed an elderly woman sitting inches away from the teens’ flying fists. I instinctively grabbed the woman, who had a cane, and shielded her behind where I was standing. I was five months pregnant at the time.
While this happened, I looked across the subway car to see a handful of able-bodied men just sitting and watching. I blamed feminism.
After all, why would these men give up their seat for a young woman who is their equal in every way? Why would they protect an elderly lady if they viewed her as a strong, independent woman capable of defending herself?
Many of the social ills of our day can be traced back to feminism, and the recent explosion of sexual allegations against high-profile men is no exception.
Wolves in Feminist Clothing?
Earlier this week, the food magazine Eater broke the news that world-renowned chef and restaurant mogul Mario Batali had been accused of “inappropriate touching” by four different women.
In a statement to Eater, Batali, who has co-hosted ABC’s The Chew since 2011, indicated that the allegations were credible.
“I apologize to the people I have mistreated and hurt,” he said. “Although the identities of most of the individuals mentioned in these stories have not been revealed to me, much of the behavior described does, in fact, match up with ways I have acted.”
While the tone of Batali’s statement stands out as more apologetic than those of other men accused of sexual misconduct over the past few months, one thing that many of these recently outed sexual abusers have in common is a reputation for “championing women.”
Just weeks after the initial allegations against film producer Harvey Weinstein, Batali gave an interview in which he praised gender equality in the cooking industry and discussed his reasons for hiring an all-female staff at his restaurant, Del Posto.
“It’s not because they have a vagina,” Batali told Page Six at the Fast Company Innovation Festival in October. “It’s because they’re the smartest people for the job.”
Many might say that men like Batali, Weinstein, and Senator Al Franken used feminism as a way to mask their disregard for women. But the alleged actions of these individuals are actually perfectly consistent with feminism—an ideology that degrades women while claiming to support them.
Feminism is Misogyny
Since the Sexual Revolution of the 1970s, modern feminism has sought to destroy sexual differences by abolishing the idea that women and men are fundamentally different and should be treated differently.
Ironically, this means feminism has spent decades working to make sure women won’t be honored or cherished for their femininity, but rather only to the degree that they resemble men. In the process, feminism has also attacked the sacred vocation of motherhood by portraying it as a stumbling block to female progress.
Modern feminism prizes virtue signaling over virtuous living. In the medieval tales of knights rescuing damsels from fire-breathing dragons, feminism would say that there’s no need to rescue the damsel, because she’s perfectly capable of fighting her own battles.
Instead, men can earn their feminist badge from the comfort of their own hometown by marching in a pro-women rally, or by retweeting Planned Parenthood. The result is a generation of white knights who don’t actually honor or cherish women (or even give up their precious seat on the subway).
Because feminism set the bar so low, creeps like Harvey Weinstein, Al Franken, and Mario Batali have been able to dominate media, politics, and entertainment while earning the title “pro-women” because they decry the mythical wage gap and support abortion. Feminism taught these men that it is far more important to say the right thing than to actually do the right thing.
Feminism Destroys Healthy Masculinity
Not only does feminism degrade women, but it also discourages men from acting truly masculine. And the whole point of masculinity is to benefit women.
Feminism tells us that women can do anything men can do. Upon learning this, many men come to believe that they have nothing unique to offer women, even in the way of physical protection.
Consider the countless men who knew about the sexual exploits of Weinstein et al and said nothing. Why didn’t any of these individuals feel a personal obligation to stay the hand of the abuser?
Simply put, feminism turns men into dweebs.
Over the past four decades, we’ve seen what happens to good men under the reign of militant feminism. Male politicians who defend the unborn are portrayed as oppressive patriarchs who want to regulate the female body. Husbands who want their wives to stay at home and raise their children are seen as insecure control freaks. And those once-heroic knights who bothered to slay dragons on behalf of distressed maidens are mocked by moderns as antiquated and sexist.
Feminism has been so successful in its efforts to abolish sexual differences that many would-be good men have abandoned masculine virtue for sheepish complacency.
Anyone who is horrified by the revelations of sexual abuse in Hollywood, Washington, and beyond should be equally horrified by the feminist ideology that facilitated such behavior. Feminism is the disease, not the cure to America’s sex problem.