RUTHFULLY YOURS

According to the feminist mantra, a veritable epidemic of male violence against women is sweeping the country.  Women in every walk of life are apparently prey to a wave of male sexual harassment, assault, and rape; they are victims of a nefarious consortium called “the patriarchy,” which has been oppressing women in the home, the workplace, and the professions from time immemorial.  Women who bring forth allegations of male sexual misconduct, whether proven or not and no matter how frivolous or innocuous, are now classified as “survivors” who must be believed and afforded remedial counseling and legal recourse.  Accused men are regarded as bearers of a pathology known as “toxic masculinity” and must be prosecuted as undoubted perpetrators.

I have observed and recorded innumerable examples of the phenomenon.  The litany of dodgy #MeToo grievances is common knowledge – the preposterous allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is only the most currently prominent such episode – and even women who have not entered the hashtag world are primed and provoked to join the vendetta.  Four more such instances have just now come to my attention, a grouping that, in effect, constitutes a full data set.

Marcus Knight, a student at Saddleback College in the California Community College system, who suffers from dysphasia, autism, and cerebral palsy and is fitted with a drainage shunt to relieve pressure on the brain, has been the target of two Title IX complaints.  His transgression?  Asking for a fist bump and a selfie with a presumably friendly co-ed.  Knight was not allowed to defend himself against the allegations.  The “survivor” of a fist bump and a selfie must be protected at all costs.

I have a friend, one of the most decent people I know, who worked as a coach for a major sports program.  His transgression?  He took the time to befriend and mentor a troubled young girl, who developed a crush on him and began to insist on intimacy.  When he refused, she lodged a complaint of sexual harassment with the authorities, which led to his immediate suspension – as well as the suspension of due process.  The case is still being investigated.  My friend is so innocent of base motive that, although he is worried that his career may be destroyed, he is also concerned about the girl having to live with the knowledge of her treachery for the rest of her days.  He is, to cite Henry Mackenzie, a “man of feeling” whose benevolence inevitably backfires.  I believe that his moral sympathy is entirely misplaced – the “survivor” should be prosecuted for her lying testimony.

Another confidant, a devout Christian, is serving a long prison sentence for allegedly molesting his daughter.  His transgression?  Being a responsible father.  All the evidence in the suit suggests his innocence: a loving wife and dutiful mother, as well as the other children in the family (who should know) testifying on his behalf, his commitment to his faith, and an unbalanced daughter with a grudge for having been prevented from living with her boyfriend.  The only “proof” of his guilt was the daughter’s story.  But the judge in the case used the misnamed “preponderance of evidence” principle – that is, decision based on a personal impression of greater plausibility – in favor of a resentful daughter’s fabrications.  The blockchain of evidence for the poor man’s innocence was dispositive.  No matter, the feminist narrative of male evil and female virtue took precedence over the legal principle of burden of proof.  After all, every female plaintiff, regardless of age and circumstance, is a “survivor.”

I have come to know Jeffrey Ketland, a former Oxford professor specializing in axiomatic logic, a man of exemplary character and scholarly brilliance.  He was cashiered from his position on the strength of a ginned up scandal involving a woman with whom he had once had an affair who later committed suicide.  Although the affair had been over for years, he was persistently stalked by his ex and finally reported the abuse to the police.  Nonetheless, he was regarded as the guilty party.  When the woman eventually killed herself, a campaign was orchestrated by her friends and certain professors branding him as a murderer, an affray that continues to this day.  His transgression?  Being a man.  Jeffrey is now jobless and effectively unemployable.  He is destitute, and his marriage is on the rocks.  Of course, in this case there is no “survivor” except, paradoxically, in absentia, a concocted reputation that survives to incriminate an innocent man.

The instances I’ve recounted can be multiplied many thousandfold.  My wife’s new book, Sons of Feminism: Men Have their Say, consists of a comprehensive introduction and twenty-five contributions from men who have suffered egregiously at the hands of feminist dogma and legal action, but the actual number of submissions mounted in the hundreds, with more arriving for a planned second volume.  There is only one conclusion to draw.  The everyday impact of feminism on men’s lives is far greater than any other cultural and political force.

The feminist plague is now everywhere.  It has infiltrated every social institution: education, the judiciary, law enforcement, the legal profession, politics, marriage, social media, and business corporations, as well as ordinary human relations and the norms and usages of the culture, with its twisted evangelical message.  It can be summed up succinctly: the feminine sensibility is superior to the masculine, the “patriarchy” is the cause of all our social ills, all men are potential rapists or purveyors of violence in waiting, women never lie about the “traumas” they have presumably suffered at the hands of men, and all women are innocent victims of male aggression and must be honored as “survivors.”  They must be believed, regardless of lack of evidence, evidence to the contrary, or suspect evidence.

And so it goes.  “Just shut up” is Senator Mazie Hirono‘s advisory to men, senatorial gravitas notwithstanding.  Women like Brett Kavanaugh’s accuser, she continues, “need to be believed.  They need to be believed.”  Former vice president Joe Biden concurs.  “For a woman to come forward in the glaring lights of focus,” he told the Huffington Post, “you’ve got to start off with the presumption that at least the essence of what she’s talking about is real, whether or not she forgets facts, whether or not it’s been made worse or better over time.”  Biden has nothing to say about the women over the years who claim that Bill Clinton harassed and assaulted them.  Are some women less believable than others?  What is “glaring” is the dissonance or outright mendacity on display in rhetorical performances such as Hirono’s and Biden’s.  But their feminist credentials insulate them against exposure.

The fact is that there is a war between the sexes initiated by feminism, and there must be a winner and a loser.  As a result, men must be socially and institutionally crippled.  When I compare feminist malfeasance, “survivor” posturing, childish tantrums, and self-preening with masculine probity, the tradition of chivalry and civilization-building, the advancement of science and medicine, the construction and maintenance of the material infrastructure on which we all depend, and male sacrificial courage in every department of life, which feminism has written off as a form of tyranny, I am appalled at the social disaster we have brought to pass.

“As for my people,” the prophet says in Isaiah 3:12, “children are their oppressors and women rule over them.”  Our feminists may not be the “daughters of Zion” of verse 16, but they are equally shallow and vain, “haughty, and walk with stretched forth necks.”  They will “destroy the way of [our] paths.”  One does not have to be religiously inclined to find premonitory wisdom.  Mutatis mutandis, Isaiah’s pronouncements are as apt today as they were then.  If feminism is not put out of our misery, the sequel is a foregone conclusion.

The stakes are as high as they can get.  A culture cannot indefinitely survive its “survivors.”