September 11, 2008

Why Feminists Fear Strong Women

By James Lewis

"I assume John McCain chose Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential partner in a fit of pique because the Republican money men refused to let him have the stuffed male shirt he really wanted. She added nothing to the ticket that the Republicans didn't already have sewn up, the white trash vote, the demographic that sullies America's name ... yet has such a curious appeal for the right."

That delicious tidbit comes from a Canadian feminist named Heather Mallick, who writes for the tax-funded Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Mallick is a career "journalist" for the CBC and other major Canadian media. She has decided to blame Governor Sarah Palin on "the white trash vote" -- because it's obvious that trash attracts trash.

This just another little tribute from sneering, caterwauling, traditional-woman-hating feminists all over the Western world. (With the wonderful exception of Camille Paglia.)

Aye, 'tis a grand sight to behold.

Governor Sarah Palin is Everywoman -- she is your mother, your sister or your wife; even your grandmothers and great-grandmothers, going back generations. She is a normal strong, healthy woman. Just as in Lake Woebegon, in reality all normal women are strong.

For decades we've been told that half the human population -- the female half -- are somehow weak, oppressed victims, who cannot handle the normal challenges of life. Those are not the women you or I know. Normal women are incredibly strong; that's how evolution, or if you prefer God, made them; they are hardly pushovers or pitiable weaklings. Weaklings perish over the generations. The strong survive.

All too often modern women have been suckered and bamboozled by a lifetime of Leftist agitprop, which has turned their strengths into weaknesses. But it's 100% hogwash.

Hillary Clinton has based her whole political career on the Myth of the Victimized Woman. Feminists who run our schools and colleges are always trying to push that story to naive students, just like the young Hillary of forty years ago, who was indoctrinated at Wellesley College. Even perfectly normal women have come to believe it.

But ask yourself: How many weakling women have you ever known? I've known very few, and I suspect those few learned to behave that way for sympathy. Just put them on a jungle island and soon they'd be swinging through the trees like Jane of the Jungle.

"Weak" women are a figment of the Left, just like "weak" black people or "weak" poor people. Those folks never used to be weaklings, until the media made them think they were. With the unanimous help of mainstream radio and TV you can talk yourself into feeling you're a victim of circumstances, just as under better influences you can talk yourself into feeling strong.

But the media don't celebrate winners in life. (Wonder why?)

Comes along Sarah Palin, a strong, joyous, normal woman, who doesn't mind it if the world knows who she is, and shatters the weakling stereotype just by being herself. What a blast! And the voters, who know from personal experience exactly how strong women really are, are just recognizing their mothers and sisters and aunts in Governor Palin.

That's not "white trash." It's not "lipstick on a pig," as Obama wittily told his adoring audience a few days ago. It's normal, healthy behavior --- in fact, it's pretty much like Michelle Obama, who is also a strong woman (but bitterly angry, for some unfathomable reason).

So why do Leftist feminists fear Sarah Palin? Because their personal ego-trips and their political power depend upon The Big Lie. Like all Leftists, feminists desperately need to feel superior to the rest of us. That makes them feel good about themselves. For some Lesbian feminists I've known there is another, even more personal feeling: An intense sense of sexual competition with men. If you believe that all men are evil abusers, Lesbians are the logical refuge for women. The edge of manic rage that marks a lot of feminism seems to owe quite a lot to sexual jealousy, one of the most destructive of human emotions.

So there's a lot riding on the Myth of Female Weakness, from ego, to sexual passions, to deliberately cultivated group rage, to money and career ambitions. Without the Myth a rage-driven feminist like Heather Mallick would not have a high-paid career with the government-own broadcaster in socialist Canada. All the feminist professors who were hired to create "gender balance" in our schools and colleges, all the Ms. Magazine writers, all the media ladies, the affirmative action bureaucrats and victimology peddlers would lose the only career they know. A huge amount of money, prestige, snobbery, influence, ego, rage and sexual passion rides on the feminist myth.

Sarah Palin shatters their reasons for being.

Once a majority of normal women decide they are not victims at all, Leftist feminism is a goner. Which would be a good thing, overall, because the important thing is not some "ism" -- particularly not a destructive one -- but human beings, regardless of gender, race and all the other incidentals. Humanity is greater than feminism. It's greater than any race, creed, color, and any of those other cut and paste categories beloved of the Left.

One of my favorite books is Mario Puzo's The Fortunate Pilgrim (1965). (Yes, that Mario Puzo.) It's the story of his Neapolitan mother, and many another woman of her generation. The book's heroine is named Lucia Santa. Mamma Santa's life is incredibly touching because she is not 'fortunate' at all -- not to our way of thinking. But she is a stout pilgrim through life, in so many senses of that word. Lucia Santa was not as well-to-do as we are; she was not well-educated; she was an Italian immigrant along with her husband, who became psychotic and lived rest of his life in an asylum. Her immigrant experience is like that of many first-generation Americans, including today's Hispanics and Asians.

As Wikipedia notes,

"(The Fortunate Pilgrim) deals with the Angeluzzi-Corbos family, a family of immigrants living an adopted life in New York City. The head of the family is Lucia Santa, a wife, widow and mother of two families. It is her formidable will that steers them through the Great Depression and the early years of World War II. But she cannot prevent the conflict between Italian and American values, or the violence and bloodshed which must surely follow."
...

"The Fortunate Pilgrim is the real birthplace of The Godfather. As Puzo says, the book's hero, Lucia Santa, is based on his own mother:

"Whenever the Godfather opened his mouth, in my own mind I heard the voice of my mother. I heard her wisdom, her ruthlessness, and her unconquerable love for her family and for life itself. ... The Don's courage and loyalty came from her; his humanity came from her...and so, I know now, without Lucia Santa, I could not have written The Godfather."

Lucia Santa lived a life of immense suffering and joy, loss and triumph. Her pilgrimage was to carry on in the new land with her children, to deal with their troubles and triumphs, and to be a tower of strength to her family and neighbors. Her son Mario became a great success as a novelist. But we become who we are from our parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles and brothers and sisters; yes, and our friends and teachers; sometimes we do it consciously, and more often not.

That's the traditional woman -- who we are told, on great feminist authority -- was always a "weakling" before feminist ideologues came along to rescue her. That is your grandmother and mine, down the generations, just as it is your grandfather and mine.

Nobody told them they were weaklings. So they never knew it.

"We stand on the shoulders of giants," as a more grateful age used to say.

Maybe it's time to bring back that old truth.

James Lewis occasionally blogs at dangeroustimes.wordpress.com