All the usual suspects were rounded up when star gymnast Simone Biles did her Bartleby thing and decided she would rather not.

Some of the usual suspects criticized her for not being tough enough; other suspects sympathized with her stress and that she “put mental health first.”

Of course, for me, the whole thing was another proof that women don’t like the “public square,” not one bit. It proves to me once again that the feminist conceit that women would all be CEOs and superheroes and star athletes but for the patriarchy is all a lie, including “and” and “the.”

I have been pondering this whole question of “women in the public square” ever since I first read about Georg Simmel. Over a century ago,

Simmel understood that in the short term the public sphere for women would be defined by the rules “created by men and for men” but that eventually women would transform the public square to suit “a more feminine sensibility.”

The public square has indeed been transformed to suit a more feminine sensibility, but in a curious way. It has been transformed to suit a particular middle-class feminist agenda, rather than a more general feminine sensibility.

We are, I think, in the middle of a revolution where women of all kinds -- feminists, moms, non-binaries, lefties -- are pulling and tugging in all directions to demand that the world protect them and provide for their needs. Some women want to be careerists; still others want to redefine sexuality. Some are angry that women have been oppressed since the dawn of time; others just want marriage and children. They all want to be protected.

In my view, the best way to understand all this is to start with Freud’s question: “What do women want?” As usual, Siggie got it wrong.

The question is not “what do women want,” the question is “what do women expect?” And the answer is, “Women expect to be protected.”

If women are feminists, they expect to be protected so they can have a career and we all get to hear them roar.

If women are lefties, they expect to be protected so they can get into activism and fight for the oppressed peoples against the white oppressors.

If women are non-binary they expect to be protected from sexual aggressors while they discover their true sexual self.

If women are moms, they expect society to protect them as they find husbands and bear and raise a family.

On the other hand, I proclaim, “men know they are expendable.”

You can see how all this plays out in the public square and the Woke Olympics. If you are a man, you suck it in, whatever the headwinds and the “stress.” For a woman, you can decide to check out and “put your mental health first” and most women will understand. Most men won’t; we are “literally shaking” our heads wondering what all the fuss is about.

I take a profoundly sexist view of the situation at the Woke Olympics. I believe that women are not made for mortal combat or for the domesticated combat we call "sports." Combat and sports are manifestations of the male Culture of Courage. Sure you can train up little girls to be fantastic gymnasts. Good Little Girls will almost always do what they are carefully taught. But when they grow up and get into their twenties, they tend to find that sports isn't quite the thing.

I think the project that women will “transform the public square to suit ‘a more feminine sensibility'” is nonsense on stilts.

With respect to the public square and its Culture of Insult, said my reader “Sara,” women cannot stand the male culture of insult, and the “stress” of conflict.

Women however, because of the nature of their female bodies, necessarily see their own survival in the world around them as a fight to be left alone and survive in an EXISTING CONTEXT set by men.

If, as a mother told me: “my job is to keep these kids alive,” then the “existing context” has to be set and maintained by men. Because I overheard a woman walking at Green Lake in Seattle say to her friend that it was “exhausting” getting her husband to do things he should know to do anyway.

So the gymnast Simone Biles is doing us a favor. She is yet another stake in the heart of the progressive project and its conceit that we can change the world with activism, that men have oppressed women since the dawn of time, that women can compete in business and sports just like men, that women are eager to dive into the sexual marketplace just like men, because abortion, that the world would be a better place with just one more government program.

Christopher Chantrill @chrischantrill runs the go-to site on US government finances, usgovernmentspending.com. Also get his American Manifesto and his Road to the Middle Class.

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