Men to blame for childless women? I don’t think so – it’s society that deliberately disenfranchises fathers

By PETER LLOYD | 24 May 2013

Yesterday, journalist Melissa Kite became the latest woman to publicly trash men in a sexist, undeserving rant – this time, by saying those exercising a human right not to become fathers were ‘selfish’.

Just days after champagne socialist Diane Abbott claimed that modern masculinity is Viagra-chomping, whiskey-swigging homophobia – even for the millions of men who are gay, Kite jumped on the bandwagon with her own sweeping statements.

In a finger-pointing, foot-stamping article for MailOnline she said men ‘do not always play fair in matters of fertility’, adding that they ‘increasingly behave with terrible selfishness when it comes to giving up their bachelor lifestyles’.

She then added that men who date women without immediately signing up for parenthood are committing some sort of ‘fraud’.

The outrageous comments follow the launch of the Get Britain Fertile campaign, which actively discourages women from delaying pregnancy for health reasons.

But, instead of making a balanced, rational point, Kite’s comments simply revealed a sad, out-dated philosophy in contemporary gender relations. Namely, that a woman’s desire to have a child is greater than a man’s desire not to.

She’s wrong.

In her article, she makes several references to former boyfriends who made the responsible decision not to become fathers half-heartedly – then scolds them for being ‘cowardly’. Here’s a woman who assumes that a man’s sperm – his lineage, his DNA, his family – is somehow hers for the taking.

This couldn’t be further from the truth.

Yes, I sympathise that her many life choices never produced children, it’s not men who are to blame. For years feminism has declared that women don’t need us – that we are redundant. OK, fine. But guess what – we don’t need women either. And it’s trending.

In Asia there’s a new tendency for men to go their own way – with thousands shunning marriage and kids for a life of independence and control, which no family court can destroy. The same thing is happening across America and Canada.

In fact, author Helen Smith PHD recently published a book entitled Men on Strike, where she notes that: ‘America has become anti-male. Men are sensing the backlash and are consciously and unconsciously going on strike. They are dropping out of college, leaving the workforce and avoiding marriage and fatherhood at alarming rates.’

Now, it’s happening here in Britain.

This isn’t because men are ‘selfish’ or commitment-phobic pigs (as women frequently like to suggest). Rather, it’s because they’re tired of being ousted from families, of being shafted by sexist divorce rulings and being denied the most basic paternal rights.

These guys know that any child they have with a woman would be her baby, not their baby. In 2013, a so-called era of equality, three million UK fathers are still denied access to their children – simply because their bitter ex partners can manipulate the law.

So where’s the incentive? Quite frankly, men’s reticence to enter fatherhood is justified. And long may it continue.

But Kite, and many women like her, still can’t see these broader issues. Hilariously, she says: ‘to suggest that somehow the age at which women conceive is within their control is naive and misleading.’

Are we living on the same planet? By and large women have complete and utter control in the reproduction process – unlike men, who have none. Women have the full spectrum of contraceptive control, while men only have the condom – which isn’t always practical – and a vasectomy.

Women have the option to terminate or adopt a pregnancy, relinquishing responsibilities for whatever reason (and so they should), but men can’t (yet they should).

And if women don’t manage to find an ideal ‘babydaddy’ they can use a sperm donor and go it alone. Anytime. So I find it pretty offensive that she’s blaming men for a path she consciously chose.

Quite frankly, she’s a big girl who made her own decisions.

Besides, men are not – and never should be – on stand-by for when a broody woman calls. Becoming a parent is a meeting of minds. It is a mutual, life-changing decision. The maxim ‘my body, my choice’ applies to both genders, no matter how much it may inconvenience certain women.

But that’s equality – it cuts right down the middle. It is inflexible.

It’s also a basic human right to make your own decisions on parenthood. If we switched the genders in Kite’s story and had a man saying ‘Women are selfish because they won’t give me the child I deserve’ there’d be uproar. But, once again, we have stiletto sexism telling us that female-on-male chauvinism is acceptable.

Yet, while her sense of entitlement astounds me, I do respect Kite for not trapping men – something she comes perilously close to recommending.

‘Recently, a girlfriend in her 20s told me she was feeling broody but felt it was too early to ask her new husband to have kids,’ she writes. ‘I wanted to yell: ‘Then don’t ask him!’… I felt a shameful urge to tell her to secretly stop taking the Pill.’

‘By and large women have complete and utter control in the reproduction process – unlike men, who have none.’

But this is raping a man’s choice and must never be accepted. In fact, it should be enforced by law. Particularly as it happens all the time – which is precisely why the culture of having children needs to be less about women and more about both parents. While Harriet Harman is worrying about old women on TV, families in fathers are the much bigger priority.

A women who secretly stops taking the Pill is raping a man’s choice and this must never be accepted. In fact, it should be enforced by law.

Fortunately, Kite retains control of her maternal destiny. She could still adopt, foster or conceive and be a wonderful mother. But I’d still worry if she ever had a son.

Not because I doubt her potential for raising another human being, but – if she’s happy to trash men for making their own decisions – what else would she encourage her son to compromise?

As a man, I’m sick and tired of such things. Fortunately, I’m not the only one. Only last week I bumped into actor Jude Law and we chatted about Diane Abbott’s recent criticisms of male identity.

Right there, being the wonderful father he is, he summed up the reality in an instant by saying: ‘Peter, men are no more in crisis than women.’

Judging by the opinions of women like Melissa Kite, he’s spot-on.

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Related reading:

“What prevents dads from being involved,” by Warren Farrell

The Biggest Myth About the Gender Wage Gap

By Derek Thompson

michaeljung/Shutterstock

 

It might be the most famous statistic about female workers in the United States: Women earn “only 72 percent as much as their male counterparts.”

It’s also famously false.

A new survey from PayScale this morning finds that the wage gap nearly evaporates when you control for occupation and experience among the most common jobs, especially among less experienced workers. It is only as careers advance, they found, that men outpaced female earnings as they made their way toward the executive suite.

So, women aren’t starting off behind their male counterparts, so much as they’re choosing different jobs and losing ground later in their careers.

The irony is that as women advance in their own careers, they might be more likely to fall behind, but they are also more likely to negotiate. That popular refrain that women don’t know how to ask for a raise? That’s bunk, too, the researchers concluded. Nearly a third of women — and 29 percent of men — have asked for raises, and even more female executives have done the same. In female-dominated sectors like health care and education more, half of women have negotiated for salary, benefits, or a promotion .

Still, inequalities persist. Comparing men and women job-by-job conceals the fact that men still dominate many of the highest-paying jobs. PayScale studied more than 120 occupation categories, from “machinist” to “dietician.” Nine of the tenlowest-paying jobs (e.g.: child-care worker, library assistant) were disproportionately female. Nine of the ten highest-paying jobs (e.g.: software architect, psychiatrist) were majority male. Nurse anesthetist was the best-paid position held mostly by women; but an estimated 69 percent of better-paid anesthesiologists were male.

The highest-paid job in PayScale’s controlled set is anesthesiologists, who are 69 percent male and 31 percent female — creating a 38 percent percentage-point “jobs gap.” Here is the jobs gap for the ten highest-paid positions.

PayScale’s study is a necessary chaser to BLS and Census data, because the government “compares all weekly earnings, even though women and men do different things,” said PayScale chief economist Katie Bardaro. “We’re trying to compare men and women with the same education, same management responsibilities, similar employers, in companies with a similar number of employees.” After controlling for these factors, “the gender wage gap disappears for most positions,” she said.

In one job, they had enough data to show a statistically significant wage advantage for female workers. That is “dental hygienist.”

But even if the gender gap disappears after controlling for experience and job selection, it’s hard to imagine that men thoroughly dominating the highest-paying positions is a good outcome. For example, the expectation that women more than men bear the responsibility to raise children gently nudges thousands of highly educated women out of full-time work.

There is a wage difference. But it might not be the wage difference that you thought. The real gap isn’t between men and women doing the same job. The real gap is between men and women doing different jobs and following different careers.

That gap should continue to tighten. Women have earned the majority of bachelor’s degrees for the last few years. They’re well-positioned to benefit from a growing professional service economy, and working moms are already the primary breadwinners in 40 percent of households with kids, an all-time high. But if women are more likely to go into health care than manufacturing, more likely to work in human resources than software, and more likely to leave their careers early to start a family, the gaps will persist.

Ideally, some day soon, it won’t take a statistical “control” to show that men and women are fundamental equal partners — and equal competitors — in the work force. It will just be the obvious truth.

The masculinity debate: no wonder men stay out of it

• Jack O’Sullivan | The Guardian | Monday 20 May 2013

“A consequence of boys and men living in private matriarchies is that even the most senior male chief executive often lacks confidence in areas that might be defined as personal, private or family.”

The past week has again highlighted the inexplicable absence of an intelligent discussion conducted by men about ourselves. It’s followed a familiar pattern: a leading female commentator – Diane Abbott on this occasion – diagnoses male ailments and prescribes her cures. What comes back from the patient? Silence. Can there be any group that is subject to so much debate and accusation, and is so apparently powerful – yet remains so utterly speechless?

It reminds me of a stereotypical scene: a woman challenging a man on some personal or domestic issue; him sitting before her silently, absorbing, stonewalling and eventually walking away. It’s a dissatisfying experience for both. She complains to her friends. He has no one to talk to. Somewhere here are clues to this bewildering male silence on the public stage about our own condition.

Men’s absence from the debate has dramatic consequences, making it overwhelmingly negative. In recent weeks the focus has been on abuse of teenage girls, porn, male unemployment and misogyny. But next month it could be “deadbeat dads”, domestic violence and harassment in the workplace.

A debate about men defined by women inevitably dwells on what’s wrong with men – on a continuing “crisis”. That’s understandable. There are many worrying issues that a male discussion of masculinity would and should confront. We are, after all, fathers, husbands, brothers, sons, lovers, colleagues and friends of women. But which man wants to join a debate loaded with negativity, littered with slogans like “all men are rapists”?

A debate with genuine male participation and leadership would include the above issues, but within a broader, aspirational and authentically male agenda. The centrepiece would be today’s extraordinary transformation of masculinity. A huge transition is taking place in all our lives, as we redefine our relationships with women, with our children, with work, with our sexuality. History may judge it to be a faster and more profound change even than the developments in women’s lives.

Men, like women, are belatedly escaping what we now recognise to be the confines of our gender. Many of us are enjoying a massively increased engagement with children. There is a stunning growth in male capacity to hold down successful jobs and play an integral role in our homes and personal lives. We are changing our relationships with women and with each other. Male homosexuality is widely expressed and affirmed. And men play a vital role in supporting, personally and politically, the advancement of women’s rights.

But all this fails to generate male leadership or collective discussion. Each of us is operating in our personal world of change, with little sense of what it’s like for the other guys. The women’s movement produced articulate women to narrate their agenda. Where are the men?

An important factor is that otherwise powerful, educated men – the ones you might expect to speak up – tend to have been raised in, and live in, households where they defer to female decision-making and narrative. The reasons are complicated. Women’s centrality in the private arena is a complex expression of both male power and male impotence, of patriarchy and infantilisation. But a consequence of boys and men living in private matriarchies is that even the most senior male chief executive often lacks confidence in areas that might be defined as personal, private or family.

This may always have been the case. But feminism* has reinforced rather than challenged – or even acknowledged – matriarchy. It is an environment in which male spokesmen for change are unlikely to be nurtured. When they do articulate their views or concerns, they are often ridiculed or ignored by women. Misandry can be as nasty as misogyny and is as widespread (just check the internet). Smart men play safe and stay out of it. We’re so conditioned, we don’t even talk to each other.

However, as long as these men – who typically support the women’s movement – remain passive, the only male voices we hear are those of reactionary patriarchs, who reinforce the idea that men are dinosaurs.

Why are we ridiculed when we talk about ourselves? Perhaps because men are assumed to be inherently powerful, with nothing to complain about. It’s a mistake. We urgently require an updated theory of gender that acknowledges there are, and always have been, discrete areas of female power and male powerlessness, not simply female powerlessness. Patriarchy did not rule alone. There was also matriarchy – and there still is.

A revolution is taking place in masculinity, but much of it is below the radar and denied, even when well-documented. This transformation is about much more than “helping” women and addressing their complaints. If we want to hear about it, then we need democratic personal, private and domestic spaces where men feel comfortable to speak. That might generate a more open, less condemning public space. Until then, women will continue to find themselves shouting into the silence about issues that we need to confront together.

______________

*It is not “feminism” that reinforces but the ideological feminists who underneath are little more than sexists (both female and male). See the Male Matters commentary “For Feminist Writers: Distinguish Between Feminism and Feminists!”

Obama’s Sexist Double Standard

Cathy Young| Reason.com | April 11, 2013

Cathy Young of Reason Magazine

The kerfuffle over President Obama referring to California Attorney General Kamala Harris as “the best-looking attorney general in the country” at a San Francisco fundraising event has ended with the president apologizing to Harris for “creating a distraction.” Too bad. The apology was due from the self-righteous zealots who blew up an innocuous comment into an offense against womanhood—to the detriment of both women and men.

First, the facts. The scene of the “crime” was not a strictly professional setting—say, a conference of state attorneys general—but a fundraiser at a private residence. Its  relaxed atmosphere is evident from the fact that Obama also quipped about the short stature of Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.): after initially failing to spot Honda in the crowd, he commented, “He’s not a real tall guy, but he’s a great guy.” Obama and Harris are longtime friends, and she did not seem remotely offended by his compliment. And, far from implying that her worth came only from her looks, the president had opened by praising Harris as “brilliant,” “tough,” and “exactly what you’d want in anybody who is administering the law.”

This is the remark left-of-center pundits decried as “sexist” and requiring “gender sensitivity training.” What makes it so bad, critics say, is that historically beauty was often seen as woman’s chief asset, and even today women’s quest for equality can be hampered when they are judged on looks rather than merit. Salon.com editor Joan Walsh, who wrote that her “stomach turned” over Obama’s comment, also cites Harris’s own history: when she ran for San Francisco District Attorney in 2003, some of her rival’s supporters insinuated that she had slept her way to the top (earlier, Harris had been romantically linked to California Assembly Speaker and then San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown). Walsh acknowledges that these smears didn’t hurt Harris: she won.

This deplorable history of sexism is very real. Yet to insist that any mention of a woman’s attractiveness must therefore be off-limits in any work-related setting is, in effect, to let sexism win. Such a taboo subtly perpetuates, rather than undercut, the notion that a beautiful woman is unlikely to be smart or competent (after all, even to acknowledge her beauty implies it’s the sole basis of her success!). It also promotes a blatant double standard: since men do not face the same cultural burden of being “the fair sex,” a female politician can compliment a man’s good looks with impunity. (Would eyebrows have been raised if Hillary Clinton had referred to San Francisco’s mayor Gavin Newsom as the country’s best-looking mayor?)

“Since men do not face the same cultural burden of being “the fair sex,” a female politician can compliment a man’s good looks with impunity.”

Somewhat similar issues of women and sexuality in the workplace have been raised by another recent brouhaha known as “donglegate.”  Computer technology specialist and blogger Adria Richards was attending a presentation at a tech conference when she took offense to an overheard conversation between two men behind her: they were making jokes that hinted at the sexual connotations of technical terms such as “forking” and “dongle.” Without telling them she was upset, she snapped a photo of the “offenders” and sent it out on Twitter (where she has some 10,000 followers), noting, “Not cool” and asking conference staff to intervene. The men were ejected; one, a father of three employed by the conference sponsor, was later fired because the company felt his conduct was at odds with its commitment to “gender equality.”

Richards received a lot of hate messages, including at least one creepy death threat; then she too lost her job over the controversy. Many women in tech, while agreeing that sexism is a problem in the industry, felt that Richards had done them a disservice by making such a public mountain out of a molehill. Yet feminist  and left-wing blogs  supported her; the website Jezebel.com ran a headline slamming the two hapless jokesters as “sexist dudes.” Fordham University communications professor Alice Marwick wrote that while a “dongle joke” may be trivial, Richards’s perception of its harm was justified by the tech world’s “structural sexism.”

This looks like startlingly neo-Victorian paternalism: mild suggestive remarks, not directed at an individual woman or at women in general, are presumed so offensive to women as to warrant swift retribution. Of course, no one who has worked in a mixed-sex environment seriously believes that women don’t make sexual jokes or comments in work settings. But that’s where the double standard comes in: unlike the Victorian lady, the modern feminist who demands such protections needn’t shun bawdy humor herself. Richards has made male anatomy jokes on her Twitter feed, which she uses professionally. When men make them, though, it’s apparently a female-excluding assertion of male privilege.

The logic here is similar to that of the outcry over Obama’s “gaffe”: since our culture has a history of demeaning women by reducing them to sex objects, the slightest whiff of sexuality or sexual speech in the workplace disempowers women and creates a hostile environment. But this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy of female fragility: women cannot be accepted as equals if their special sensitivities require constant protection—whether those sensitivities are seen as the product of nature or culture. What’s more, taboos and double standards inevitably invite backlash.

Both of these much-ados-about-nothing also reinforce the worst stereotypes of feminists: as humorless, speech-policing puritans intent on keeping men on a tight leash. Feminists may sneer at men who think it’s their sacred right to tell penis jokes in a professional environment; but how many women would be pleased to find themselves pilloried for “inappropriate” banter within the earshot of an offended male? When did stripping the workplace of all personal, friendly, even frivolous interaction—particularly in an age of increasing work-life overlap—become progressive?

A hundred years ago, anarchist feminist Emma Goldman famously said that she did not want to be part of any revolution that would not allow dancing. Likewise, not only men but quite a few women women want no part of a feminist revolution if it bans innocent compliments and silly off-color jokes.

______________

Cathy Young is a contributing editor at Reason magazine and Reason.com. She is the author of Ceasefire!: Why Women and Men Must Join Forces to Achieve True Equality.”

The gender wage gap: Do women get paid less for equal work?

HR.BLR.com | May 15, 2013

Stephanie R. Thomas explains the gender wage gap.

Both the Equal Pay Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibit gender pay discrimination, so why does the gender wage gap persist? Surely most employers strive to ensure that men and women receive equal pay for equivalent roles. Yet it remains true that women earn an average of 77 cents for every dollar that men earn. What’s the explanation?

The story lies in understanding the root of that statistic. The statistic actually compares the average earnings of all men with the average earnings of all women. Those broad averages do result in the 23 cents/hour difference we’ve all heard of. However, differences in the jobs women and men typically hold (and their respective average pay rates), differences in the amount of time women and men spend in the workforce, and many other factors make up the average amounts paid across the board.

There are many factors that go into individual compensation decisions, such as:

• Education
• Prior experience
• Amount of time in that role
• Market rates for that job/industry/geography/etc.

So the statistic is not actually making an apples-to-apples comparison of men and women with the same experience levels in the same roles within the same geographic location. That said, it does not mean a gender wage gap does not exist. It does, it’s just not necessarily all caused by simple gender-based pay discrimination.

What causes the gender wage gap?

If the differences in the average amount women and men are paid cannot be fully explained by discrimination against women, what causes the gap to persist?

“One of the main explanatory factors is occupational category.” Stephanie R. Thomas explained in a recent BLR webinar. “Occupation plays a large role in explaining the differences in earnings between men and women. This is attributed to something called occupational segregation.”

Occupational segregation means that some jobs or job types have been dominated by a single gender. This creates a situation where women are concentrated in occupations that have lower earnings in general. When this happens on a large scale, then differences in pay between genders can result—and this happens without a difference in pay for men and women who are in the same job.

Another contributing factor is the fact that women are more likely than men to be in jobs where they work less than 40 hours a week. Couple that with the fact that men in full-time roles are more likely to work overtime hours (thus increasing total pay), even more of the gender wage gap is explained. This difference is actually quite important because it represents a situation where men and women may be paid the exact same hourly rate for the same work, yet men have a disproportionate number of hours—thus meaning the men are paid more total pay in the same job type. Since our “77 cents” statistic looks at total compensation, it will show men being paid more, but not explain why.

The factors outlined here are just a sample of the factors that influence the gender wage gap. To get more information, order the webinar recording of “Gender Pay Equity: How to Use More Than Salary Numbers to Close the Gap.” To register for a future webinar, visithttp://store.blr.com/events/webinars.

Stephanie R. Thomas, Ph.D., is the founder and CEO of Thomas Econometrics Inc. She specializes in applied statistics and mathematical economics. She has extensive experience in the statistical analysis of gender, race and age discrimination claims with respect to compensation, hiring, promotion, termination and other employment practices.

False reports outpace sex assaults in the military

By Rowan Scarborough | The Washington Times | May 12, 2013

False complaints of sexual abuse in the military are rising at a faster rate than overall reports of sexual assault, a trend that could harm combat readiness, analysts say.

Virtually all media attention on a Pentagon report last week focused on an increase in service members’ claims of sexual abuse in an anonymous survey, but unmentioned were statistics showing that a significant percentage of such actually investigated cases were baseless.

From 2009 to 2012, the number of sexual abuse reports rose from 3,244 to 3,374 – a 4 percent increase.

During the same period, the number of what the Pentagon calls “unfounded allegations” based on completed investigations of those reports rose from 331 to 444 – a 35 percent increase.

In 2012, there were 2,661 completed investigations, meaning that the 444 false complaints accounted for about 17 percent of all closed cases last year. False reports accounted for about 13 percent of closed cases in 2009.

Robert Maginnis, a retired Army officer and analyst at the Family Research Council, is writing a book for Regnery Publishing Inc. about the Pentagon’s push to put women in direct ground combat in the infantry, armor and special operations.

“In the course of conducting interviews with commanders, I heard time and again complaints about female service members making sex-related allegations which proved unfounded,” Mr. Maginnis said. “Not only do some women abuse the truth, but it also robs their commanders from more important, mission-related tasks.

“Female service members told me that some women invite problems which lead men on and then result in advances the woman can’t turn off. Too often, such female culpability leads to allegations of sexual contact, assault and then the women feign innocence.”

The annual Pentagon report on sexual assault noted the numbers of false complaints but included no analysis. The Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment.

Elaine Donnelly, who runs the Center for Military Readiness, said the Pentagon’s Sexual Assault Response and Prevention Office (SAPRO) is ignoring the problem of false reports.

“Unsubstantiated accusations remain a significant problem, but the SAPRO is doing nothing about it,” Mrs. Donnelly said. “I went through both volumes and found no evidence of concern about the significant 17 percent of ‘unfounded accusations.’ Something should be done to reduce the numbers of false accusations, the first step being an admission that the problem exists.”

The number of sex abuse reports has risen from 1,700 a decade ago to 3,374 last year.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have pushed male and female personnel into close living conditions at a sprawling network of bases.

The existence of unwanted and wanted sexual contact in the war zone is not disputed.

For example, a group of Army physicians in 2010 studied one brigade combat team deployed to Iraq in 2007.

The physicians’ study, published in the Military Medicine journal, examined the number of soldiers who sustained disease or noncombat injuries. Of 4,122 soldiers, including 325 women in support roles, 1,324 had diseases or injuries that forced them to miss time or be evacuated.

“Females, compared with males, had a significantly increased incident-rate ratio for becoming a [disease or noncombat] casualty,” the doctors found.

Of 47 female soldiers evacuated from the brigade and sent home, 35 – or 74 percent – were for “pregnancy-related issues.”

Even before the wars, the Pentagon removed barriers across the board to women and took action to mix the sexes more closely. Men and women share dorms and barracks in boot camp and at the service academies, and deploy in close quarters on ships.

The integration promises to become even more intimate in coming years as the Pentagon places women into training for direct ground combat jobs.

“The latest SAPRO report confirms that problems of sexual assault against both men and women are getting worse, not better,” Mrs. Donnelly said. “Pentagon leaders nevertheless are planning to extend these problems into the combat arms. Congress and the Pentagon first must do no harm. At a minimum, the Obama administration must not be allowed to extend complicated issues of sexual assault, which have increased by 129 percent since 2004, into direct ground combat infantry battalions.”

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel last week announced several steps to eliminate assaults, including ordering commanders to conduct “visual inspections” of all workplaces to ensure they are “free from materials that create a degrading or offensive work environment.”

The Air Force completed such an inspection last year after a female service member complained of persistent harassment.

In January, the Air Force reported the “health and welfare” inspection results:

“The Air Force found 631 instances of pornography (magazines, calendars, pictures, videos that intentionally displayed nudity or depicted acts of sexual activity); 3,987 instances of unprofessional material (discrimination, professional appearance, items specific to local military history such as patches, coins, heritage rooms, log books, song books, etc.); and 27,598 instances of inappropriate or offensive items (suggestive items, magazines, posters, pictures, calendars, vulgarity, graffiti). In total, 32,216 items were reported. Identified items were documented and either removed or destroyed.”

Said Mr. Hagel: “We need cultural change where every service member is treated with dignity and respect, where all allegations of inappropriate behavior are treated with seriousness, where victims’ privacy is protected, where bystanders are motivated to intervene, and where offenders know that they will be held accountable by strong and effective systems of justice.”

 _____________________________________

 

 

“Camille Paglia: ‘Rape is an outrage…but the hysteria around rape is equally outrageous. The whole system is now designed to make you (i.e. the victim) feel you are maimed and mutilated forever.’ And now to Fay Weldon, author, who said in 1998 that ‘rape is not the worst thing that can ever happen to a woman, if you are safe, alive and unmarked afterwards.’ And finally Germaine Greer, ‘it is not women who have decided that rape is so heinous but men. The only weapon that counts in rape is the penis, which is conceptualized as devastating.’” -The Telgraph, February 15, 2013

Undermining our girls

By ANDREA PEYSER | April 27, 2013

Your daughter’s pretty little head needs an adjustment. The Girl Scouts of the USA, an organization that exists primarily to turn female children into professional pushers of Thin Mints, Samoas and Tagalongs, has joined a loud chorus of female-crushers.

The Girl Scouts Research Institute has just commissioned a suspect study that found an overwhelming number of Scouts — despite their forced entry into cookie capitalism — don’t think they have the smarts to balance checkbooks, handle credit cards or put enough pennies in a piggy bank to pay for college. And why not?

These children are as young as 8. Grow up!

It’s been a rough couple of months to be a member of the fair sex, a majority that, if you believe the hype, is made up primarily of losers, whiners and victims.

Last month, billionaire Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg published her awful book, “Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead,” which sent a loud message destined to undermine ladies: If you want a family, a life, you’re a disappointment to the sisterhood.

If you’re not CEO of a Fortune 500 company yet, if you can’t afford to strut in Louboutins, then you’re not trying hard enough. It’s your fault.

The bash-women fest continued on April 9, a date which will live in infamy. That’s the annual Equal Pay Day holiday, set by an outfit called the National Committee on Pay Equity. It’s a doozy.

The committee insists that the average woman earns a lot less than a man, just 77 cents on every dollar he makes. By that logic, a woman has to work just over three extra months, until April 9, before she reaches the pay her male counterparts earned for the previous year.

Lest you disagree, President Obama cynically campaigned on the warped number last year. This month, he issued a proclamation stating, “But even now, too many Americans are seeing their hard work go unrewarded because of circumstances beyond their control.”

Then — drumroll, please — “I continue to call on the Congress to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act.”

This may be the first time, ever, that new federal regulations are supposed to lead to hiring more people. Especially women.

In truth, the argument is completely bogus.

“The way I see it, there’s a lot of good news for women and girls,” said Sabrina Schaeffer, executive director of the conservative Independent Women’s Forum. “But when the president and lawmakers paint society as hostile to women, it’s really unfortunate. I guess I am offended.”

The 77-cent statistic has been repeated so often, most Americans take it as gospel. But it’s wrong.

The number compares the median salaries of all workers. If you compare, say, teachers to teachers, corporate honchos to corporate honchos, if you take into account women who chose to jump off the fast track to have families, the pay gap magically disappears.

In fact, the median income for young, single, childless urban women is higher — sometimes much higher — than that of men, concluded a study by Reach Advisors, a Boston market-research firm.

This led the notoriously anti-women New York Times to write that superior female earning power is destroying young gals’ love lives.

“It’s not uncommon to walk into the hottest new West Village bistro on a Saturday night and find five smartly dressed young women dining together — the nearest man the waiter,” said a piece titled, “The End of Courtship?”

The Scouts survey found that a staggering 88 percent of cookie-peddlers, ages 8 to 17, don’t think they can cut it financially. Really?

“Women are the No. 1 consumers, from groceries to electronics to cars,” said Schaeffer. “To me, that suggests that women are financially literate.”

I asked the Scouts whether the organization used a defeatist mind-set. Did cookie mongers enter into the survey with the assumption that girls are genetically inferior to boys in ways of money? I never found out.

In an e-mail, the Scouts’ public-relations manager promptly called me, “a) a known misogynist b) looking for a headline.” (He later apologized.)

True misogynists (and that includes feminists) refuse to see how far women have come. Surveys like the Scouts’, people like Sandberg, and holidays designed to make us look weak don’t empower girls and women. They infantilize us.

That’s not equality.