“Women hold up half the sky.”
What does it mean?
Now and then, on a sunny day, when strolling over Mount Everest, I look around to see where these women are—the ones holding up half the sky. Clouds are made of water and water is heavy, so I suspect they have quite a challenge going on.
But where are they?
Hmm…
Pulleys.
That’s it. Maybe they’re using a pulley system.
They must have wrapped cable around the moon, and are using it as a pulley system and are holding up the sky by pulling down on the pulley from the valleys. There you go.
Hmm…
Death Valley, Khumba Valley, Douro Valley: nothing. I can’t see any feminist down there in any of these valleys, let alone a cable coming down ‘round the moon.
Of course, they might mean the ladies of the Erechtheion.
The Erechtheion is a temple on the north side of the Acropolis
But these are stone statues; and it’s in Greece; and they’re shouldering a roof, not a sky.
Women shoulder pregnancy, childbirth, and are the heartbeat of the family. That is a daunting obligation, and one that every civilization should esteem. The beauty, compassion, majesty and love that is woman is awe inspiring—the devotion of a child for its mother defines love; and poetry is but a pale comparison. Men write poetry about love; women give birth to love.
However, famous feminists have said this:
- “The nuclear family must be destroyed… Whatever its ultimate meaning, the break-up of families now is an objectively revolutionary process.” Linda Gordon.
- “Marriage as an institution developed from rape as a practice.” Andrea Dworkin.
- “Since marriage constitutes slavery for women, it is clear that the women’s movement must concentrate on attacking this institution. Freedom for women cannot be won without the abolition of marriage.” Sheila Cronin, the leader of the feminist organization NOW.
- “I feel that ‘man-hating’ is an honorable and viable political act.” Robin Morgan, Ms. Magazine Editor.
So supporting children, families and husbands, is not what feminists have in mind, when they say that women hold up half the sky.
So what do they mean?
I look around. I look out my window. I see construction. I see buildings going up. I see men doing it, not women. I see the plows taking away snow at 2AM: men. I see the sanitation workers, firefighters, oil riggers, foresters: men, men, men, men. I attend the Opera— men wrote 98% of the music. I go to museums and note that men created 95% of the beauty housed within. I check the math theorems: men. Physics? Men. The literature? Mostly men. Who slaved to build the Pyramids, Angor Watt, the Cathedrals and our cities? Men. What about the explorers who trudged across plains, scaled the mountains or sailed the oceans? Men, men, men. I look at the tombs in Arlington and the unimaginable sacrifice revealed by rows and rows of white marble: men.
Of course, the contributions of some women have been astounding: Emmy Noether, Hypatia, Sophie Germain, Curie, Thatcher, Catherine the Great, Boudica. The list is almost endless. Some say women’s compassionate sacrifices to aid humanity have also been overlooked; and I agree. However, let’s not overlook the depth of the contributions of masculinity; and how men built our houses which, um, you know, hold up the roof from the rain.
Now we are in an epoch where women can contribute and men no longer have to be the only ones lying in military cemeteries or suffering 90% of all workplace fatalities. This is great.
However, I don’t see feminists having held up their half before this time, to justify the saying in the present tense.
If we let that toxic feminist expression—“holding up half the sky”—remain un-repudiated, we indirectly diminish both the achievements and sacrifices of masculinity. We must not allow that. Those men buried in Arlington did not only hold up half: they gave their lives. If women held up half the sky, why is it men lying in those graves? If feminists toss “toxic masculinity” at men, and blame us for the immense horrific evils such as murder and mansplaining, then we deserve our share of credit for the good; and it’s a lot more than 50%.
So let’s summarize so far:
- We have ruled out holding up clouds.
- We (well, actually, feminists) have ruled out holding up families.
- We have recognized that their contributions and sacrifices are relatively recent by comparison. Will women hold up their half soon? Of course.
So what have feminists been holding up until now?
You see, it’s a saying—an expression; and sayings say whatever the sayer feels like thinking—but without the burden of providing evidence. Expressions rely on emotion.
That is the essence of fem-splaining: using pseudo-poetic emotional visualization in place of logic and evidence.
There are lots of sayings that mean, like, whatever.
Here’s one: “butterflies are free.”
I hear that, and I’m like: “Wow! Man! Butterflies are free. That’s, like, awesome, dude.”
Or “double rainbow across the sky.”
Well, not only do I know what that means, I also know what he was smoking when he said it.
Or that other saying: “I never said I was a perfect candidate, and I certainly have never said I ran perfect campaigns, but I don’t know who is or did. And at some point it sort of bleeds into misogyny.”
I don’t know what that means; and she admitted she was drinking when she said it.
That saying about “women having held up half the sky,” vacillates between comical and disparaging. Stripped of family (by feminists themselves) it is laughable at face value. It disparages the achievements and sacrifices of masculinity by reducing it to half.
When they insist on this trite saying, feminists are like children who demand desert, but won’t eat their peas. “No I will not eat the peas,” they say, “men can eat the peas and the broccoli; I want that NY Super Fudge Chunk that I deserve for holding up half the…” holding up half… holding up.
Eureka! That’s it.
Feminists are holding things up.
Women in science and engineering have contributed; feminists are holding things up.
Seriously, now: no one is holding up the sky. The sky is not falling. Most good men and good women are now achieving good things, doing work that respects each other. Chicken Little has spent too much time in a Woman’s Studies class.
The next time feminists shout “Women hold up half the sky!” ask for the evidence. Short of evidence, one must accept that feminists are just holding things up. Otherwise, you might as well be spitting on the gravestones in Arlington—the tombs of those men who helped us rise up, from their self-sacrificial six-feet-under.
JT is also the author of a novel: http://nynovel.com
