In 1991 Naomi Wolf wrote The Beauty Myth where she claimed that women are oppressed by patriarchal pressure to be beautiful. What she failed to tell us is where the beauty-mandate originated, or how it is used to gain and maintain power over men. Peter Wright fills in some of the gaps left by Wolf’s victim narrative.
Male celibacy leads directly to rape, murder and the beastly use of sodomy – so claim two women who in 1707 proposed the remedy of a bachelor tax, combined with severe punishments for unmarried men.
At what point did isolated instances of gynocentrism morph into full-blown gynocentric culture? Peter Wright explores the difference between Paleolithic instances of gynocentrism and the beginnings of the pervasive gynocentric culture we have grown familiar with today.
Traditionalists and feminists share a common dream of entitled women; traditionalists maintain conventional entitlements for women, while feminists work to extend the range of those entitlements. In 1818 Sir Walter Scott detailed how chivalry is the force that makes all this possible.
That we live in a gynocentric culture is not rationally disputable to anyone who looks around with open eyes. Many thinkers believe this elevation of women, and the rampant male disposability that goes with it, has been central to the human race for millions of years. But does history bear that interpretation up?
Even though ideology helps, misandric fixation need not arise through it. Robert St. Estephe observes that it goes back centuries.
What would happen if someone taught a college literature course based on positive views of men? A lot of eyes would be opened, we think. So does Professor Dennis Gouws.
The world has long labored under political and social rule designed predominately for the benefit of women. Clearly this is no patriarchy, but what might we call it? The history books provide a useful term for us.
Shame is a powerful motivator of male behavior, one that women and society have exploited to gain male labor and utility. John Hembling says its time for males to switch this ancient biological mechanism to “off”
It’s a common cultural stereotype to say that men are “good for nothing.” But after all the things men have given to civilization, and looking around at the current cultural zeitgeist, Jason Gregory dares to flip the question around. What is it that you, as a woman, are good for exactly? And if that question makes you angry, it may just mean you don’t have a good answer. [Illustration by Europa Phoenix]
