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Jewish World Review Feb. 27, 1999 /10 Adar, 5759
Mona Charen
Cease-fire in war
(JWR) --- (http://www.jewishworldreview.com) SEARCHING FOR THE SILVER LINING to the cloud that is the Clinton era, some
are imagining hopefully that the excesses to which sexual harassment law has
been put will now cease and that we will enter a new era of harmony between
the sexes.
But don't hold your breath. If everyone in America were to read Cathy
Young's new book Ceasefire: Why Women and Men Must Join Forces to Achieve
True Equality , such an outcome might be conceivable. But then again, when
one considers the, ahem, indifference to facts among the feminists -- the
chances that common sense will suddenly break out are slim.
Perhaps when the history of our era is written, it will be recalled for the
craven obeisance we paid to any and all claims of victimhood. While the
initial impulse to side with the underdog is undoubtedly an admirable
American trait, the willingness to go overboard -- just as American -- is
not.
The feminist slogan "the personal is political" has now metastasized into
"everything is political." Take rape shield laws for example. Initially
enacted to protect rape victims from the disgusting accusation by their
rapists that if they were anything less than virginal prior to the attack,
they must have been "asking for it," shield laws have now been dragooned
into service of the "violence against women" dogma. Feminist theoretician
Katherine MacKinnon believes that feminism requires belief "in women's
accounts of sexual use and abuse by men."
No one knows how often women falsely cry rape, but the feminist claim that
women are always to be believed is ridiculous. (As is their terror tactic of
accusing anyone who notices that women are human, not angels, of being part
of an anti-feminist "backlash.") Young cites a Washington Post survey
showing that 25 percent of rape reports in Virginia and Maryland during a
one-year period were unfounded; many of the "victims" subsequently recanted.
Shield laws can and often do put defendants at an unfair disadvantage. In
the case of sportscaster Marv Albert, his sexual history was entered into
evidence, but hers, including a history of biting her sexual partners and
making false accusations against past boyfriends who had left her (as Albert
was about to do), was barred. Unable to mount a defense, Albert had no
choice but to plead guilty to misdemeanor assault.
Albert is not a sympathetic figure, but many young men on college campuses
who have been caught in the "date rape" net are. A Michigan State student
who met a woman at a party and brought her back to his room for sex was
convicted of rape -- though she admitted that she had been drinking heavily
and both of his roommates testified that they saw the couple together and
that she had asked only that the lights be turned off. Is that a rape?
So much of the propaganda that paints women as victims is false that it is
exhausting merely to refute it. Girls are not shortchanged by the schools;
they are doing better than boys. Women are not neglected by medical science.
One example: In 1993, Congress appropriated $39 million for prostate
cancer -- which kills 34,000 men annually -- and $400 million for breast
cancer -- which kills 42,000 women annually. Women are not always the
pathetic victims of domestic violence; in many cases, they contribute to it.
And while some women have clearly been harassed sexually at work, other
women have used their sexuality to their advantage.
On the whole, Young's plea for a rule of reason in the realm of male/female
interactions is welcome. Her extra step of disdaining traditional sex roles
in every realm of life, from the military to parenthood, is extreme. Women
are not the pathetic punching bags that victim feminism portrays, but
biology cannot be denied either. Both the desires of women and the needs of
children militate in favor of at least quasi-traditional roles within the
family.
Young powerfully challenges the "woman good, man bad" propaganda we've been
force-fed for so long. If she errs, it is in neglecting children and their
interests. Were it not for kids, her plea for total equality between the
sexes might be persuasive. But when children come along, they change
everything.
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