There is a certain kind of wishfulness or hopefulness in this kind of thinking. It reminds me of the Russian Bolshevik, Alexandra Kollontai, who gave public lectures in which she longed,
for the female body itself to become less soft and curvy and more muscular ... She argues that prehistoric women were physiologically less distinct from men ... Accordingly, sexual dimorphism may (and should) again become less visible in a communist society.
The idea that our inborn sex should not define us has led to an odd situation. The assumption is that women are now being "empowered" to enter masculine spaces. And so you get "go girl" slogans like the one I spotted on a shoe shop window at a local shopping centre:
But, at the very same time, the emphasis on unisexism is dissolving the notion of the female. Just as Kollontai, a century ago, hoped that the female body would change into something more like a male one, the modernist expectation is that women will be raised to be more like men. In their social function, men and women are expected by liberals, ideally, to be indistinguishable or interchangeable.
That's partly why the slogan "the future is female" is incoherent. In the unlikely event that the liberal West survives, the future is women in pantsuits doing much the same thing that men do.
It won't be difficult for a traditionalist community to set itself apart. Imagine how different it would be in a community in which men and women were encouraged to cultivate masculine and feminine virtues; in which men and women connected distinct and complementary roles to the fulfilment of their created natures and to the good of family and community; and in which our higher nature was felt, profoundly, to be connected to the expression of our manhood and womanhood.
There is an interesting reply to the senator in today's Age. Kate Lambeski is a female footballer and says she does not want to play with men. It would require rule changes, she says, which mean it was no longer football. It's like Serena Williams, who has said she is not interested in playing against men. Does the senator want mixed basketbal,mixed boxing, mixed rugby? Does someone have to be hospitalised to satisfy her notion of equality?
ReplyDeleteAgree and amplify is the way to go here.
ReplyDeleteAll these outdated sex distinctions in sports should be abolished. It's humiliating and sexist to have women's only events. It implies that women can't compete with men when in fact we know that women are every bit as strong and fast as men.
I look forward to the non-sexist Olympics of the future, in which every single medal will be won by men. That will really show the patriarchy what's what! And in this non-sexist future no woman will ever win a tennis tournament, or a golf tournament. We won't have to watch women's sports on the ABC. All sporting events will be non-sexist, and every single competitor will be male. The ladies will still play sport, for fun and relaxation. But they will be entirely eliminated from professional competitive sports.
That's a small price to pay for fighting sexism.
Sportsball spectators need to be seen as unmanly. Far better to engage in "pickup" games with your neighborhood male peers.
ReplyDeleteI mention again, the 2005 M. Night Shyamalan movie The Village. A tiny village of adults secreted away in a fantastical nature preserve (never noticed by the state's policing rangers) pretending to live pilgrim-like lives to protect their children from learning of the "towns" outside. By now, a next generation of children are night sentries on the torch towers around the tiny village perimeter, watching for the monster that haunts them from the bad woods, where there are bad colors, where no one is to go.
ReplyDeleteObviously, real life stuff must be left out, but it has an absolutely beautiful sound track. Hillary Hahn's violin alone is worth the price of the DVD.