As someone who has written extensively against political correctness, I am sometimes asked probing questions such as “Why did political correctness have to happen?” I do not believe that it had to happen. It happened because some people decided to make it happen. I likewise do not believe that Hitler or Stalin had to happen either. They happened because they chose to make it happen, and people did not know how to deal with them.
I suppose the reason that it happened is that many men in 1980s acted like jerks, so there were any number of angry women. So now there are instead any number of angry men, and they listen to Eminem or follow Osama Bin Laden. Just as the feminists viciously attacked the men who had done nothing to cause the problem, so have these men been attacking the women who had done nothing to cause the problem. In both cases the wrong people were attacked. And in both cases the wrong people were empowered.
Did either situation have to happen? Not at all. Wrong people took legitimate sentiments and exploited them to sow ugliness and confusion. The likes of Catherine McKinnon and Eminem profited from people's failure and misery while making the world worse for everyone. And many others – women and men – followed both like sheep without thinking of the consequence of their actions.
I judge it wrong to take sides in the gender war. Both men and women are beings capable of choice, and anything capable of choice is capable of both right choices and wrong choices. There will be men who choose to act rightfully and men who choose not to act rightfully. Same with women. I refuse to take side of either gender; I choose to take side of those in each gender who choose to act in better ways.
I have done both in any number of situations, including ones that had absolutely nothing to do with my own self-interest. In situations when either a woman or a man is being abused or exploited, the correct situation is to side with the person being abused or exploited against the wrongdoer. I have seen plenty of examples of both; and in both cases a wrong – and an injustice – is being done. Either a man who believes that women are evil or a woman who believes that men are evil is going to be terrible to their partner, however good their partner may be. The solution once again is not to side with people who believe such things, but with people they stand to exploit and abuse.
I did at one point see women as better than men; but American feminists cured me of that error. I now see any given person for what they are. When I see malicious power-hungry harpies waging hysterias or influencing their followers to be horrible human beings or attacking the women who are pretty or kind or both, they are the perpetrators and they are the villains. Same is the case with men who like to batter women or rape kids. Neither women nor men are either evil or good. Both are capable of both.
What I advocate here is a rational solution, and one that does away with irrationality on both sides. It is wrong to see either men or women as either universally good or universally evil. Some will choose to act rightfully, and some will choose to act wrongly. Both misogyny and misandry are wrong. Some men will be good, and some men will be bad. Same is the case with women.
Did political correctness have to happen? For that matter, did Eminem? There were certainly reasons for both, and both are understandable. Understandable however is not the same thing as right. The sentiments that Hitler used to create Nazism were understandable as well; but that did not make Nazism right.
There were many men in 1980s who did in fact act like complete jerks. That does not reflect in any way on liberal-minded men nearest the liberal centers of learning and culture. It is these men that got the worst of it, while the jerks of 1980s remained comfortable where they were. Then Eminem, Osama Bin Laden and many others tapped into the anger that many men were feeling at the malicious behavior of feminists and feminism-influenced women and told their followers to treat women like dirt. In both cases a legitimate sentiment was exploited and taken by opportunists into completely destructive directions.
Reagan stated that the government is the problem, not the solution. We see the exact same thing with the gender war. The gender war is the problem, not the solution. The solution is for men to be good to women and for women to be good to men. Whereas the gender war on both sides has influenced both men and women to the contrary, while in both cases vicously attacking, respectively, the men who were willing to be good to women and the women who were willing to be good to men.
Now I have known many intelligent – and genuinely strong – women who took objection to Third Wave feminism and stated that it did not speak for them as women. I likewise do not allow Eminem or Osama Bin Laden or Michael Murphy to speak for me as a man. The two sides in the gender war deserve one another; the rest of the world deserves to be free of both.
I am perfectly willing to be good to a female partner; but I will demand that she be good to me as well. Solomon said that it's better to be alone on a roof than at home with a quarrelsome woman; and if that's all that I have to work with then I would rather be single. Fortunately I know that that is not all I have to work with, and in my adult life I have been at no shortage of attention from genuinely good women.
I have been called a misogynist, and I have been called a pussywhipped idiot. In both cases the matter is the source. In both cases we see gender warriors who seek to pit 50% of humanity against another 50% of humanity and abet and encourage all sorts of wrong on their side while oppressing the other side even in its capacity to produce good results. Once again, the gender war is not the solution. The gender war is the problem.
Neither women nor men deserve to win the gender war. The only people who deserve to win anything are men who are willing to be good to women and women who are willing to be good to men. Good behavior on the part of both should be rewarded, and bad behavior on the part of both should be confronted. This is the case with both women and men. The reason, once again, is the simply rational one: That anything capable of choice – male or female – is capable of both right choice and wrong choice.
The Germans who followed Hitler were coming from an understandable place. Their country was treated very badly after the First World War. The people were punished for the sins of their leaders when the country was not even a democracy. They can be accused of bad judgment, but not of being evil. We see the same with most women who've followed the likes of Catherine McKinnon and Andrea Dworkin, and we see the same with most men who've followed the likes of Osama Bin Laden and Eminem. I simply advise both toward better judgment.
Do the men who follow Osama Bin Laden and Eminem really want their daughters to be punching bags for some creep? Do the women who follow Catherine McKinnon really want their sons treated like dirt by some horrible harpy? Think, people, think. Think of what world you are leaving behind for your children. Think whom your actions actually stand to hurt.
So that when Eminem, who rightfully hates his mother, treats his girlfriend as though she was his mother, he is taking out on someone innocent the legitimate anger at someone guilty. And when feminist women maliciously mistreat men who believe in women's rights and mostly wish women well, they are likewise taking out on innocent people the legitimate anger at someone guilty. In both cases the behavior is cowardly; in both cases the behavior is self-defeating; and in both cases the behavior is wrong.
The gender war is not the solution. The gender war is the problem. We are seeing every party involved influencing others to act like scoundrels; and that creates a horrible effect on society. The leaders of both sides have neither the guts nor the power to touch each other. Instead they abuse people who have done nothing to cause the problem and who, for the most part, are much better people than them.
It is in this hideous climate that it takes for people on both sides who have any amount of goodness within them to create good relationships. When such form, they attract negative attention from parasites on both sides who want to destroy them. At which point the solution becomes to build immunity to both sets of parasites and empower others in similar position.
It is toward this outcome that the thought and actions of people of goodwill – both men and women – ought to strive.