The Darwin awards, given posthumously to those who inadvertently take their own lives in some stupidly reckless stunt and thereby “protect our gene pool by making the ultimate sacrifice…” are overwhelmingly awarded to males. Nominees outdo one another in ridiculously foolish and fatal acts. The mugger who tried to elude his police pursuers by jumping into a tiger’s cage at the zoo or the fisherman who tried to stun the fish by pulling a live power line down into the lake in which he was standing are only two examples.
What is the female equivalent of the Darwin awards? Male champions generally display impulsiveness, macho posturing and/or egotism (What a great idea! I can’t believe no one has tried this before!). Could it be that women tend to engage less in physically destructive acts but instead compete in the soul-killing realm? Rather than being impulsive females are more likely to destroy their lives one tentative step at a time. Instead of macho posturing, women contort themselves to fit feminist rhetoric. Instead of over inflated egos, they respond to vanity. Perhaps it is time for the “Darwina awards.”
Two recent articles from The New York Times made me consider this question. Who Runs the Girls by Ashley Mead and Why I Will Be Wed by Elizabeth Wurtzel both portray women as self-destructive. Questioning why attractive women participate in the game of being invited to events and clubs as a means of attracting desirable men to those affairs, whether at frat parties or business rendezvous, Ms. Mead ends on this plaintive note, “When it comes to women, popular culture confuses pleasure and power. Sure, girls may run the world, but men run the girls. And the girls don’t seem to mind all that much.” She recognizes that as she ages the assets that she is trading diminish while those of the men making important contacts at the parties she attends increase.
Ms. Wurtzel is delightedly planning her wedding—at age 47. While I wish her well, I wouldn’t recommend her as a role model. She dated a string of losers and by her own admission was a loser herself. She concludes:
“I believe that we all know what we are getting into with another person early on, and it is worth it, whatever the duration. A lifelong thing is lovely, but a one-night stand is also lovely. It is my good fortune never to have wed the 374 or so men I dated before Jim. I don’t know how many times I should have registered at Tiffany and celebrated extravagantly for the mistakes I did not make…
So I guess I have nothing to regret, after all.”
Wouldn’t it have been better had she striven for maturity two decades earlier? While she pats herself on the back, I see her article as tragic.
The Darwin awards often revolve around speed, explosives and testosterone. The Darwina awards I am recommending usually pivot around one thing – men. While the men eliminate themselves from the gene pool by unwittingly killing themselves, the women eliminate themselves from the gene pool by not realizing until too late that the love, affection, attention and respect they crave are best provided through the outdated, old –fashioned milieu of husband and children.
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REBUTTAL to The Eyes (Don’t) Have It
The following letter was sent to me by someone who disagreed with my Musing about not watching videos of the recent beheadings. I thought he made some worthwhile points, though I am not planning to change my own behavior. What do you think?
Susan,
I too have not watched any videos of the actual beheadings. However, i’m not sure I would advocate not watching them for the general public.
It has been my experience not only on this recent trip to Eastern Europe, but my visits to Yad Vashem and similar holocaust institutions that there is a common behavioral response. The impact of the horrific events are short-lived. Soon after the visits they’ll go out for coffee or lunch and shortly forget the experience. Yes, Auschwitz did seem to carry a bigger impact as one or two people on the trip could not sleep well that night. In general, people just want to put these horrific scenes behind them. They remove these thoughts to a far corner of their minds. I am sure it is for protection.
So, I believe it may be a valuable experience for the majority of the population that really does not pay attention. Many people truly cannot go beyond their own belief system. They cannot believe due to their innocence and Judeo-Christian moral character that such evil exists. They think of the world from their own value system They don’t want to believe the horrors that the Islamic terrorists can inflict and plan to inflict on the world.
I believe many need to see this, internalize it, digest it and then come to accept the realities. Otherwise, it will be difficult or impossible for them to accept the outcomes that America and Israel will need to do to erase this evil.
Look at the progress of the Muslims throughout Europe. They’re beginning to dominate. They are continuing to expand in Europe as well as coming to the US. A recent beheading in Oklahoma, and a shooting at a Jewish synagogue in Baltimore. All the news outlets do not refer to Islamist doing the beheading in Oklahoma. We are a soft society. I believe we need strong visual Messages to change the societies attitudes and force them to confront the realities of what’s coming to America and Israel. We both know it’s going to get worse. The sooner we except and internalize it, the easier it will be to respond, act & eliminate.
Dr. M.R.
