I’ve now read two reviews of a new book that is getting attention, Women After All. While both the reviews were well-written and both highly praised the book, I’m bored by it before I even open a page. The thesis of Melvin Konner’s book seems to be that women are great; men are unnecessary at their best, but most of the time they just destroy civilization. As women become more influential – ta da! – the world will be a better place.
I did chuckle about one aspect of the Wall Street Journal’s review. A few pages earlier in the newspaper, an article about the enduring affection women have for Jane Austen novels appeared. You could call it, reality meeting fantasy.
Aren’t you tired of the gender wars? As far as I’m concerned God already answered the question of whether men are better than women or women are better than men. He could have created one man and many women. That statement would have been open to interpretation. Are men valuable while women are breeders or are women valuable and men’s sole purpose is to impregnate them? He could have created many men and one woman. That would have been open to interpretation too. Are men valuable but a female is needed so that procreation can occur? Are women so valuable that a stable of men is assigned to work for her?
What God did instead, is create one man and one woman. Initially, “male and female He created them,” and on another level he created man and from his body brought forth woman. (You can hear the ancient Jewish wisdom on this in Madam, I’m Adam: Decoding the Marriage Secrets of Eden) Both sexes are created in His image; the sexes are different and incomplete without the other. A world where masculinity has exclusive rein is a perversion of the ideal, as is a world where femininity rules.
If the reviews are accurate, Konner’s book celebrates a world of female ascendancy, where men acknowledge the superiority of feminine qualities and adopt them. This la-la land ignore the Jane Austen conundrum. Women who argue that they are capable of doing anything a man can do, and do it better than a man can, still seek to be loved by a great man, one they can look up to and respect. Mr. Darcy has his flaws, but he exudes traditional masculinity. By contrast, women reject en masse the feminine men they try to create. When men cross the line and become too feminine, women don’t desire them as mates. Neither turning women into men or men into women is a successful strategy for civilization. Do we really have to repeatedly obsess over failed ideas?
Give yourself and those you love some gender reality
That one went right over my head!
Actually I grasped quite well that this individual (Melvin?) is biologically male. The ambiguous s/he pronoun was entirely ironical, for (1) given that your portrayal of his theme is accurate (I am quite sure that it is), and (2) if he practices what he is preaching, then s/he certainly must belong to that twilight inter-gender which s/he so worships, espouses and intends to propagate among us. Quod erat demonstrandum? So much for Swiftian satire….
You are right. There is good news.
To boost your hope, I can mention the growth in home schooling and the rise of the cyber school. Both return control to the parents, to varying degrees. I have raised two daughters to be true to God, and there is a saying that I can only paraphrase: “When you lose a daughter from the church, you lose generations. When you gain a daughter to the church, you gain generations.”
Of course, the attacks continue, and escalate, and the workload only seems to grow heavier. May we be enlightened by God, to help ourselves and those around us.
I certainly hope people are waking up. There is a major problem with sixteen years of liberal indoctrination taking place in too many schools. It’s hard to change your way of thinking when it is so deeply ingrained.
How about at the rational stage of life rather than the fuddy-duddy stage? I think ideological liberalism is constantly at odds with itself, hence feminists adulation of Bill Clinton rather than siding with his female victims, the love of Islam despite its attitudes to women and homosexuals, saying free speech while repressing speech that liberals don’t like…
James, Konner is a male author and whether he is a true believer in his theory or not, there is certainly a large audience to which he is playing. Interesting Eden scenario.
I have noticed people waking up to many of these attacks on the individual and the family. There is a huge cultural attack on men, an attack on womanhood, childhood, even personhood, if that’s a word. But people are becoming more aware, and acting accordingly. One of the drives behind cancelling cable and satellite TV is the desire to end the cultural filth pouring into our homes. Most of my friends have given up on it. It’s not only a financial choice, it’s often a moral choice. I for one just got so tired of the many ways TV bashed men, and seemed to stoke the fire of hostility between ‘working moms’ and stay-at-homes. And technology steals so much of childhood. Your post is a great piece on how the attack on humanity can be broken down into, say, various prongs on a pitchfork, so to speak.
I love book reviews. I read them just for fun sometimes, even if I don’t plan to read a book. They say so much, and some of it may be inadvertent.
Even when I try to look at Mr. Konner’s premise from a secular humanist perspective, I can’t see any logic in it. If you embrace Darwin’s theory, which states that the species evolved in a way to ensure the long-term successful survival of the human race, how can you then turn around and say that the clear differences between males and females is a mistake? And isn’t one of today’s buzz phrases, “Celebrate diversity?” Shouldn’t that include the natural distinctions between men and women? I guess I’m at the fuddy-duddy stage in life; I can remember when gender comparisons ended with the exclamation, “Vive le difference!”
Someone once pointed out how published authors are so starkly different from the personae they project and posture in the public arena. In this connection it would be interesting indeed to get to know this author Konner. Is s/he indeed the kind of hybrid feminoid creature s/he would seem to espouse, promote and prop up on a lofty pedestal? I doubt it. This is all smoke and mirrors of ‘enlightened gender studies.’
Behind it all I would propose another hybrid creature: the Nimrodian Serpent. At the tree in the Garden of Eden this Serpent would hissssss: ‘Eve, you are no different from Adam. Elevate me to power, join with me and I will make you equal to Adam. I can even make you more powerful than Adam and you will be the boss.’ Such are the pandering Nimrods of this world, who would alienate Eve from Adam, promise Eve equality with Adam, then eventual dominance over Adam: ‘Worship me, put me in charge of your life, and you will get equality, and more.’
Yet what do you get? Finally the long-coveted Gender Utopia is on the horizon. And the nearer they approach it, the more bitterly unhappy both women and men become. Why can’t males and females tune out and turn off the Serpent’s seductive droning and just get along?