General @ Tuesday May 17, 2005 10:28 am by WunderKraut
Once again, for some inexplicable reason, I was listening to NPR on the way into work today. Iceman, a frequent commenter on this site, sympathized with me concerning this strange impulse to listen to Public Radio. Said Iceman:
I want to turn to a different station but sometimes just cant. Sort of like driving by a car accident. You dont want to look but have to take at least a peek.
Anyway, as I said, I was listening to NPR’s Morning Edition when they had a story about the falling college graduation rates among men. Well actually, the story was about the record number of women who are graduating from college, but the part that interested me had to do with the lack of men.
They had on Tom Mortenson of the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education to attempt an explanation as to why men are doing so poorly in college. Mr. Mortenson was asked, “Has any college succeeded in what you might call an affirmative action program for men?” To which Mr. Mortenson replied:
I think colleges are justifiably nervous about this question of affirmative action for males. And in part it’s because the women have worked so hard, and accomplished so much in preparation for college, that to think we might deny a space in college for a qualified and prepared and motivated young women just go get another less well prepared, less motivated, less focused young man in college is rather disturbing to most people.
Hmmm…..that is funny. Isn’t that one of the best reasons for ending all affirmative action? I mean, why give one group a preference over another group? Doesn’t that make people a little uneasy?
Mr. Mortenson then says that things are going to get worse for males:
We seem to know how to encourage and motivate and prepare young women. But there’s really no conversation going on about what we ought to be doing to prepare our boys for the kinds of jobs that are going to be out there when they become adults
The reason there is no conversation about how to motivate males is that men in the U.S. are under attack. Let me rephrase that a bit: Straight, white males are under attack. As a straight, white male I am bombarded with messages that I am the root of all that is wrong with the world. After all straight, white men enslaved blacks, killed the Indians, beat their wives, practiced Christianity, started wars, developed nuclear weapons, made more money, and committed sundry other evil things. Somehow I am supposed to feel bad for these things.
Before someone looks into my past and pulls out a “Gotcha!” here is my full disclosure statement: WunderKraut’s ancestors once owned slaves. They were rather wealthy farmers in central Virginia. The Civil War almost ruined them and by the time my father was born, we were solidly middle class. Am I proud of that? Not particularly. But I do not feel bad about it. Not a bit. Why? Because I did not do those things.
Why should I be made to feel bad for the bad things that other males have committed? While there were mistakes made in the past, the overriding result has been positive. Anyone like living in the U.S.? Sorry, evil white males set up this country based on the writings and ideas of other evil white males. Europe, do you enjoy freedom today? Sorry, evil white males were the predominate fighters of the past two world wars to give you that freedom (I am not taking away from the contributions of other people, but the vast majority of the fighting men and leaders were evil white males). Those wars were able to be won because of the U.S.’s vast industrial complex run by, you guessed it, evil white males. The list goes on and on. Yes, mistakes have been made, but a vast amount of good has been accomplished as well.
I am tired of being told that I am the problem. If you were to lump any other group together like the media and feminist do to white males, you would be tarred and feathered. Watch TV and see how men are portrayed. For some reason it is ok to bash white males. Feminists have been telling everyone for years that all men are potential rapists. They even tell young mothers that the baby boy they are holding may grow up to be a future rapist. I am tired of all of this.
Wendy McElroy is a feminist, but she calls herself an individualist feminist and she takes on the issue of male bashing quite frequently and she does a wonderful job exposing how unwarranted this bashing is. She has written about the anti-male bias many times, but this essay is a great overview.
She also points out how men are put forward as the only people capable of committing domestic violence. This is evident in campaigns to stop domestic violence. One such campaign says:
In a national survey of more than 6,000 American families, 50 percent of the men who frequently assaulted their wives also frequently abused their children.
What about the women and mothers? Don’t they commit child abuse? Why is it assumed that only males abuse their children?
Adults have an important role to play in helping prevent domestic abuse. The objective of the campaign is to engage men and have them speak to boys about how women should be treated. By influencing the attitudes and behaviors of young boys, adults can prevent violence towards women. Print ads encourage men to learn about the role they can play in putting an end to domestic violence.
I can assure you that I am teaching my boys to respect women and that violence towards them is NEVER an option, but why all the focus on men?
Anti-male slander so frequently passes for domestic violence “awareness” that the YWCA of Middle Tennessee was recently able to run an ad in two Nashville newspapers that depicted the blurred photo of a boy near a front door. The caption read, “One day he’ll own his own house … drive his own car … beat his own wife.”
Nice, real nice. What if they had a picture of a black male that said: “One day he’ll deal drugs…be on welfare… rape a white woman”? There would be outrage like you have never seen before. You can not lump people together. Isn’t that what the multiculturalists have been telling us for years? That you can not judge an entire group based on the actions of some of that group. That is generally what we call racism. If I were to say that all black people are lazy or that women are stupid or that Jews are greedy, I would rightfully be called a bigot. But no, it is ok to lump males together in one group. Don’t you know they are all evil?
Violence against anyone, male or female, adult or child, is wrong. We can do our part by teaching our children to respect others. But singling out males is not the correct approach. I have a feeling that there is a sense of guilt on men today. We are not allowed to be proud of what we are. If I succeed in business, it is because of my privileged position as a white male, not because of my hard work. If I get that promotion or into that school or any other accomplishment, it must be because of my maleness. That may have been true years ago, but things have changed, times have changed, the workforce and social norms have changed. That is fine by me, but stop trying to make me feel bad for being a male. In fact, I refuse to feel guilty for being who I am. I am a straight, white male who loves his wife and kids, helps around the house, works hard, is not a racist, is not a misogynist and tries to get along with everyone I meet. If it is ok for women to celebrate their womanhood, for African-Americans to celebrate their blackness and for homosexuals to celebrate their gayness, then by God it is ok for me to celebrate my maleness.
That was a rather long rant. Sorry about that!
17 Responses to “Evil White Males”
This is the same NPR that wants the “Fairness Doctrine” , just not applied to it. Nice essay, W.
[...] under: Uncategorized, Feminism, rants
Betsy Newmark links to a terrific rant by Wunderkraut who is tired of the male bashing and the illogic of it all. I [...]
I’m glad you took the time to write this. As an evil white male like yourself, I find it offensive that I should get glommed into the category of rapists, racists, and misogynists. Although I do try to take advantage of not being one of those; after all, look how desireable it is to find a white male who isn’t evil - ie handsome and with a good career. To be a non-evil white male might still be one of the best jobs on the planet right now.
But my theory for why males aren’t graduating college is one I’d like to share. You may recall (or not, I don’t know how old you are) that in the late 1980s, the PC movement began to strongly influence elementary school teachers to pick out the girls more than the boys, since their theory was that girls weren’t being encouraged to speak up for themselves at a young age, and that’s why we had so many of the world’s problems. But 15 years later, it is clear that by treating the boys as girls and the girls as boys has produced its own set of problems. We both know that the male ego is a fragile thing; by not giving it reinforcement at a young age, we’ve doomed a generation of boys to be underachievers and hoodlums that onyl perpetuate the stereotype of clods and misogynists, standing on streetcorners and harassing the women. With the new trend toward non-competitive sports in schools now, things are only going to get worse. Our educators continue to tamper with our system to the detriment of us all, and not one of them knows a damn thing about what they’re doing.
Rob D - You are right on target.
WunderKid1 started playing t-ball this year. We had been warned about the obnoxious coaches and parents so we were prepared for all that. I wanted him to have fun and to learn about the game. I am definitely not one to push my kid to do well in sports. Lord knows I stunk at them. But I want him to learn about himself and others. To learn to practice, to do his best, to be a team player. That is more important to me than winning. But like you said, with more and more emphasis on non-competitive sports, boys do get that built in competition gene exercised. I agree that it leads to low self esteem in boys and that if you tell someone they are the problem long enough, they begin to believe it. And will be ashamed of who they really are.
I have a funny story to relate dealing with this. My church men’s group watched a video series called “Wild at Heart”: which was based on the book of the same name by John Eldredge. It deals with men needing to be men. That does not give us the right to abuse and discriminate, but rather being a man comes with many important societal functions. But we still need to be male.
He tells the story of his boys and how they loved to play army or cops and robbers or anything else like that. There was a new family that moved into their neighborhood and he and his wife went over to welcome them. When he found out that the new couple had a boy the same age as one of his, he told her to send the boy on over. He told her that his boys were always playing something like army guy or cops and robbers. The lady got a deep scornful look on her face and said “We don’t let little Jonnie play games like that” due to play guns being involved. John says he wanted to tell her “Geesh, why don’t you just cut off his balls.”
Classic.
Right on, brother! As a straight white male myself, I am outraged at the unrelenting assault on us! I mean, what is our dominance of all three branches of government, the news media, and academia worth if we can’t maintain the privileges our forebears so valiantly fought for! If some domestic violence program somewhere implies that men can be violent to their spouses, what more evidence do we need that we have already become second-class citizens?
Ah, I was wondering how long it would take before someone made a comment like Big Worm did. That is not my point.
Yes males still dominate in practically every facet of society. Yes, that is still a remnant of the old way. My point is not to say that is good or bad or even to pine for the “good ol’ days”, rather that there is an assault on being male. If women do well in business, then great, make them CEO’s. Same goes for politics and the media. What I will not stand by and watch is the war on being male. I want my boys to grow up to be men. Real men who take care of their families, there communities and who take responsibility for their own actions. I do not want them to grow up feeling responsible for all the worlds’ problems or for them to believe they are second class citizens. Have you seen what passes as an education today? Trust me; boys are being stripped of all their masculinity. That is my point.
I am NOT an evil white male, but I am a hundred percent with you. I’m a married woman with two sons. When my younger son was six he wanted to be a girl. Since he’s a very “boy” boy I asked why. He said “Because in the cartoons and all, they’re always the smart ones and they have all the fun.” I looked and, dang it, he was right. Those males are just dopey comic relief. So, at six he had to learn the difference between political correctness and reality. He’s now over the “I wanna be a girl” but he got in trouble of another kind. About three months ago, we were called to his elementary school and told he had committed… drum roll… sexual harassment. I showed some surprise that he could commit sexual anything when he’s a rather childish ten and has no clue what sex might be. I was told there was no doubt about it. Kid touched female play mat on butt twice, while trying to get her attention. Female playmate didn’t complain, but playground guard saw it and got all protective of girl who didn’t know she was victim and scared of horrible offender — my son. At this point I got very furious on behalf of girl. My son was crying and scared and not sure why this was a big deal, but he’ll grow up and forget this. But … the girl. From what I understand she’s one of his buddies/playmates. He wanted her attention because he wanted her to come play with him and his group. Someone else was talking to her. He reached. He might have got her elbow or her wrist, but as it happened, he TOUCHED her butt with his fingertips twice. She didn’t feel anything wrong with this. She didn’t complain. And then big woman swoops in and tells her she’s a victim. Horrible male has defiled her. She needs to have COUNSELING sessions. Her parents are called in.
Ladies and gentlemen — what kind of insanity are we breeding in our daughters? We tell them they’re invencible, yet protect them more than Victorian maiden was ever protected. We tell them every boy is evil and a potential rapist and we expect them to marry and be happy. I don’t think anyone can survive these contradictory messages.
It would be funny, if it weren’t so dangerous.
Our darlin First Lady, as some of you may know, has made reaching out to the young men in our society as her “project” for the second term. Although the mother of two daughters, she stated she was very concerned about the treatment and under achievement of male youths in our society, saying they have been “overlooked”.
Darn, I just admire that woman so very much…….and as the mother of a son, I am very pleased her to bring the issue to the public!
Male Bashing
Wunderkraut wrote an excellent piece about evil white males and male bashing. And I couldn’t agree with home more. Straight, white males, which I am one of, are constantly bashed by social programs, advertising, and in movies and television. And wo…
Male bashing
Wunderkraut has an excellent commentary on this subject. I know many (most?) mothers agree that boys are wired differently and have different needs from girls, but our culture forces father and mothers to ingore all the biological and biochemical dif…
As an evil white male, I am teaching my kids (girls and boy) to shoot guns, ride motorcycles, get dirty in a mud puddle, not be afraid of bugs, be respectful of adults, share, treat everyone fairly and be a nice person…just like my evil white male Dad did with me. Screw the MSM and PC crowd. My kids will not have a gender-identity crisis. Oh, we also severely restrict their TV viewing, which helps keep most of the crap from getting to their fertile and innocent minds
I love how the “dead white male” crowd doesn’t have to worry about smallpox, a disease conquered by the DWMs doing their best work.
Thanks for the reference at the opening of yet again another blog that is right on the money. There are some great comments by some of your readers. White men and in particular middle age white men seem to be fair game for all the PC people. I really feel that this is our own fault to a large degree. Why, you ask? Because we never stand up to these hammerheads. I really hoped that Lawrence Summers sticks to his guns and not give in to the PC idiots at Harvard. Hootie Johnson, the head of Augusta Golf Club in Georgia, stuck to his guns and told all the feminists that picketed the Masters Golf Tournament last year that he would not cave in to them. They left with their tails between their legs. What white males need is a few more Hooties and all this bashing would come to an end.
Not a whole lot to add, other than to recommend James Dobson’s book “Bringing up Boys”. It mentions this issue at length. As the father of two sons, this concerns me greatly. Like Wunderkraut I am a straight white male, the only thing that makes it worse is that I am also southern. I also refuse to let them make me feel bad for being who God made me. My family was never rich enough to own slaves, my granpa actually was a sharecropper/preacher/carpenter, I paid my own way through college by getting the GI Bill when I served 4 years in the Navy, and have worked hard since I was old enough to put to work. My dad got me out in the tobacco fields working for local farmers every summer since I turned 13. I worked every summer until I joined the Navy, then when I finally got to go to college (the first from my family by the way) I spent my summers back in the fields working. At my current job, I have had four different supervisors as I’ve moved up and around in the ranks, one phillipino woman, one white american male, and two black america females. I can tell you from experience, race and gender don’t mean squat, the male and two black females were great supervisors to work for, very competent, very fair. The other woman had no clue. Okay, this is getting off the subject and I need to go to bed.
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