...is that I wouldn't be able to raise my kids in Europe. Apparently, governments over there believe that I, by virtue of my Y chromosome, am an unnecessary element in the life of my children.
This may seem like trivial, bureaucratic tweaking, but think of the consequences. By emphasizing the rights of the woman over that of the rights of her children or her husband, you essentially define family as a feminine possession. So, families cease to be the most fundamental building block of any society. Families are reduced to fab accessories for women.
Not even the most mind-boggling patriarchies could concieve of families in this way. When wives and children were deemed "property" of the man of the house, it came with the implicit understanding that the only reason the family was property was because they are put in trust by the community in the hands of its male protector. So, the family was "owned" in the same way feudal lords "owned" serfs, as part of a necessary deal to protect against the vagaries of human nature. Heaven have mercy on the steward who violates this trust!
Now, we consider such reasoning obsolete, and justifiedly so. However, that reasoning is far superior to the ones Western governments are giving to effectively feminize all things family. In the heyday of "individualism", capitalizing on the remnants of Christian culture ("inalenable rights" is a Christian product), families are effectively made the property of women because these poor women deserve "legal rights". (Where did responsibilities go? Oh, women don't have 'em? Geez.) The rights of lesbians and single women to have kids unconditionally attached to their households (because, you know, requiring those kids to have fathers or know their fathers causes so much emotional distress) trumps the preservation of a family structure that was responsible for the rise of mankind from the mists of time. Aristotle, the product of buggery-loving Athenian culture, said in his "Politics" that a man and a woman in marriage is at the heart of a polis. (Wow, apparently, "It's Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve" was not originally a fundamentalist Christian argument!) For these new overlords of the remnants of Western civilization, a woman's "right" to satiate her motherhood urges (how else can you explain child-bearing framed as an individual right, and not a privelege?) is at the heart of a polis. One wonders how that polis will survive PMS.
Attempts to alter human nature have always been met by the stubborn backlash of a nature that stubbornly refuses to be altered by mere fiat. The fall of Western civilization may be interesting to observe. However, I wouldn't want my children to be in the middle of it all.
Sure, crime and corruption are rampant in the Philippines. But crime is rampant in the West too. Take a stroll through the Muslim neighborhoods of Great Britain, or the project outskirts of Paris, and the slums of Tondo suddenly don't seem so bad. As for corruption, I am far more willing to live with the kind of pragmatic corruption our elites practice than with the fundamental corruption of the soul that eats at the heart of the West's political elite.
It really puts that "passing through the eye of a needle" invocation against the wealthy into startling context.
I couldn't raise kids in Europe either. Actually, I don't think I'd feel confident about raising them anywhere else but here. My best friend who lives in Canada is married, but she doesn't have kids yet. She was telling me that she and her husband were thinking of moving to the Philippines when the decide to have kids, and spend some time raising the kids here before moving back to Canada.
ReplyDeleteThe idea that raising kids is primarily a woman's job really pisses me off. Even in the Philippines there's this emphasis on the role of the woman, as if it's not a responsibility that should be equally shared by husband and wife. I'm shocked that some people still use the argument that the woman's place is in the home and the responsibility to raise kids fall to her because the husband has to work and provide for the family. I've even heard that it's the "unique role" of the woman, because women are more nurturing than men.
(1) In this day an age single income households are getting increasingly rare and it's so dated to assume that women are fulltime housewives/mothers. Women have careers, not to mention social lives and hobbies and interests. (2) Even in a single income household, I don't see how earning a living cancels out the father's role in raising a child. So he's not at home from 8-5 because he's at the office. So what? I'd expect my husband to be just as involved in our kids life as I am regardless. (3) Hello, gender stereotyping. I'm a woman and there are lots of men who are considerably more nurturing than me. There are good mothers, and bad mothers. There are good fathers, and bad fathers. Where does the idea that women in principle make better parents come from?
I think it has something to do with the notion that, hey, the baby came out of you, you probably have the closest bond with him/her. By that logic, nobody loves my turds more than I do.
ReplyDeleteI'd be charitable and say it was due to theories regarding femininity and motherhood, except that to use those theories would be to acknowledge that male participation in family life is just as essential. The idea that men and women compliment each other makes these feminists itch. (Gloria Steinem started it all with that fish and bicycle quote.)
I find it ironic that the most politically potent gender stereotyping in the West comes from the feminists themselves.