fbpx
Politics Foreign Affairs Culture Fellows Program

Just You Wait, Feminists!

The ever-provocative Camille Paglia says feminists shouldn’t fool themselves: despite what middle-class feminists think, the reason women thrive today is because of You Know Who. And when our civilization falls, as all civilizations do, it will be the good, strong men who keep the women and children safe. Excerpt: After the next inevitable apocalypse, men […]

The ever-provocative Camille Paglia says feminists shouldn’t fool themselves: despite what middle-class feminists think, the reason women thrive today is because of You Know Who. And when our civilization falls, as all civilizations do, it will be the good, strong men who keep the women and children safe. Excerpt:

After the next inevitable apocalypse, men will be desperately needed again! Oh, sure, there will be the odd gun-toting Amazonian survivalist gal, who can rustle game out of the bush and feed her flock, but most women and children will be expecting men to scrounge for food and water and to defend the home turf. Indeed, men are absolutely indispensable right now, invisible as it is to most feminists, who seem blind to the infrastructure that makes their own work lives possible. It is overwhelmingly men who do the dirty, dangerous work of building roads, pouring concrete, laying bricks, tarring roofs, hanging electric wires, excavating natural gas and sewage lines, cutting and clearing trees, and bulldozing the landscape for housing developments. It is men who heft and weld the giant steel beams that frame our office buildings, and it is men who do the hair-raising work of insetting and sealing the finely tempered plate-glass windows of skyscrapers 50 stories tall.

Every day along the Delaware River in Philadelphia, one can watch the passage of vast oil tankers and towering cargo ships arriving from all over the world. These stately colossi are loaded, steered and off-loaded by men. 

This is a point that many men — men like me — should take seriously as well. I make my living manipulating words. I am warm in the winter and cool in the summer. I do not have calluses on my hands, and if my back hurts, it’s from sitting in a chair all day long. My work is only possible because of men who can and do get out in the weather and keep the water, the gas, the electricity, and everything running, the roads in good repair, and who shoulder the greater burden in defending the country from potential enemies. That’s not a sexist observation; that’s reality. The world could get along just fine if all the male writers ceased to exist. But if the bricklayers, pipefitters, lumberjacks, firefighters, cops, linemen, soldiers, and their like, went on strike, everything would fall apart in short order.

Advertisement

Comments

Want to join the conversation?

Subscribe for as little as $5/mo to start commenting on Rod’s blog.

Join Now