Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Worth-Based Entitlement

At present, female citizens enjoy disproportionate power to compromise the well-being of male citizens. That power, being vested in laws and institutions, becomes a political power and makes women a political class. This tilts the political board against me, and in light of that fact I have no political obligation to go to bat for women as a class. Under the circumstances, why the hell should I?

Therefore any individual woman I meet will get special consideration from me only as an individual, and only if she proves herself worthy. And clearly, some women will prove themselves worthier than others. This way of thinking entails no "misogyny" because it entails no opinion, either good or ill, about women as a group.

Now, misogyny means disaffection toward women irrespectively. Hence, even if you were to form a bad opinion about every female person on earth, it would not entail misogyny if you had weighed each case on its merits. You would merely harbor a bad opinion about this woman, that woman, and the next woman -- but not about women.

I am far from having evaluated every female person on earth, and I know my life is too short to do that. So I am content to say that I harbor no opinion either good or ill about the huge majority of women, but that as I make their acquaintances I will evaluate them one at a time. And upon that base alone, I will decide what, if anything, I "owe" them.

No comments:

Post a Comment