INDEPENDENT NEWS

Feedback: Restoring Testosterone- A Critique

Published: Fri 26 Apr 2002 11:40 AM
Restoring Testosterone - A Critique And Commentary
Re: POV: Restoring Testosterone
Nice article, only it comes a little too late. At one time, when the movement you describe was young( I'm 40), I considered myself to be an enthusiastic supporter of women's rights. I have watched, all of my cognizant life, feminism grow from a small movement to the monster it has become. The sisterhood ran me and every other man off who wasn't the hollow charicature of a man that you describe in your article. The rest were tolerated to have someone to kick around. That seems to be the best we can do anymore. We're still expected to pay for everything and solve all the problems and face danger if need be, but leave your feelings and expectations at the door on your way in, and, by the way, please leave quietly by noon as well and place your wallet on the dresser as you leave. That is the message I get from far too many so called thinking women. Most of whom also strike me as lonely and frustrated at the fact that they have been unable to have it all, most importantly, a fulfilling marriage. Surprise, surprise! Welcome to the real world of accountability and scarce resources.
I expected your article to be uplifting, but instead I was angered by it. The damage in our society is severe and already done. You have made sport of it. Some of you ladies may choose to be nicer to us brutes (how generous and kind hearted!) but that won't correct the hateful laws that have been passed in America that turn family courts and sexual accusations into star chamber proceedings. It won't restore the self esteem of millions of neglected and misraised boys from the bias of single mothers who can't control them and therefore fear them, the school system and the universities who pump energetic boys full of Ritalin, ostracize the fathers in their lives and seek to turn boys into officially certified eunuchs. Those that don't fit the mold are to be shunted off to prison, it would seem. It won't restore ruined lives or careers. It won't change the pang of fear and suspicion I feel when I talk to women at work, especially attractive ones, because I am only a false accusation away from being ruined professionally or weorse going to jail. It won't heal the damage from endless slights and bruising criticism everywhere in newspapers, movies, TV, magazines, and advertisements. Most importantly, it won't make my very expensive but tenuous investment in marriage and a family any safer and until that happens, relationships between men and women in English speaking countries will remain strained to very strained. It won't make me or other men whole again.
If women criticized each other as much as they criticized men, they'd be cringing neurotics. Your article seemed to be merely a way of saying We ladies have come to realize that being lonely is worse than being with you". "I'd like a date again and you lads can call me if you like; I'll even make you tea. That is how the article sounds to my ears, I'm afraid, in spite of your apparently genuine attempt at liking us again. At least I was a bit relieved when you said you were afraid of lesbians. I have often wondered about that with thinking women. In 1995-96, the women's media was playing the lesbian card to the hilt and still does with steady but lower intensity. The message was/is: "You men better shape up or we'll start dumping you for our girl friends. They know better how to satisfy us sexually than you do anyway".
Feminists saying they like us again is a bit like Hitler telling Jews he won't gas them anymore and wants to be their friend. The trust has so long since been destroyed that it can probably never be restored. It is the tragedy of your generation of women and the greatest vindication of those men who 30 years ago said women weren't fit to lead.
I will be leary of my personal involvement with women for the rest of my days and most experienced men feel that way anymore, they just don't talk about it. The problem is that women can be nice today, cruel tomorrow and whatever they decide, we pay the price. Men have been saying for about ten years now that this reverse discrimination must come to an end. I hope that day is finally here, but I'm not holding my breath. However, we are pissed off!!!! The kettle is starting to boil.
I'm deeply saddened by the smugness of your article in spite of its chirpy tone and attempts at reconciliation. Its a drop of water on the hot stone of hate that has become the women's movement and as such, seems condescending. I'm sorry if I say so, but say it I must, because I think it is important that the word finally start getting out, even if we have to criticize those women who claim to be our allies in the process. Unlike the feminists I encountered, I will attempt to be rational and fair in my criticism. It is meant to be friendly as well as an opportunity to express my feelings for once, in an open and honest way.
Thanks for the sentiment, but even your list of positive things about men has a condescending ring to it, while making an attempt to appear humorous. I have never met a woman who was my intellectual equal, but not for want of trying. I have met many with unjustifiably large opinions of themselves, however. Too many thinking women confuse strength with bossiness. That is the real reason why men avoid those so called strong women. Feminists call excessive control and criticism emotional abuse. Saying that men fear strong women is absurd. Every man seeks a strong woman for wife. he just doesn't want a wife who will castrate him. he wants to be loved and appreciated and he wants that love to be genuine, not merely an expression of her ambitions to have it all. I am fit for a good bit more than lifting heavy objects and taking out the trash. I am also very self sufficient around the house and don't really need a woman, but life is empty without them. If only they had been as generous to us as we men have been with our tolerance of women's caprices and flaws.
Women in the English speaking countries have done severe damage to their relations with men, that it will take generations to restore it, if it can ever be done, as far too many women seem to believe that they are better off with a matriarchy and defend their new found superiority jealously, in spite of the obvious destructiveness to our society and in most cases their own happiness. I can only conclude that it is to stroke their grossly inflated egos and to continue along some Betty Friedan dictated life path because they think they have to.
If I ever have children, and especially a son, I find myself saying that I will warn him of women's ways the way your mothers warned you not to sell out to men. I am afraid for myself if I have a daughter, because I will not want to impose on her the poison that was imposed on me by the women's movement. No one deserves it. I was around when they did it, so the women's movement can't deny they did so to me, like they can with younger men, who have enjoyed the full force of feminist propaganda.
When I was 25, saying these things was unimaginable for me. That is the extent of the damage caused by your movement's excesses. I could not in good conscience tell my hypothetical son to marry and raise a family anymore. That is a very painful fact for me to have to accept. That is the real reason why men are commitment shy and reluctant to form relationships or start families. It has become a recipe for emotional and financial suicide. It will be very difficult to control the impulse to warn and perhaps stop the cycle of resentment and anger, I'm afraid, because of the obsessive need of the women's movement to blame everything they don't like about the world on men and mens' corresponding anger and resentment. We never promised you rose garden and you didn't get one. If you expected one, the problem of your generation of women's lives lies with those expectations, not with men.
If you want to help us, stop talking at us and shout at the sisterhood. Shout to your friends and tell them what has happened and why. Tell them what they need to do to stop it, but being nice for a day or two because your in the mood isn't sufficient and a mockery of fairness and decency. Display the moral superiority that I so often hear women claim for themselves and talk sense into your corrupt sisterhood. Remember, we're physically stronger and the sisterhood won't be able to create Gynotopia without getting men to do their dirty work for them. You need our physical strength to enforce your agenda. The white boys may be tamed, but the Feminist message hasn't ruined all of us. That is a precarious position to be in once chivalry dies. Does the women's movement really want it to?
Thank you for letting me speak from behind the veil of the lace curtain. We men don't get much opportunity to say these things, although they have been stewing for years. I am saddened by all of this, I'm afraid. That is the worst of it, the shattered dreams and ideals. Godspeed.
Best regards,
Jeff McMullen
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