Equality

What do we want? Gender equality! When do we want it? Now! It's only fair. No gender is better than the other! All genders are ... well, equal! Generally speaking, I'm pretty sure most Americans agree with that notion. Our response to it, however, appears to vary.

In the 1960's and '70's there was a backlash to institutionalized racism that produced the "remedy" of "quotas". In order to fix the problem that non-whites had been unfairly treated over the years, institutions of higher learning and employers decided to unfairly treat whites. No, of course that's not what they decided. They just decided to, well, give non-whites preferential treatment. No matter how you slice it, that is not "racial equality". In the name of racial equality, then, the nation decided to be racially unequal because that is the best solution to racial inequality. No, wait ... well, that's what they did. We're still dealing with it today.

Gender inequality is an equal problem. The Feminism of that same era has produced a feminist backlash in its efforts to promote a "gender equality" that is nothing less than unadulterated gender inequality. Women are not equal to men; they are superior. Men are not simply as good as women; they are evil. Women do not deserve the same rights as men; they deserve special rights. Obviously, then, men deserve far less than women do.

This concept has become part of the fabric of our nation. Men are told to "get in touch with your feminine side", but women are never told to "get in touch with your masculine side." "Testosterone" is a synonym for negative aggression, but no such correlation occurs with female hormones. "Feminization" is typically considered a good thing, but have you ever heard of "masculinization"? (It exists.) Women in our society are important and valued; men, not so much.

In an article by Christina Hoff Sommers of the National Review, you can read some of the particulars. But think about it for a moment. When was the last time you saw a "Wear Blue for Prostate Cancer Research" advertisement? What? Never??! How can that be? Prostate cancer is the sixth leading cause of cancer-related death in men. I mean, we see lots of "Pink for Breast Cancer research" ads. That's great! Prostate cancer? No, not important.

It's not opinion. Obama's Affordable Care Act mentions "breast" 44 times and "prostate" zero times. "Women's health issues" are important. No programs for men's health issues. Why is that?

In 2009 when the president announced his stimulus package, he called for a "two-year 'shovel-ready' plan" for upgrading infrastructure. The outcry was tremendous. "Where are the jobs for women??!!" (Apparently feminists believed that women cannot do certain jobs.) Note the outcome of the loud and frequent protests. Even though men were losing jobs 2:1 to women losing jobs during that recession, the protests achieved their aims. The president's plans were massively modified. Men and infrastructure took the hit. Women were offered assistance. Yeah for gender inequality!

Our culture and its leadership continue to push for gender inequality in the name of its opposite. More men are at risk for cancer than women, but women are getting the emphasis. The number of women in higher education is rising while men are declining, but no one is working to change that. Women continue to get the emphasis. "Male favoritism" is under attack. The administration is pushing more Title IX reforms to fight it. And fewer and fewer men are receiving sufficient support and education to get advancement. This is not equality.

The backlash to racial inequality produced racial inequality in reverse and we still haven't righted that boat. "Affirmative action" still reigns, an action that treats one particular group with indifference in favor of another group. That's not equality. The voices are loud today for "marriage equality", by which they mean "strip marriage from its current definition to mean something new so that a limited group can now label themselves 'married' and, therefore, 'normal and moral'". It's not equality. Women's rights have been an issue for more than 100 years in America. The answer to that problem is to strip the rights of one gender and call it "equality". It's not. And, of course, to a large portion of Americans "economic equality" would mean taking as much as possible from those with more and give to those with less. That's "equality". We keep using that word. I do not think that word means what we think it means.