We all know about man's inhumanity to man, in which there is no sexual limitation placed on the meaning of the word 'man' which there refers to mankind in general. My concern is about how many of us, especially the males among us, think about man's inhumanity to women, even in these days when some men (and also some women) complain of an excess of rampant and aggressive feminism.
I have from time to time (usually, I think, jokingly) been accused of being, to use the well-known English expression, a Male Chauvinist Pig (often reduced to its initials as MCP), but I have to argue that I am not, and my view is that there is absolutely nothing amusing about such behaviour and attitudes. In fact I have every personal reason to encourage women and girls to aim to lead full lives and not to consider themselves as mere chattels totally dependent on their fathers and then on their husbands. Since I married a highly intelligent wife (over fifty years ago), we have had four daughters who have proved their ability to get on in the world and also two grand-daughters, while we only have one son and one grandson. Happily, our daughters have all done well in their studies, and I would never wish them to have to face any form of discrimination on the ground of their sex. Furthermore, I could certainly never consider my wife to be of lesser importance than me, although she (most unfairly, as is evident) did not have the same considerable educational advantages in her youth that I had the good fortune to have in mine.
In particular now that I am a senior citizen, I worry about the fate of women who are still treated as annexes to their nearest male relatives, as is the case in so many backward societies, and we see this very clearly where women still have no say in their own futures as is the case where the rulers are such aberrations as the Taliban (which was originally built up into a powerful force by the CIA to combat the Soviets). These pathetic men suffer from such a deep lack of confidence in themselves, in their masculinity and in their own abilities that they have felt it necessary to find someone whom they can oppress and to whom they can in this way claim to be superior, and, given their profound ignorance, they have chosen women to fill that role. They do not realise that they thereby prove their lack of manliness by displaying such a massive lack of confidence in themselves as human beings who are able to treat others as equals having equal rights.
Such rule of men over women does not only arise in primitive societies but can also be seen in the ultra-modern post-civilisation society all too common in the "West", where women are virtually bought and sold as if they were assets of varying value. It is important to note that this very MCP attitude is not endemic to any particular religion, but can be found among the followers of many faiths, and I know of cases among people who are supposedly Jewish, Christian, Muslim, of other religions and of none.
The most extreme forms of inhumanity of men to women are shown in rape, prostitution and forced marriages, and everything possible should be done to end these evils, since they show a total failure on the part of men to acknowledge the human rights of the women concerned. As a man, I am ashamed of those of my fellows who approve of, or even merely accept, these forms of slavery and subjection. Any real man should have the combination of confidence and of humility necessary to face the reality that men need women and women need men to achieve a balance in humanity, and we should always make known our absolute horror at the immoral preference for boy babies among backward sections of society (especially in certain Asian countries) which goes as far as to make expectant women choose to abort girls.
Another variant of this inhumanity is the practice of "honour killing", where a family arranges the murder of a woman who dares to claim her right to choose her own husband and/or way of life. Extremely sad cases of this evil have been revealed in Western Europe and they are closely linked to forced marriages, often executed by removing the woman from the home and society in which she feels comfortable to another much more primitive place from which she cannot escape. We men owe it to these women to come to their aid whenever we can, and our legislators should be encouraged to take all practical steps to protect them. This is also true when we learn of cases of trafficking of women and girls who are then too terrified to escape from enslavement as prostitutes.
Let every real man decide that he should, of course, continue to condemn man's inhumanity to man, but that this condemnation should be even stronger when it is a matter of man's inhumanity to woman. This would show genuine manliness.
© Copyright 2008 by AxisofLogic.com
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