Ladies and Gentlemen,
Let’s get right down to it: Women have contributed to the downfall of
American society in their quest for equal rights.
They have shredded the formerly family-centric mentality that our
country was once centered around, and
shunned their natural role as the partner best suited for child
rearing in a callous attempt to make their earning power equal to
that of a man’s. Now, instead of having one member of the
partnership wholly dedicated to raising and taking care of the
children, you have a network of subsidized services which are in
turn supposed to take the place of the parent’s duties (school,
daycare, sports practices, Lunchables).
Essentially you create a fragmented society whose values are centered around
material accumulation, with women yearning for equal rights with respect to
their ability to accumulate this wealth. And to be honest, that’s fine, if
that’s what women wanted out of this movement then they’re right, they should
have every opportunity to earn as much as a man. But on some level, doesn’t the
cost that this shift has had on the very fabric of our society need to examined?
Would American society itself not be better off as a whole if women were more
fervent in their attention to their child rearing role?
"What we’ve achieved is a complete disregard for the
incredibly important process of raising a child."
Women have been groomed
over millions and millions of years to raise children emotionally,
physically, and anatomically through a variety of conduits, not the
least of which is evolution. It is only in roughly the last 50-100
years that they have begun to ascend into the roles in our culture
that had until recently been reserved for men; and yes, through this
has come material accumulation, political power, Esquire
magazine, and perhaps even
an improved standard of living, but at what cost?
There are many ancillary repercussions that have come at the behest of this
process. First of all, you have a complete erosion of chivalry. I’ll share this
quote from Jack Nicholson with you:
I respect the social graces enormously. How to
pass the food. Don't yell from one room to another. Don't go through a closed
door without a knock. Open the doors for the ladies. All these millions of
simple household behaviors make for a better life. We can't live in constant
rebellion against our parents – it's just silly. I'm very well mannered. It's
not an abstract thing. It's a shared language of expectations.
I won’t stand here and give you a sermon on the benefits of chivalry and
other social graces, but I will say that in this quest for equality, women have
tried to have their cake and eat it too. They tell us that they deserve the same
treatment as men, yet when is the last time a
woman held a door open for you, or closed your car door after you got in?
And what about engagement rings, the mother of all unequal social standards?
There is this monumental set of expectations attached to the entire marriage
process, unduly dumped on the shoulders of the male. The modern marriage is
supposed to be the pinnacle of social equality, in that it is an equal
partnership: all your possessions become half owned by each party. Except women
have been a little hard pressed to give up the shiny little rock that is, for
the most part, a requirement when it comes to getting hitched.
Wedding rings are supposed to cost three months salary, and last year the
average engagement ring cost $3,200. Have you ever in your entire life
heard of a woman buying a man anything in reciprocation for this
momentous occasion? And don’t tell me the blowjob that assuredly follows this
exchange is worth anywhere in the neighborhood of 3k. This is supposed to be the
start of a life long union that in modern times is regarded as wholly equitable,
and you’re supposed to kick it off with a big, shiny, expensive rock that serves
no other purpose than fulfilling the rapidly disintegrating societal
expectations that adorn our culture? If anything, this custom is indicative of
the thinly veiled nature of the women’s rights movement, putting their own kind
in a better position for material accumulation.
I, for one, say that we start today by requiring a gift that is equivalent in
cost and frivolousness to the engagement ring, like a nice TAG Heuer or Movado
watch, an all expenses paid bachelor party/trip to Amsterdam, or a bright red
crotch rocket.
I recently read that there are more single female senior citizens in our
country than ever before. Is this yet another part of what women aspired to when
they began burning their bras? So what we’ve basically achieved is not only a
complete disregard for the intricate and incredibly important process of raising
a child, but also a lack of commitment or interest in the institution of
marriage. To what end I ask you? So that women as well as men can have the right
to wear uncomfortable business suits, expensive watches, and well lacquered
shoes? So women have a reason to own and use a Blackberry? So that they can make
the Chevy Corvette in hot pink and canary yellow? I think the risk-reward is out
the window in this circumstance, and a rapid re-evaluation of what we are trying
to achieve as a species needs to become a part of the everyday dialogue that is
otherwise reserved for Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan.
Perhaps if we were more flexible in letting others fill the role of child
rearing, the adeptness or advantage women hold in that regard could be negated.
Sadly however, the same people who advocate marriage for life and the woman as
the homemaker are the same people who oppose the integration of men into any
other role than the bread winner of the household. Not to mention these same
people’s vehement opposition of gay marriage, which in and of itself could prove
to be an acceptable conduit for child rearing, depending on the relative
roles that each partner plays in the family.
It is with this in mind that I say to you, dear reader, that it is not the
immediate actions of politicians, warlords, or even drug dealers that form the
basis for the decay of society. Rather, it is the rapidly misjudged values of
our women (and Cosmopolitan) that have led us to this point.
Vote Marine for Student Council Secretary ’07!
