Feature
Earlier this year America faced the tedious prospect of a new decade without a new oppressed group to liberate. But in one swell fell swoop our Yankee ingenuity conjured into existence a gaggle of downtrodden persons to uplift. We discovered that women need liberating and this discovery has liberated us from creeping ennui.
This oppressed majority will gain Uhuru come Hell or low hemlines. Just ask Barney Rosset, pornographer. Rosset runs Grove Press, an establishment guided by his philosophy: “What’s wrong with exciting people? Our whole society — television, movies, fashion is built on exciting people.” The Women’s Liberation Front recently added a new dimension to the exciting business of pandering to prurient interests.
The WLF sat in at Grove Press to protest commercial “sexism.” The men at Grove Press are fierce opponents of repression, but they take a businesslike approach to mixing business and pleasure. They had the WFL protestors arrested. This was good for the Grove Press’ property rights but bad for its revolutionary reputation. The WLF promptly announced that Grove Press has “the same mentality as Judge Hoffman” and demanded an end to “one dirty-old-man-rule” at the Press. This reference to Rosset was less than fair. He is only forty-seven.
Most men know that struggling women need dramatic tactics, like bra burning, for it manifests the liberated woman’s escape from the roles and stereotypes of a male-dominated society. Hence most men would suffer death, or at least a mild blister, in defense of every American’s right — regardless of race, color, creed, national origin or sex — to burn bras.
Yet regrettably this form of bodily witness, so helpful in eliminating false consciousness, causes air pollution. Recent studies reveal that if every woman in America were to burn three slightly padded bras there would develop an enormous increase in air pollution and an enormous glut in Manhattan’s garment district.
This is acceptable. As Lenin said, you shouldn’t break eggs without making ‘an omelette. Besides, the First Amendment is precise and unambiguous: congress shall make no law abridging the right of even the most flamingly symbolic speech. If men have the right to burn draft cards, then the principle of sexual reciprocity stipulates that women have the right to burn bras.
Some male Neanderthals thought female suffrage would suffice to end female servitude. This was rank sociological naivete. Advanced thinkers understand that we must use compensatory programs to correct the terrible legacy of centuries of unbridled male tyranny.
We need an ambitious program to salvage those young women who suffer the cultural deprivation of attending predominantly female colleges. Such a program could be called Upward Curtsey, and could use Federal funds to send (say) Bryn Mawr graduates to Atlanta, Georgia, for a two year hitch in the robust and rehabilitating atmosphere of Georgia Tech. Upward Curtsey would affirm the basic principles of the American Dream by guaranteeing any American girl the chance to grow up to be a Rambling Wreck from Georgia Tech.
It would be even better to directly attack what the “Mrs. Kerner Commission” calls “institutional male chauvinism.” Let us begin by distinguishing between De Jure and De Facto discrimination.
De Jure discrimination is that which is established by law, or by the deliberate acts of public officials; such is the ban which bars women from the New York Mets’ locker room. De facto discrimination results from community customs or mores, such as the practice of giving a lady your seat on the subway. The Constitution is not only color blind but sex blind, and it is immoral to tolerate laws or customs that take notice of another human being’s sex.
Fortunately women have not fallen victim to the wretched condition denoted by the wretched noun “ghettoization.” As a result of dumb luck (that is, without HEW guidelines), women are spread evenly across the nation. Balanced residential patterns reduce the need for forced busing to achieve sexual balance in schools. Nevertheless, some busing is needed to eliminate pockets of impacted sexual imbalance.
For example, there was a time when Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, actually boasted about being the nation’s largest all-female college. Although this “peculiar institution” is becoming co-educational, the pace of Smith’s progress is unacceptable. Under the guise of “deliberate speed,” Smith is substituting tokenism for meaningful change.
The government must mount a determined attack on all such “private” institutions. Their so-called “privateness” is an illusion, which must not insulate them from public control. After all, every autumn the students get to these colleges by driving over public highways. Therefore the students are engaging in interstate commerce and the colleges are permeated with public aspects.
Such colleges must be compelled to conform with the law of the land, which is that every school must have a sexual composition identical with that of the surrounding community. The Justice Department should seek a court order requiring Smith to bus males from (say) Amherst until the Smith student body has the same sexual composition as the town of Northampton. Forced busing is awkward, but no one can take seriously the disingenuous argument that Smith women and Amherst men will get together without Federal compulsion.
Advanced sociological thinking supports the justice of such busing. Federal officials will soon release the “Mrs. Coleman Report.” This is the fruit of a multi-million dollar research project, which proved what it set out to prove, namely, that when young men and women study together they learn some things they might not otherwise learn in school. Therefore, it is monumental hypocrisy to attack de jure sexism while leaving the de facto form untouched. It is time to opt for minimum standards saying “Never!” to deliberate speed, letting the chips fall where they may, and pausing only to pluck the blossom equality from the nasty nettle sexism.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (24) | Leave a comment
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Appleby| 4.20.12 @ 8:29AM
I was fortunate enough to spend three of my four university years in a small liberal arts church-related [Presbyterian] college in Tennessee, where the student body of 750 was 85% people from New Jersey and New York who were hiding from the draft by studying for the ministry. Because it was such a small, isolated school and the student body were from a large metropolitan area, and there were only 2 television channels and everyone was watching "Laugh-In" and "George of the Jungle", we didn't pay much attention to all this stuff. When I went to take the LSAT, I joined 185 men and 5 women in a large Southern university where we five women were harassed and interrupted during our exam taking, by monitors who clearly thought Girls didn't have any business there, and indeed when I presented myself to the university as a candidate I was told candidly that it was no use training girls to be anything -- they just got pregnant and quit.
Unfortunately, this has in fact proved to be prophetic, although there are more women than men in law schools nowadays.
And the whole plan was blown to bits when Girls accepted the undeniable truth of the statement that men had to have sex every day or they would literally die. University became one giant cat house for the preservation of men, and it all went downhill from there.
That is of course absolutely silly. But it makes as much sense as what people were actually spouting in the 1960s. Me, I was concentrating on my goal of standing on every continent before I turned 22. And I did.
Alan Brooks| 4.20.12 @ 10:14PM
What about El Rushbo and his asinine "feminazi" designation?
Even a High School freshman writing his first piece in a school paper wouldn't write something as imbecilic as "feminazi".
Alan Brooks| 4.20.12 @ 10:21PM
Oh, by the way, chumps, Will last month predicted Obama will be re-elected. He's brighter than you.
Alan Brooks| 4.21.12 @ 1:36AM
I meant Will, but BOTH Will and Obama are wiser and smarter than you rubes.
drudge ette obama| 4.20.12 @ 8:55AM
First, if I comment on this 1970s article, does it make me 42 years younger?
Appleby, thanks for helping pave the way.
My school days were in the late 1970s and early 1980s. This was a time of mass confusion. There was just enough license for women and men to play around, but still enough bridle to cause some restraint.
I truly believe that sexual freedom has destroyed our culture. The young adults today are looking for meaning, a natural response to never being told no. I predict a rebound, and a reduction in tatooing.
Jerry| 4.20.12 @ 11:07AM
You mean 'sexual license'; true freedom liberates, while the unbridled sexual license promoted by our culture enslaves those people who never learned limits or the meaning of "no".
Beer f.m.h.| 4.20.12 @ 11:52AM
Wonderful nostalgia piece! May George Will keep writing for another 42 years.
Bob K.| 4.20.12 @ 11:57AM
This has to be from the days when "The American Spectator" was a large format tabloid magazine published in Indiana on newsprint paper.
I was told that those old magazines have disappeared and that the articles are no longer available. This must have been volunteered and forwarded by the author for publication here.
Those were the days! Somewhere in some boxes I have some of them stored away. I just can't find them after a series of moves.
Thank you, Mr. Will.
Bob K.| 4.20.12 @ 12:09PM
But in all seriousness, this half tongue in cheek article is so prescient it is almost scary!
c. j. acworth| 4.20.12 @ 12:44PM
I remember the old tabloid format TAS. As well as being a great read, you could roll it up and swat yapping liberals across the noe with it.
c. j. acworth| 4.20.12 @ 12:47PM
Or, you could swat them across the *nose*. (sheesh)
Occam's Tool| 4.20.12 @ 12:31PM
Yup. Quite scary, in its way.
Petronius| 4.20.12 @ 2:34PM
The womens lib movement has never been about any kind of advancement. It's another revenge club like the NAACP. The hags want the emasculation of men, and that was not accomplished by them. It was self inflicted. Most of the tough guys of the baby boom generation couldn't wait to get out of school, join the Marines, and go kill commies for Christ. The ones who survived LBJ's half assed crusade to limit communism in Asia drank themselves to death after, or didn't reproduce. The number of weenies in the white male population ballooned and now you meet many males over 40 who never got into a fist fight on the playground and never learned, ergo the crusade against bullies. And the weenies who run our schools want to feminize them too. So it's not just NOW but the girlie men who demand subjugation and extirpation of everything masculine. There are some places in the South and West where feminism never got a toe hold, but the metroplexes are full of 1/2 men and vindictive shrews. All unreconstructed White Men have been aware of what is happening Now for the passed 40 years. The only remaining question is, will this country collapse before we're too old to fight?
Alan Brooks| 4.20.12 @ 10:16PM
You ARE too old to fight, petroleumus. You are over the hill.
Purp| 4.21.12 @ 12:00PM
You tell these creeps Alan. They should become slaves of women and do what they are told. They don't deserve freedom.
Pat| 4.20.12 @ 2:43PM
“Men are pigs” – the decades roll by and that benediction never seems to change. Today, few women would consider Yenta the Matchmaker a suitable third party to arrange their marriage but employing a computer dating service to find a husband isn’t a betrayal of principle. Men are commitment phobic according to leading female dragons like Kay Hymowitz, not to mention perpetual teenagers and shirkers of their adult responsibilities. University admissions personnel can’t find eligible men in quantity to fill the open spots within incoming freshmen classes. Single motherhood is suitable revenge on male dominance and a government agency as the surrogate father and reliable bread winner is perfectly acceptable.
Things American are going to hell in a hand basket according to many, the center does not hold and the best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity – W. B. Yeats saw this rough beast slouching toward 20th century Bethlehem and we seem to fervently agree with his conclusions.
The list of male faults remains long and packed with emotion laden indictments, yet we Americans have supposedly reached the height of economic prosperity and human contentment. We’ve slain the other contemptible “isms”, stalemated the religious fanatics in their quest to remake the world in their own insane image and granted developing countries the freedom to progress in their own unique fashion or remain stuck in their individual squalor.
So, why the universal unhappiness? No more unexplored lands to conquer, no new enlightened causes to die for and no sense of community are perhaps the source of our national malaise. Yet, “Men are pigs” remains the one constant we can agree on. Perhaps our perpetual Child-Man has developed the perfect philosophy for surviving the 21st century.
Appleby| 4.20.12 @ 11:00PM
I saw an article in our local paper recently in which someone admitted to having done research on the "Women and Children First" meme, and discovered that lo and behold, in all cases save the Lusitania and the Titanic, the vast majority of those saved from disasters were men. Women came second, children last.
It seems the truth depends a lot on who's writing the story.
Pat | 4.21.12 @ 12:51AM
Interesting, but did your local story also report the research on how many of the rescuers doing this saving were men and how many were women? Probably right though, it does depend on who is telling the story.
Petronius| 4.20.12 @ 7:33PM
Pat
It's called PeterPantheism.
e track from saq| 4.20.12 @ 8:00PM
Fun question to ask.Can the Godless change reality?It seems they do,but for how long and at what cost.Conformal theory sings this song.Basic patterns are necessary to the fabric of this universe, and these patterns scale up and down.In this logic women are clearly the reversed pole of men.To take it further.women create the world in their minds ,men find out what women want and do it.Or as of late.not so much.Too bad,I hate to blame this messed up planet on bad girls but it sure is tempting.Oh I can be even more engineering,and add other parameters that seem to conform with a deeper structure but don't have quite the candle power to make it come clean.
But women are not men unless they change their spin.
Ed| 4.21.12 @ 2:55AM
Sorry I missed this piece in 1970. But then--I was too busy arguing with my feminist girlfriend that men and women really are different. Bravo George. Or is it Brava?
Pete| 4.21.12 @ 11:58AM
And where the Feminist when I was being drafted in 1970? Shouldn't they have been marching against the discrimination as no women were being drafted?
k. bourg| 4.22.12 @ 10:32PM
George was my gym teacher in 1970. He gave me a wedgy because of my political views. I had to purchase a new gym uniform. I'll never forgive George Will.