Mariann Lumsargis
The Paw Print
Modern madness was the only way to describe the scene in the kitchen. Maria Patricia Modeno rushed around the small space with ferocity worthy of a battle crazed tiger and as she tore through the foliage of plates, keys and cleaning implements, she was giving me a lecture.
“Do you know, Marianna that eighty percent of women in Mexico have to have a surgery done so they cannot produce bile? They are so used to swallowing so much abuse that their body creates too much, so they have to have this procedure done.” I was filled with admiration not at what she was saying, but how well Maria heaped the workload of four people onto herself. She was the only useful person in her house.
“The trick is, Marianna, not to let anyone step on you, especially here in Mexico where men are so used to being served.” In the height of her fervor, Maria even slowed for a moment.
“Look at me; I’m so much happier now that I’ve divorced my husband. I’ll never let another man ever use me again.”
Roberto, Maria’s son, sauntered in. He was not tall, but had enough flesh to feed a ravenous pride of lions. His hands, soft as a pair of fine leather gloves, betrayed the fact that he had never done an hour’s worth of work in his life, and I always thought it lucky for Roberto that he did not grow up during the eighteen hundreds. Otherwise it would be highly debatable whether he would know how to bathe or dress on his own.
“Mama,” he yawned. “Quiero un seis-tres-seis (I want a six-three-six),” he said lazily. That was Roberto’s way of saying he wanted six scrambled eggs, three hot-dogs, and six tortillas for his breakfast. After delivering these instructions to his mother, Roberto left. Maria would serve him his food in his room.
In her recent essay “Feminists are Not the Problem (Neither are Men)”, Dr. Mari Centeno wrote a response to my essay “The Inequality of Modern Equality.” Amongst other such assertions there was a claim that the paper was fallacious, because it was based on a “narrow and distorted use of the term feminist.” Dr. Centeno went on to say that “the type of feminism that Ms. Lumsargis roughly describes falls into a category known as second wave feminism,” which “had its hay day in the 1970s.” In other words, “The Inequality of Modern Equality” attacks a feminism which was prominent forty years ago, and which, if it exists, is fairly minor. It is odd that a feminism, which purportedly died away after the 1970s, is still being expressed by many prominent feminists today, as illustrated by Suzan Pinker’s The Sexual Paradox: Troubled Boys, Gifted Girls; And The Real Difference Between The Sexes published in March 2008.
Another criticism was that the “Inequality of Modern Equality” unjustly accuses feminism of promoting unequal pay, when in fact they advocate for it. Feminists created and support a legal stance called affirmative action, the idea that employers should hire without regard to gender, skin color, etc. While affirmative action promotes equal opportunity of work for all, in reality it does not promote equal pay. It does not address equal pay at all. The fact that affirmative action does not address pay equality and that feminists promote affirmative action far more strongly than equal pay, creates issues such as unemployment for men and less than ideal working conditions for women.
Perhaps the largest error Dr. Centeno makes is assuming that issues involving genders were used as an excuse to attack feminism and is a purely political statement. Instead it points out a fallacy, that to promote equality, feminists pressure society to acknowledge that the genders are practically the same. Feminists say they embrace their femininity; however, this difference for feminists consists of little more than outward physical features. The important differences between the genders are not only far greater than appearance, but almost totally denied. There is an ever increasing community of specialists who have become aware of these alarming phenomena of gender issues, especially regarding boys, for at least the past decade, including professionals like Dr. Paul D. Slocumb, author of Boys In Crisis, Dr. Leonard Sax, author of Why Gender Matters, Dr. Ruby Payne, author of Gender Differences In Metabolism, and Dr. Christina Hoff Sommers, author of The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism is Harming Our Young Men.
The misconception of genders being completely alike is fairly common. Lately there was an essay in Newsweek titled “Men’s Lib: To Survive in a Hostile World, Guys Need to Embrace Girly Jobs and Dirty Diapers. Why it’s Time to Reimagine Masculinity at Home and at Work.” The article expressed a concern for the apparent male crisis, but under this common misconception said that all that was needed was to teach boys to be like girls. Articles such as this one by Andrew Romano, Tony Dokoupil, Dr. Centeno’s “Feminists Are Not The Problem (And Neither Are Men)” reveal that much of our society still remains fully or partially unaware of the fact that ignoring differences in gender is impacting society. It is a well known fact in counseling that acknowledging a problem is half the trouble of fixing it. Until people realize there is a problem instead of asserting everything is fine or trying to teach the genders to be like each other, nothing will change, and a change where everyone brings their unique best, for the betterment of society, is something everyone can agree on as highly desirable.
What’s Been Said…