In my grandfather’s time in post-WWII Korea, many men were womanizers. Why? Because they could. They had money, power, education, careers, and housewives. Women back then had no such advantages. Fast-forward to today in 21st-century America. Now, women have money, power, education, careers, and house husbands. Not all the inequality has disappeared. But the playing field has leveled quite a bit. A man who womanizes these days could be called a gigolo. The tables have been turned.
Let’s remember Francois Mitterand, the French president back in the 1980’s and 1990’s. He had a wife and a mistress. And everybody knew about it. Apparently, those two women got along. And when he passed on, the mistress turned out to have business acumen and became successful. Of course, it would never work here, unless Stormy Daniels was Trump’s mistress, and Melania his wife. At least Stormy got a book and movie deal from her affairs.
At the University of Michigan, Dr. Catherine Mackinnon, a radical feminist, wants to outlaw pornography. I do not want to evaluate the moral implications of her cause. Let’s just say that a woman who wants to engage in pornography is very different from a woman who is forced to. The first is liberated; the second is enslaved. What’s for sure is that dismantling a multi-billion-dollar industry means a very unattractive black market to replace it.
So where does all this lead us? First of all, we cannot go back to the bad old days. Another feminist, Dr. Susan Okin, highlighted the many ways in which gender-based discrimination defeats women’s aspirations. Understandably, she defended the reforms that made social and political equality a reality for women. But can we carve out a whole new gender-equitable world-order simply because we want one or need one?
It all depends on the crystal ball that today’s youth peer inside of. You can tell a lot about a culture from its treatment of half its population. A culture that treats women as second-class citizens, thwarts their professional advancement, and overlooks their equal treatment before the law will be empty soon. Ultimately, the young men and women of the world will boldly determine if we see heightened enlightenment or degrading barbarism in gender relations.
We are now in 21st-century post-modern Western civilization. When I left the U.S. in 2010 for an overseas job, I was struck by how many people wanted to get into the U.S and how few wanted to leave it. I returned three years later with a renewed appreciation for the gender equality I experienced prior to leaving the U.S. It is something I am acclimated to. It is written in this country’s Declaration of Independence!
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all (wo)men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.…”
J.J.
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