Women Are the Chief Civilizing Influence in Society

Sometimes conservatives can sound hard and uncaring or unforgiving with some of the things they say. It is a danger always when one becomes excited, and too focused on the argument du jour. Such is the case when Rush Limbaugh refers to feminists as "feminazis." When Mike Adams rails against "womyn" at his college, he is not disparaging women in general, but a particular ideology that would pit men and women as enemies, when in fact we were literally made for each other. What Jonah Goldberg reminds us of in an article today at Townhall.com entitled Where Feminists Got It Right is that women have been the chief civilizing influence over society since the first cave man looked at the first cave woman, and the flinty glint in his eye softened just a tad. A quote from Goldberg:

The Taliban in Afghanistan is the most extreme example of the trend. Its members claim they want to keep the "chasteness and dignity" of women "sacrosanct," but it seems like what they really want is to protect themselves from the apparently hard work of not being a savage. So under the Taliban, women couldn't ride bicycles. They couldn't wear high heels because the sound of women's footsteps might excite men. Forget appearing on radio, TV or at public gatherings. Women couldn't step out onto their balconies.

And...

Forgetting the question of decency and morality for a moment, there's the matter of national interests. Female equality seems to be a pretty reliable treatment for many of the world's worst pathologies. Population growth in the Third World tends to go down as female literacy goes up. Indeed, female empowerment might be the single best weapon in the "root causes" arsenal in the war on terror.

The reason strikes me as fairly simple. Women civilize men. As a general rule, men will only be as civilized as female expectations and demands will allow. "Liberate" men from those expectations, and "Lord of the Flies" logic kicks in. Liberate women from this barbarism, and male decency will soon follow.

I have said before that the gun is a major civilizing influence, and it is. Guns allow the weak and infirm to be able to stand up to the young and strong. But the gun is a fall back position. Things have turned savage at that point, and there is no other options. Before we get there, our sons should be well trained in the art of being civilized, and treating all human life a precious, especially our daughters.