Perhaps a Little Skepticism Is In Order?

Living in the same house with a feminist, who believes that the ONLY reason girls prefer to play with dolls is because that is how they are raised, I often find myself in hot water.  In other words she believes in nurture, not nature.  Of course, when she needs to, she is perfectly capable of playing the "but I'm just a girl" card, so there is that.

I have given up trying to explain that men, on average, are better at mathematics and science than women on average. But that "on average" is important because is says nothing about an individual person. I have known mathematical geniuses who are women. I have known more than my share of men who were mathematical dunderheads as well. Women on average are more drawn to become nurses, probably because it fits with their natural feelings of nurturing. But I know male nurses, and these guys aren't pansies. The point is that there are differences between men and women besides their plumbing, and those differences probably allowed us to survive long enough to be having these discussions today.

Whatever our philosophical disagreements, we both agree that women can be as ruthless, and predatory as can men.  So it was interesting to read Fay Voshell's piece today at American Thinker entitled Both Men and Women Can Be Sexual Predators. Voshell, coming from a Christian tradition notes that God makes no distinctions between men and women here. As St. Paul says, all have fallen short and deserve to die. But we are all, as she notes, redeemable.   What Voshell is arguing for is the same skepticism we give to those who commit other crimes. 

Maybe there is a little room for realistic cynicism.

As Angelo Codevilla recently pointed out, “Men, but mostly women, have been trading erotic services for access to power since time began.” As he observed sexual power plays during his eight years on the Senate staff, “Access to power, or status, or the appearance thereof was on one side, sex on the other. Innocence was the one quality entirely absent on all sides.”

Codevilla’s point is that all sexual transgression, including bargaining and power mongering, is held to be entirely the fault of men. But not all can be blamed on what radical feminists see as an inherently detestable and predatory patriarchy.

Women can be just as predatory as men, sexually and otherwise. Though assigned invisibility by most contemporary feminists who have a vested interest in the myth of women as always and forever victims of men, Phyllis Chesler and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, both cool-headed analysts, have shown that women can be as cruel and heartlessly manipulative toward men and other women as men can be toward women and other men.

Matt Lauer is the latest to be summarily fired based on being merely accused. NBC can, of course, do what it wants. Is Matt Lauer a cad? I don't know. And now I hear that Garrison Keillor has been fired as well. Both men were leftist, so one is tempted to allow oneself a moment of schadenfreude, but Christ's admonition is to pray for those who persecute you. Perhaps before these men are tried and found guilty in the kangaroo court of public opinion, some healthy skepticism is in order?