I have long held the belief that men have been major winners of the sexual revolution and that feminism has been to the detriment of at least some women. Victoria Bateman explains this in cogent terms here.
Bateman explains that the winners of sexual liberation feminism are middle-class women who can occupy jobs once reserved for their brothers, and the losers of the revolution are lower income women who believed they could have sex on the same terms as their men folk.
“Whilst poor, unskilled men have certainly lost out in the income stakes, many have received a bonus that matches that of any banker: it is a bonus paid in sex rather than money, and it’s not only women who are footing the bill, it is also hard working men paying their taxes – taxes which are being used to clear up the mess left by men who are not, like themselves, taking responsibility.”
She explains what our grandmothers always told us if we cared to listen: “When it comes to relationships, women have always faced a serious problem. Sex, in its natural form, is an unequal exchange: it leaves the woman with a risk of pregnancy. No matter how much feminism has taught women that they can enjoy intimacy as much as men, it is still an activity which, overall, brings greater net benefits to a man than it does to a woman. The dice are loaded in one direction, a direction that can leave women facing heavy costs, not only now but forever after.”
Go on Victoria, you are on to something here, I thought.
She explains that marriage was encouraged to even things out: “Marriage can be thought of as a commitment device, one invented by society in an effort to help even out the exchange. Without it men would have been able to shirk their responsibilities, making survival for women and their children – both male and female – somewhat precarious.”
“The marriage certificate was a woman’s security and was, as a result, placed in her hands alone.” Finally, we have a realisation that marriage protects women and children so we should strengthen it. Bring it on, I thought; only not. This is CapX so then came the fudge.
Marriage has been on the decline, due the welfare state and women’s empowerment, Bateman argues. Sure Victoria, but it was the feminists who trashed it – it is ‘a licence to rape and a patriarchal institution’, we were told.
Bateman leaves this bit out and the fact that it was the feminists who destroyed an institution best suited to protect women and children. And it was feminists who surrendered women’s role as moral arbiters of courtship and matrimony.
Again we are told: “Women are falling into the trap of assuming that the costs of sex are lower than they really are.” Never mind that this is pretty patronising to the poor little women falling down traps wherever they wander. Who laid this trap, might I ask? Was it the feminists, or the conservatives? It was the feminists who told women to gorge themselves on the all you can eat at the sexual buffet. It was the feminists who sold women this pup, that being equal to a man meant acting like him, and not just any old man either but the promiscuous ‘frat’ boys to boot.
Bateman is so very close yet so very far from realising her own hypocrisy. It was the feminists who wrecked the life chances for poorer women and their children – not the evil patriarchy.
It was the feminists who introduced no strings attached sex and when they cut those strings it was lower income women who plunged to the bottom of the murky river beyond. The middle-class ones got to climb the shiny corporate ladder instead.
Bateman explains the great sisterhood divide: middle-class women get their careers and committed men and the working class sisters get the welfare state. Sure, that is the prognosis for now. Mind you it seems commitment phobia is leaking even into middle-class men if you believe what you read in the paper. At least working class women have their babies to show for the commitment free sex, now all some middle-class women have are frozen eggs in a freezer at the IVF clinic.
Bateman tells us again “Sex has simply become too cheap.”
You don’t say, but who made it so cheap? Women, particularly naive women egged on by the stupid feminists. And how does Bateman intend to make it more expensive again? Are we to re-attach said strings to the act? Are we to take to public shaming of men who do not commit? Can we resurrect the chaperone and the labels ‘rouge’ and ‘scoundrel’?
When conservative women say sex has become too cheap we are labelled the following: reactionaries, throwbacks to the 50’s, prudes and slut shamers. But the truth is that women have been the gatekeepers to sex and always will be. They control the price, which has been lowered mainly by feminists for the last forty years by making it so available. Hell, according to some magazines, women are expected to turn tricks that previously only a prostitute would be expected to do and at least got some financial compensation for it.
This brings me finally to the issue of ‘slut shaming’. Feminists blame men for this. But this is patently absurd. It is women who do this in a desperate bid to control the price of the product – namely sex.
As any good economist should know promiscuous behaviour lowers the price not just for those who participate in the promiscuous behaviour but for those who do not or would rather not also. Slutty behaviour and its close cousin ‘husband stealing’ is bad for us all. It is the reason for the well-known teenage boy plea – but everyone else is doing it so why can’t we? If everyone else is indeed doing it then it is harder for that particular girl to say no and so on. But I doubt Bateman and her ilk can even grasp this matriarchal common sense either.
She concludes that poor women still need our help and that feminism can give it. But it is feminism that has caused so much of the damage to poor women in the first place. If this so-called help (I think Bateman means government programmes) continues there will be very little left.
The feminists have done enough damage. They need to clear off and leave us to clean up the mess.
