The Oligarchess Returns

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I like to listen to “Morning In America” as I drive to the Park-n-Wait each morning, and this morning I listened to the usually intelligent Bill Bennett interview Kathleen Parker. You know, the woman who said that bloggers are the “insidious enemies of decency, humanity and civility - the angry offspring of narcissism's quickie marriage to instant gratification.”
The woman is pure class, without a doubt.

This morning, Ms, Parker was opining on the state of the poor downtrodden male underclass. It seems that Ms. Parker, along with Dr. Bennett, believes that men are commonly the object of ridicule in television and movies, that many programs and businesses go out of their way to cater to women at the cost of men, and that the slide of pro-women, anti-male legislation has increased in both pace and effect. To this degree I find some common ground with Ms. Parker and the good Doctor.

However, from this point Ms. Parker went on to explain her help with the site “Save the Males”, which analogy Dr. Bennet found amusing. I did not. The implication that males are, as a whole, as helpless as beached whales, unable to help themselves and so in need of the mercy of kind-hearted women like Parker is so false as to be insulting, and ironically demonstrates that Parker actually is part of that derision for men and gender elitism that she pretends to fight against. Ms. Parker, for example, said on the show that she wants to help men “come out of hiding”, as if these poor timid souls cannot face the cruel injustice of the woman-dominated world. Parker went on to blame “sexually aggressive” women for the prevailing anti-male mood and her belief that men have gone into hiding. She even went to so far as to say that movies like “Brokeback Mountain” confuse men about their identity and roles, so that we are unable to find anyone to emulate. The Duke is gone, oh whatever shall we men do?

As if. Men are hardly about to faint from the stress of trying to satisfy the demands of feminists, nor are they weak-willed flowers cowering behind the shelter of a nanny or the obsolete memory of past glory. Ms. Parker makes the error of generalizing men, presuming that they are all similar in scope and character. Men continue to dominate government, business, science, all sorts of venues. The hottest TV show features a clearly dominant male. The top authors in many genres of fiction are male. The top athletes are male.

Of course, women are making their mark as well. After all, if we are to talk about Ken Lay, let’s not forget Martha Stewart. If we are to note the hypocrisy of Ted Kennedy talking about ethics, let’s not miss Hillary Clinton talking about the ‘plantation’. If we must wallow at the malicious level of E.J. Dionne, we certainly can’t leave out Maureen Dowd. If we recall the clueless sanctimony of a John Kerry, let’s not forget his charming wife Tereza. Way to go, ladies, you have made your mark indeed. We will sort out later who has to go clean it up.

Don’t worry about us men, though. We will be fine, as always.