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Why don’t we value men the same as we value women?

December 16, 2010
By

Imagine in tragedies if white (Caucasians) deaths were considered more significant when the Titanic went down than that of other races. [What if Sully Sullen Burger has said “Republicans go the exits first and get in the life rafts?] How do we decide that one group has more value than another. What if a boat went down and we said “White men were among those who lost their lives.” As if a black women would not feel the same fear, the shocking cold, the concern for her own life and fear about who would take care of her partners and children.

So how is it that we still think women’s lives lost makes an event more tragic? Does it? Do you believe it does? If so, why? Why did, in today’s news about the”28 seeking asylum killed as boat smashes against the rock” exclude male deaths as somehow less tragic. Is it because we are so accustomed to men dying that we don’t notice or do women and children have more intrinsic value than men. And am I not being “Bond, James Bond” by even noticing my “feelings” about the disparity about how my gender is regarded? Am I being a baby, less of a man?

“Women and children were among the dead” — Western Australian State Premier Colin Bernett

As long as the press continues to avoid “Men, women and children killed” in such tragedies, as long as women having sex with children is less concern than men having sex with children, as long as a man slapping a wife is horrific while a wife slapping a husband is of little concern, as long as the gap between male to female longevity widens since 1920 from one year to seven years and we increase national health programs for women with none for men, as long as we tell our children that males need to learn to respect women but we don’t tell them to respect men, as long as men sit around like brain dead sheep while our sons learn that women’s feelings, lives, health, education, and income matters more than males, …

As long as we don’t protest such things we will find men losing children in custody battles. We will find men losing in court on all “he said she said” sexual or domestic violence issues. We will continue to find males sacrificed in war while both genders get equal credit. We will have schools teaching only where men fail in gender studies classes and not where we have succeeded in art, music, and medicine… or as fathers, brothers or husbands.

I get so sick of knowing that for me to bring up even one point, … in a party, about male suicides or women kicking ass in college I will hear, “poor babies, men have it so tough” ya, we do.

I want to say to people who think it’s a man’s world, mostly women think that but many men seem to also, “Go take your next lunch break at Arlington or go to the next mining disaster or watch the family waiting by the sea for a boat that isn’t coming back. Go talk to the man who hasn’t seen his children for four years, go to the VA hospital and see the man getting his 11th operation on his face, legs, … Go see the old man who was so disfigured from work or war that no woman wanted him or if he found a woman he was so disfigured that he could not have children,. Lock yourself in a closet for two days and then imagine being trapped in a coal mine a thousand feet down, cold, hungry, knowing you may never make it out. Go to the electric chair knowing that you are innocent and that history and your family will always doubt your side of the story. Get sentenced to death after the news first reported your heroic efforts to take your children from a burning home and then watch the fire crew using forensics prove you set the fire, go to your death and then years later and have new forensics prove that the early forensics was flawed, wrong. Imagine a woman trying to save her children in a fire, her pain for failing to do so, and then imagine her feelings as she is blamed, is in court, sees the jury say she is guilty, gets sentenced to death. A great movie, a JEP, women in jeopardy film, Sandra Bullock could play the part, we could all cry for her suffering, but hey, one man more or less, big deal.

Your children died, you suffer, and then go to your death knowing you were wrongly blamed. Would a mother have been executed or would they have faulted her husband, or the patriarchy, or mental illness, – a woman would have lived most likely.

Face the electric chair and realize that they are not going to reopen the case although new information seems compelling to some, … and you know you are innocent, but the “wheels of justice” that grind men to a pulp in American will not slow down for thee.

Watch Hillary, Obama, Biden, Pelosi all pretend that it’s American women who have paid a high price for gender and “By God they are going to fix it” while our sons, told to sit quietly in classes dominated by women get the message pounded into their heads, women matter more, women matter more… and then watch those boys grow to be men who read the news and get to “Even women and children” were bashed against the rocks, crushed in the cold waves, screaming for help” and watch those same men beat down after a lifetime of hearing that men are pigs … not even notice what the implication is when their gender is a subtext. Watch that man tell his wife “Even women and children” were killed as his own son listens.

They would notice if you said “Even Muslims” drowned, or even “Democrats” drowned, or “Doctors” drowned. They would wonder why that group was “special” but hey, men drowning, what the fuck, they were probably child rapists or wife beaters or …

OK Steven, step away from that third cup of coffee. It’s too early for that.

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