In my article I suggest that one key factor in bringing us to this state of affairs has been the persistent erosion of the gender polarity that occurred throughout the 20th century. Throughout the last century feminist writers kept telling us that gender is irrelevant in man-woman relationships, including the relationship of marriage. What happens if you consider gender to be a functional irrelevancy long enough is that suddenly same-sex marriage, in which gender is a formal irrelevancy, starts to seem a lot more plausible.
Back in the 18th and 19thcentury many female thinkers believed they were defending their sex precisely through maintaining gender distinctions. While they would sometimes offer appropriate challenges to our picture of what constituted conventional “feminine” virtues and roles, most took it for granted that there was a significant difference between being masculine and being feminine. Moreover, these differences were seen to be central to the very the glory of being a woman or being a man. For example, the Victorian writer Elizabeth Wordsworth once noted that “In an ideal state of society we never lose sight of the womanliness of women…why should it be considered a compliment to any woman to be told she writes, paints, sings, talks, or even thinks, like a man?”
By contrast, 20th-century feminist writers begin to see themselves as defending women precisely through their attempts to homogenize the gender polarity. No longer is it uplifting to emphasize the womanliness of women, as Elizabeth Wordsworth had done; but neither is it uplifting to explicitly praise women for being like men. Rather, under the feminist androgyny and egalitarianism of the 20th century, the greatest gift we can give to women is to question the very category of womanliness. (See my article at the Salvo blog, 'Too Feminine?')
As feminists continually downplayed the significance that gender had within society, reducing it to an irrelevancy like the color of a person’s eyes, it was inevitable that we would reach a point where gender is seen to be irrelevant in marriage too. As the significance of gender was gradually evaporated from the outworking of marriage, it was inevitable that we would reach a point where it no longer seemed so strange for it to also be evaporated from the definition of marriage itself.
What started with feminism attempting to empty marriage of all gender roles, ends up with the homosexual community attempting to empty marriage of any necessary relation to gender whatsoever. Suddenly the notion of same-sex 'marriage' no longer seems so strange.
To read my entire article about this, click on the following link:
Further Reading
ReplyDeleteAll too true, but . . . where's "the rest of the story"? as Paul Harvey would say. A half truth is nothing more than a lie.
The rest of the story is not just about the 'left', but about the 'right' and how the two are more alike than not - about propaganda, pr, Freud and his nephew Eddie Bernays, that use women as "market expansion" and turn women into sex objects for psychological manipulation and turning of citizens into consumers.
The opposite side of the coin of feminism androgeny is the fashionista 'girlie girl', aka the valley girl. See the Torches of Freedom campaign, and especially The Century of the Self by Adam Curtis.
The rest of the story is how the aristocracy (oligarchy) is not the uprighteous defender of tradition that conservative love affair with Burke 'n Kirk would have them be. All too often that is only superficial, while underneath is seething boredom with past and present, and desire to be champion of futurism while maintaining prestige of position, wealth and power. English aristocracy (and
likewise American oligarchy) has always been really interested only in the future because restless leisure class is perpetually bored
with the past and the present, and always looking forward to future change, and to some way of holding onto such privilege in the face
of changing times.
The other side is the failure of the aristocracy/oligarchy to live the Christian Ideal which is what gives rise to the atheistic pursuit of modernism. After all, it's the aristocracy's own notion that they are "responsible" for upholding society/civilization by nature of their 'position' which relies on a structured class society. Such 'responsibility' is 'paternal', the opposite side of the coin of what is called the 'nanny' state which is the proverbial pot calling the kettle black. The nanny state came into being and exists because of the failure of the aristocracy and 'democratic' republican oligarchies to do their 'duty' and see to it that the needs of their underlings were provided.
Read G.K. Chesterton for a more balanced insight into the modern world that is not monomaniacally focused from the 'right'. Through his writing it becomes apparent that the world has substantially changed very little in over a century.
Chesterton is known as a 'complete' thinker, and the Apostle of Common Sense. See 'What's Wrong With The World' where Chesterton expounds upon Hudge and Gudge, the aristocracy as the driving force behind 'right' and 'left'. A century after Chesterton, the video works of Adam Curtis, Scott Noble, and John Pilger, show that Chesterton was right about left and right. Others before them like Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler (War is a Racket), Franklin ‘Chuck’ Spinney, and Anthony C. Sutton have also contributed to that revelation of reality.