Feminist Shtick

Shtick is a Yiddish term that describes a gimmick presented with barely a straight face by someone who knows that the gimmick is not really sincere. It is Rodney Dangerfield telling audiences, "I don't get no respect," or Jack Benny saying he is 39. Shtick is also old, limp cant offered up as serious and new. Virtually all feminism today is shtick. No serious person can believe the whining voices telling us that women are oppressed by men. Hillary, whose career has been built about being Mrs. William Jefferson Clinton, in her debate with Bernie Sanders drones on about how she cannot be part of the establishment because she is a woman. What can one say about this sort of nonsense? If she were in the Catskills, Hillary would need to preface that statement with "…but seriously, folks."

Women in America are not "oppressed" in any way at all. Men, in fact, have more reason to complain than women, but all forms of gender politics by women or by men are nonsense. Consider the old complaint that women earn less than men. This ignores the type of work done by women and by men. The really dangerous jobs, which pay more because of the dangers associated with the work, are done by men. Most women work in schools or offices, with all the non-monetary benefits that brings. Long haul truckers, who have to drive non-stop for many hours and shower in truck stops, do much harder work than secretaries or sales staff in a mall. Men also work in the jobs most looked down on by society. While it is almost mandatory to say weepily what important jobs public school teachers have – even as our kids learn less and less the more time they spend with these teachers – who talks about the vital work done by wastewater repair crews or power line workers or garbage trucks drivers? Does anyone ever thank these men? The invented "income inequality" between men and women not only dismisses the danger and unpleasantness of the work but also the hours worked, which of course affects the income. Feminist shtick, like some vaudeville comical routine, ignores what really matters and focuses on itself. Even sillier (except that too many naïve and angry women buy feminism as true) is the idea that women are worse off economically than men. Women have most of the wealth, even if they do not earn most of the wealth. Mass Mutual Financial Group reported in 2007 that women over 50 own seventy-five percent of the nation's wealth. Just as importantly, an estimated 85% of consumer purchasing decisions are made by women. If most of the wealth in America is owned by women and this wealth disparity is growing even though men earn more, what is the logical conclusion of those two facts? Men earn the money, but women get the money earned. With married couples, this means that the husband may work longer hours at more demanding jobs while the wife works as needed (and takes care of the kids). Beyond that, because most tax dollars are levied against income and not property, men are compelled to pay taxes, and what is left over is spent by women. Even worse, because at the lowest income levels women with children on welfare get checks from the state and non-income benefits and the fathers are compelled to pay child support for these children, the true desperate poor in America are single men. None of these is truly reflected in notional "income inequality" between the sexes. Or consider another area of discriminatory treatment against males. Black leaders have long complained about the high percentage of blacks in our criminal justice system, and the left agrees, but the Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that 94% of all prison inmates are male. If it is evidence of bigotry when whites, who are 75% of the population, are 42% of the prison population, what does it mean when women, who are more than 50% of the population, are only 5% of the prison population? Or what does it mean when males, who until 1950 had a longer life expectancy than women, now lives fewer years? Indeed, the female majority in America is very recent. Medical advances, all the griping about "women's health" notwithstanding, have helped women more than men. Feminism, which once pronounced itself the liberator of all, has descended into the depressing parroting of complaints that is the hallmark of all selfish interest groups. Feminism, today, is just shtick.