Rise of the feminist propaganda state



By Carey Roberts Remember that famous line from George Orwell's"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others"? Mr. Orwell, here are two more examples to add to your collection:1. On April 20 last, sports pages around the country featured a picture of the Catherine Ndereba of Kenya with upraised arms, the "winner" of the Boston Marathon. She won not by virtue of being the fastest runner, but because the female runners had started the race 29 minutes before the men.That day the Boston Globe ran an article carrying the headline, "New Rule Engenders Equal Footing." ( www.boston.com/.../new_rule_engenders_equal_footing/ ) If giving women a half hour head-start is an "equal footing," then would someone please explain inequality to me?2. Fox News ran an article in late August about American military women in Iraq ( www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,130106,00.html ). This was the lead sentence: "Today, equality of the sexes includes dying in combat."The article highlighted the statistic that 24 female soldiers had died in Iraq. As of that time, one thousand American troops had perished — 24 female and 976 male. If we do a little math, it turns out that only 2.4% of combat deaths are female. That's equality of the sexes?In both stories, the reporter massacred the obvious meaning of "equality." But where was the outrage? The fact that no one murmured a word of protest says something about the mental anesthesia that grips our collective awareness.In his recent bookProfessor Richard Rise of Texas A&M; University notes, "the female propaganda machine is relentless." My last four columns have traced the outlines of this machine:First, erect an elaborate mythology that begins with the Great Myth of Patriarchy. Then embellish it with a series of urban legends that "men have all the power," "marriage is a legalized form of slavery," and so on. Remember that emotional impact, not historical accuracy is what counts ( www.mensnewsdaily.com/archive/r/roberts/2004/roberts100604.htm ).Then introduce a gender perspective to the mass media. Portray men as unworthy and women as entitled. Never allow men to be depicted as victims. There's nothing subtle here — the key is the sheer mind-numbing repetition of the Ms.-Information ( www.mensnewsdaily.com/archive/r/roberts/2004/roberts092204.htm ).Take the claim that women suffer from wage discrimination, for instance. On the average, women are paid 76 cents for every dollar that men earn. Groups such as the National Center for Policy Analysis have found that when differences in work hours and other factors are taken into account, the gender wage gap disappears ( www.ncpa.org/pub/ba/ba392/ ).But during last week's presidential debate, one of the candidates couldn't resist the urge to dust off the old canard that women receive unequal pay for equal work. Score one for the rad-fem PR campaign.Third is the tactic of inciting gender conflict. V.I. Lenin employed the concept of class consciousness to instigate class warfare. As an offshoot of Marxist-Leninist thought, it is no surprise that radical feminism now seeks to promote gender consciousness in order to drive a wedge between men and women. Women have been put upon all these years, so isn't turn-about fair play? ( www.mensnewsdaily.com/archive/r/roberts/2004/roberts101304.htm In the final phase of the propaganda campaign, everyday speech becomes sprinkled with ideologically-loaded words like "gender." Male-derivative words like "chairman" are banned, but female expressions like "Mother Earth" continue in use. Once persons internalize the terminology and logic of Fem-Speak, you could almost say they have become brainwashed ( www.mensnewsdaily.com/archive/r/roberts/2004/roberts092804.htm ).So when mainstream media outlets such as the Boston Globe and Fox News use the word "equality" to denote its exact opposite — and nobody seems to mind — you know that we're in trouble.Almost sixty years ago George Orwell wrote a prescient essay titled "Politics and the English Language." Deploring the way language was being used to manipulate and deceive, Orwell wrote: "Political language...is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."Who can doubt that the feminist propaganda campaign has now reached Orwellian proportions? Welcome to the world of Fem-Prop.© Carey Roberts