In 195 B.C., mobs of Roman women collected in the Forum and demanded the repeal of the Oppian Law of 215 B.C. This law had prohibited women from excessively adorning themselves with gold, wearing ostentatious dresses, or driving chariots. Cato the Elder, who had held the offices of quaestor and consul, warned his fellow men of the long-term consequences of giving in to the demands of the women. His words were uncannily accurate, and are worth quoting. He spoke to the men as follows:

“If we had, each of us, upheld the rights and authority of the husband in our own households, we should not today have this trouble with our women. As things are now, our liberty of action, which has been annulled by female despotism at home, is crushed and trampled on here in the Forum….Remember all the regulations respecting women by which our ancestors curbed their license….If now you permit them to remove these restraints…and to put themselves on an equality with their husbands, do you imagine that you will be able to bear them? From the moment that they become your equals, they will be your masters.” [Livy, Ab Urbe Condita, 34.1].

Note the last sentence. Have more prescient words ever been spoken regarding the female agenda? It is a lesson quite forgotten in modern America. Old Cato recognized that the nature of women is to use the idea of “equality” and such arguments as a smokescreen for their real ambition, which is supremacy. Supremacy over what? Over men, of course. And the ability to be unaccountable for anything they do as women.

Without a firm hand, feminine nature becomes destructive.

Nowhere is this truism more obvious today than in America, where women have used the mantras of “equality” and “fairness” to strip men of any remaining respect and authority they may once have had in the home, at work, and in popular culture. Women’s goal, of course, has been to cherry-pick the best of both systems: to enjoy all the benefits of traditional female roles (enjoying the financial support and respect of men), while at the same time dodging any of the responsibilities that such a traditional role demanded (respecting men, child rearing, homemaking, etc).

In this hypocritical charade, played out unrelentingly for the past 40 years, women have been almost completely successful. Feminists have cannily enlisted government power in support of their cause: the state itself has become for them the surrogate man. Who needs a man in the role of provider when you can get the government to support your baby and pay your bills?

If feminists truly believed in equality, they would practice it. Equality means paying your way, taking your lumps in life without complaining, and accepting the consequences for your actions. Of course, women never do this. There are consequences for male misbehavior, of course, but not for female misbehavior, which is actually rewarded, enabled, and praised in American culture.

Imagine conducting a thought experiment in which feminist mantras were actually put to the test. Imagine if there were a way to see if women really believed their shrieking about their reproductive rights, bodies, empowerment, fairness, and all the rest. As it happens, we may now have the right conditions to conduct such a test. Last week, the international news site Al Jazeera English reported that a new law in China proposed to penalize women for having children out of wedlock. I quote from the report below:

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“The plans, drawn up by family planning officials in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province, would target women who “knowingly have children out of wedlock”, according to a report in the Global Times newspaper. Unmarried mothers could be charged six times the annual per capita disposable income in Wuhan, a figure equivalent to about $26,000. Officials referred to the fines as “social compensation fees”.

Chinese state media said the law would help keep the birth rate low and aid family planning management.

The law was announced just days after a newborn baby boy was rescued from a sewage pipe in Zhejiang province. Reports suggest that the unmarried mother was shunned by the father (such is the social stigma of single parenthood in China).

Chen Yaya, of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, warned there could be more “sewer babies” if the policy is enacted.

Wang Qiong, a professor at Wuhan University, told the China Daily the regulation was “ridiculous”.

“What if a woman chooses to have a test tube baby without getting married? Should she also be fined?”

The Global Times said that the fines would target unmarried women who cannot prove the identity of the father of their child, or those who have a baby with men who they know have spouses.

Imagine that? Imagine proposing to hold irresponsible mothers to account for their actions! For a social problem that has reached epidemic proportions in the US, our glorious leaders have never even considered punishing women for their role in the reproductive process. Rather, men have been beaten into servitude with child support slavery. This goes without saying. “Man up!” we are constantly told. “Man up”! But if women really are responsible for their own bodies and decisions, as they claim to be, then they should be recognized as at least as culpable (if not more so) than the man in bringing a child into the world. A child who will, in all likelihood, be on the government dole in milliseconds after heaving the womb.

Of course, no American politician would dare advocate fining (or punishing in any way) an unwed mother for producing more government-supported spawn. This would be thoughtcrime, pure and simple. The proposed Chinese law exposes once again the hypocrisy and double standards inherent in Western feminist mantras.

We did it to ourselves. Or, I should say, our predecessors did it to us.

Men are to be punished, controlled, and made to pay. For everything, of course. Women are to be coddled, excused, and empowered. And men did it to themselves. Just today I witnessed the sickening and pathetic spectacle of American Generals at a Congressional hearing having to answer for an alleged “epidemic” of “sexual abuse” in the military. They all sat there, like penitent schoolchildren with chests full of medals, as they were verbally lashed by froth-mouthed feminist Congresswomen. Ah, humanity! I sometimes wonder what old Cato would say if he could see us now.

Read More: When Abortion Is the Best Option