Feminist control of the media

2013-05-16-Politico-Summers-Baskell-Samuelsohn-sexual-assault-scandal-becomes-a-pentagon-test

Sexual assault scandal becomes a Pentagon test
By: Juana Summers and Stephanie Gaskell and Darren Samuelsohn
Politico, 2013-05-16

A burgeoning sex-abuse scandal in the military
is emerging as a true test of whether the Pentagon can
change its culture,
stamp out a rampant ill and
drag itself into the modern age.

...

[The article continues in that vein,
with quotes from feminist senators and the Service Women's Action Network.
There seems little or no attempt to obtain a balanced view on the issue.
The view: the military is wrong, wrong, wrong.]

2013-08-14-NYT-germany-fights-population-drop

Germany Fights Population Drop
By SUZANNE DALEY and NICHOLAS KULISH
New York Times, 2013-08-14

[The comments and emphasis are (obviously) added.]

...

Large families began to go out of fashion
in what was then West Germany in the 1970s,
when the country prospered
[Wait a minute.
The 1970s were also when feminism began making
strong inroads among Western women,
feminism which encouraged women to believe that a career was as important,
and (many feminists suggested) even more important than children.
And many women took that advice, evidently not worried about the race suicide
that would follow if that advice was followed consistently.
To blame the falling birthrate on German prosperity and not on feminism
seems to me like a blatant, obvious attempt to mislead,
part of the general pattern of seeing
only the supposedly good things that feminism brings,
but none of the problems it brings,
e.g., the way it harms children
and loads social costs on nations that adopt it
that render them uncompetitive with nations
that have less "enlightened" social policies.]
and the fertility rate began dropping to about 1.4 children per woman
and then pretty much stayed there,
far below the rate of 2.1 children that keeps a population stable.
Other countries followed, but not all.
There is a band of fertility in Europe,
stretching from France to Britain and the Scandinavian countries,
helped along by immigrants and social services that support working women.

Raising fertility levels in Germany has not proved easy.
Critics say the country has accomplished very little
in throwing money at families
in a system of benefits and tax breaks
that includes allowances for children and stay-at-home mothers,
and a tax break for married couples.

Demographers say that a far better investment
would be to support women juggling motherhood and careers
by expanding day care and after-school programs.
They say recent data show that growth in fertility
is more likely to come from them.

“If you look closely at the numbers,
what you see is the higher the gender equality,
the higher the birthrate,”

said Reiner Klingholz of the Berlin Institute for Population and Development.

...

[Wait a minute.

In the first place,
that contradicts the just prior observation in this very article
that the fertility rate in Germany dropped in the 1970s,
just when feminism became popular throughout the West.
In other words,
pre-1970 Germany combined higher fertility with lower gender equality.

In the second place,
in areas of the world where the birthrate is considered unsustainably high,
such as sub-Saharan Africa in general and in particular, say Nigeria,
or much of the Muslim world,
the reason is given as a lack of gender equality.
On the other hand, when the birthrate is considered unsustainably low,
for example, among the non-Hispanic white population of Europe and the U.S.,
the reason is again given as a lack of gender equality.
See the pattern here?
Whatever the problem is, the answer is always: More gender equality!
While the "authorities" spouting such obvious propaganda
carefully avert looking at how feminism has caused
the declining birthrate among non-Hispanic white women.

Let me try to answer a valid objection feminists might make
to part of my argument above.
Feminists have said that
the problem in the less-developed parts of the world is
the lack of educational opportunities for women,
while the problem in the more-developed regions is
the lack of support for working women with families.
Both problems fall under the general agenda of “gender equality”,
but they surely are different issues.
So my equating of the two problems really was a bit of a cheap shot,
sort of a late-night comics approach to issues.
But the rest of my counter-argument I believe still is valid.
In particular,
the economic load on nations that feminists impose
with their agenda of demanding that
the government or employers pay for the work wives once did for their families
in the areas of care for their children and care for their older relatives.
The problem is that once general society pays for
all the extra child care workers and elderly care workers,
not to mention the expanded health care that women seem to want more than men
(has anyone noticed a poll on gender issues on ObamaCare?),
there is less money to pay the workers who actually produce
the goods that women, and everyone else, wants—
the various things that we all buy in stores or on-line.
So there is more pressure to find people who will make those goods for less,
i.e., the pressure to off-shore jobs.
And we know the problems that is causing to the economy and the social fabric,
not to mention the fact that the trade deficit cannot be sustained forever,
which will cause unknown but devastating problems to America in the future.

I suggest that the argument that feminism is a direct cause
of many of the nations current social and financial problems
is a valid one.]