Letters to the Editor
Anonymous_Too
Published Letters: 101 Editor's Choice: 2
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Something I'd like to make clear
[Read the article: Katie Roiphe's morning after]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]is that I don't think my father and grandfather behaved as they did because they were men. I think it was because they could. They had insufficient empathy and impulse control, plus no external checks on their behavior. When they were in situations where they had external checks, like the workplace, they generally managed to control themselves.
Power corrupts.
Do women have too much power now and should the pendulum swing the other way? Until the draft is either leveled or eliminated and women are allowed into combat positions, and men are quitting their jobs to care for children at the same rate as women, then I think not. What I think is happening is that some men have figured out that feminism seriously reduces their access to and control over wives. Naturally, they're upset. I wouldn't expect them to be anything else.
My grandfather was definitely a boring old man, by the way. He wrote lengthy anti-Semitic diatribes until the day he died, and blamed the Jews for everything that went wrong in his life. He was also a staunch opponent of women's rights, but I think he knew that had feminism happened a few generations earlier, he would have been out on his rear.
What's interesting is that even his sons thought he was disgusting. Two of them left home before they turned 18.
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The good old days
[Read the article: Katie Roiphe's morning after]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]However, I doubt anything other than imprisonment would have changed my maternal grandfather. Sexual abusers don't stop their behavior because of laws or changed social and cultural attitudes. My guess is that he might have dropped his Klan membership. He would have kept raping his daughters.
The beauty of it is that imprisonment is now possible. Back when my grandfather was a husband and father, he would have had the same access to any daughters as he did to his wife. Thankfully, he had no daughters.
The more I think about it, the more I wonder about those who are longing for the good old days. Are they like Katie Roiphe, who appears to be pining for a knight in shining armor to sweep her off her feet? Or would they like to have the free and heavy hand that my grandfather had?
The traditional family structure is still possible, it just has to be done without coercion. Non-traditional structures are also possible, and I strongly encourage those men who think the female role is so great to try it on for size.