Male-Female Equality, Sexual Harassment and Misandry (Hatred of Men)
Harvey Weinstein. Donald Trump. Bill Cosby. Kevin Spacey. Roy Moore. John Conyers. Al Franken. Trent Frank. Matt Lauer. The list goes on. Powerful men are being accused of sexual harassment or impropriety. Some accusations are definitely true. Others are questionable. Some incidents are alleged to have taken place within the last three years. Others purportedly occurred 20 to 50 years ago. I didn't jump on the Michael Brown bandwagon right away; because, I wasn't certain that he had clean hands or that shooting him wasn't Officer Darren Wilson's only option, given Mr. Brown's size and actions. Neither did I jump to conclusions when Bill Cosby or Harvey Weinstein were accused of sexual improprieties. Eventually the number of shootings of unarmed Black men by White officers grew and I learned of a few accounts wherein the officer was clearly in the wrong. I finally could fathom supporting the Black Lives Matter Movement's pretext for its protests. In like manner, I now have learned of enough accounts of sexual harassment by men of power such that I can in good conscience say of the women who are coming forth that, "They can't all be lying".
Sorry, ladies, but I don't subscribe to the thinking that I'm supposed to immediately believe any woman who says that she was raped or otherwise wronged by a man. Let's not forget about Mike Tyson's rape case. Some serious doubt has been shed on the story of his accuser. Don King had reasons to have Mike set up. The accuser's friends supposedly came forth to say that she was a gold digger. I don't particularly care for Mike Tyson. Despite his awesome fighting ability, I've always thought that he was somewhat dingy. Still, he deserves a fair judgment, not to have people rush to judgment based on an irrational emotion or demand that men always believe the woman who claims to be a victim. Then there is the account of a woman who was purportedly raped at U. VA, that story having been published by Rolling Stone magazine. In case you just crawled out from under a rock, that story was proven to have been a fabricated lie. Something only has to happen once in order for there to be proof that it can happen. So we now know that a woman can have her false story of having been wronged by a man published in a well-respected publication. Given the Rolling Stone article and any other high profile false accounts that may be out there, a rational man or woman is not going to immediately assume that everything they hear about a woman having been victimized by a man is true.
Furthermore, if a woman tells me that John hit Mary, I will continue to ask "Why???" no matter how many times you freak out on me and exclaim, "Why???!!! Wha da ya mean, 'Why???' !!! A MAN hit a WOMAN!!!" In the spirit of equality, I expect a woman to be as rational and well-behaved as men are supposed to be. Don't swing on a man first if you can't fight like a man. Cutting you slack just because you're a woman, physically weaker and full of emotion is not equality. If I were to initiate violence against a man, I'd expect him to retaliate. A rational woman should expect the same. I'm not alone in this respect. As this watershed moment continues, other men and I discuss whether or not we believe the latest account of sexual harassment. Then we talk about the issue as a whole and what it means for the battle of the sexes. It's not all in favor of women and their emotions either.
On several occasions over the last few months -- especially in the last couple of weeks -- I've encountered groups of men who were discussing the myriad of cases of powerful men who were being accused of sexual harassment or rape. Of course, we mention the fact that no action is being taken to deal with 45 who has clearly done at least some of what he was accused of. He's gone so far as to throw his support behind a senatorial candidate who many (including myself) strongly believe is guilty of at least some of what he's accused of. These male acquaintances of mine also mention how that women seem to be on a mission to bring down as many men as possible. There's a word for that: Misandry. I'd wager that most of those who know what misogyny is don't know what misandry is -- a result of over-emphasis in our society on portraying women as victims. When they are, I feel for them -- when they are. These men also talk about how long some of these supposed victims waited to tell their stories -- 20, 30, 40 and even 50 years -- and they go on to say that these women are only telling their stories when doing so might prevent the accused man from rising to a position of power or bring him down from power. This truth, along with the congressional pay-outs, raises questions around motives. Were it just a matter of getting justice, then it would have made more sense to report these men immediately after the commission of the offense or in the woman's early adult.
Logically speaking, I don't expect a 14-year old to have the presence of mind to report sexual abuse to the authorities such that her account is believed. I do make some allowances for emotion. Even so, I'd say that someone who was sexually assaulted in childhood should have until their 25th birthday to report the abuse and two years thereafter to bring all evidence that can be gathered. Someone who was abused, harassed or raped in adulthood should have no more than five years from the date of the alleged offense to report it and two years thereafter to compile all evidence. Once any of these time limits have expired, a statute of limitations should take effect. Additionally, once the statute of limitations kicks in, the supposed victim who was too slow to bring their case to the authorities should be forbidden to bring their story to the media. If they do, they should be sued for libel in what would prove to be an open-and-shut case. This combination of laws would eliminate any misandristic games.
As these men who are discussing the wave of allegations of sexual harassment talk about the length of time that many of the women have waited and what that means, I use the moment to promote male-female equality. I've actually developed a spiel for the matter and it goes something like this:
My brand of equality is the polar opposite. I present my reasoning to women with the assumption that they are able to understand it. I've had women commend me for not talking down to them like they're imbeciles -- even before the term "mansplaining" existed. Sometimes while I'm conversing with a woman, I'll notice that the topic has both rational and emotional prongs to it. When I perceive that we're approaching a fork in the road, I'll take steps to ensure that we travel down the rational prong -- not the emotional one. For the most part, there's no need for me to tell her that's what I'm doing. As she speaks, I'll engineer my next statement to bring forth an analysis of the problem we're discussing or to present an idea. It's an approach I've used for a number of years. Only on rare occasions do I ever see the need to tell the woman to be rational. Just for the record, with the degree to which the men's rationale and conceptual thoughts have been suppressed, I sometimes have to tell men the same thing. There's equality for you.
An aspect of equality that doesn't get enough attention is the matter of equal pay for equal work. We know that some people are paid salaries, some do piece work and others receive hourly pay. When it comes to hourly pay, I have a few quick of stories from the same job site:
1 -- I was working on the Disney Boardwalk in Florida when it was under construction. One day I saw a tiny Hispanic woman who was about 4' 6" and 70 pounds soaking wet. I told the men that we should carry the heavy items and leave the lighter stuff for this woman and at least one other woman on the site that day. The foreman, named Edgo, immediately put me in check by saying, "No!!! If women come on a man's job, they need to do what the men do!!!". Edgo was a nice guy whom I got along with well. However, my suggestion really struck a nerve.
2 -- On that same job site I saw a 250-lb man and a 170-lb man working together to carry a 30 or 40-lb roll of tar paper. They walked very slowly. I had two rolls -- one on either shoulder. As I passed them, I asked why they were working together on one roll. They said to me, "The women are getting paid the same thing as us; and we're only going to do what a woman can do".
3 -- There was a moment on that site where the tiny Hispanic woman was trying to carry a large box. She asked me to help her. I got in position and then realized that, despite its size, it was relatively light. It may have been insulation or sound-proofing foam. I saw that she was having trouble holding it with her short arms. I grabbed the box and carried it by myself. As I did that, I saw the look on her face and realized that she was struggling to justify her presence on the job site. I quietly decided that I wouldn't do that to her anymore.
These stories help to shed light on matters related to the issue of equal pay for equal work. We have an employer who demands that women do what the men do -- which is not always possible. He has a legitimate point though, given the fact that the various laborers on that job site were receiving the same pay. We have the matter of a decreased work ethic wherein the men refuse to do all that they can do if women get the same pay for doing less. We have the matter of me possibly working together with a woman to do what I could have done by myself with no trouble. I can see why some employers complain about getting less work done per employee when women are on the job. As much as I support equality, I must admit that these employers have a legitimate point.
It's easier to see the decrease in productivity on manual labor jobs than it is to see it on jobs that consist largely of thinking and planning. The longer the period of time over which plans are being made and the more moving parts the planners have to consider, the harder it is to measure productivity. If I were digging a ditch for an outdoor sprinkler system -- 18 inches deep and one ditch shovel wide -- I could be expected to dig one foot of length per minute. A foreman who returns two hours after I've started and finds that I've only gotten 50 feet along would have no problem building a case against me for slacking off. DC Government began working on ending homelessness in 2004 when the city had 8,253 homeless people. The glitch patter has gotten us to a place where we counted 7,473 homeless people in 2017. That's a decrease of 780 homeless people (9.45%) in 13 years. The dozens of "professionals" who "work" to address homelessness always come up with a line of reasoning that sounds good to the public and serves as a legitimate excuse for failure or insufficient success -- in their eyes. There is a mix of both men and women working on DC homelessness; so, I'm not building the case for decreased productivity when women do a certain job. I'm instead demonstrating the difficulty in detecting an inexcusable lack of productivity among the administrator types versus the ease with which a foreman can determine that a laborer has been messing around. The lack of suitable metrics makes it nearly impossible to do a comparison of male and female productivity in the administrative world.
I'll posit here that, in addition to drilling into those working on DC homelessness that their year-over-year average annual decrease in homeless people is 60, that they're on track to end homelessness by 2142 and that the 40 or so people who die homeless in the city each year are the majority of the average annual decrease, we should measure the administrative types and their work based on how they think. This almost brings us back around to the male-female issue. Here's what I mean. In the all-male environments that I've worked in, I didn't have to nurture anyone's feelings. If I was leading a function, I could talk to the guys about what needed to be done or what wasn't being done well enough or quickly enough. We'd plan out how to get the job done in a timely manner with the least difficulty. If I was under someone else's orders and they had a complaint or concern about our work, we'd adjust in order to rectify the matter. No one got in their feelings and we got the job done.
As I deal with DC Government administrators and their contractors, it has proven extremely difficult to get them to plan from a place of realizing that they are caught in a glitch pattern. I come off to them as a naysayer, though I'm only trying to get them to see that, though the number of homeless people went down by 877 people from 2016 to 2017, it's still 175 people higher than it was in 2015 when Muriel Bowser became mayor. (In all fairness, it was the policies of her predecessor that led to the 1,052-person spike from 2015 to 2016.) There was a 724-person increase from 8,253 in 2004 to 8,977 in 2005 and an 889-person increase from 6,859 in 2013 to 7,748 in 2014. That said, the glitch pattern runs across different mayoral administrations; but, many of the contractors have been in place for 10 or 20 years. They too attend government meetings about ending homelessness. All of this doesn't prove that the issue is a male vs. female issue. I get that. From what I can tell though, the lines have been blurred in terms of male and female thinking. I've noticed during my 12 years living in Washington, DC that men in the local professional community tend to be softer, sweeter and more emotional than men in other parts of the country where I've lived. "Professional" men in DC aren't as amenable to harsh critiques as men in Florida or New Jersey. DC men are more likely to get in their feelings when the work of the collective is criticized -- whether in defense of their "manly" feelings or of the feelings of the women with whom they work. This makes improving the process and breaking the glitch pattern nearly impossible. So, the verdict here is not that women necessarily decrease productivity, but that even a man's consideration of emotion can be used as a tool that impedes progress. There needs to be a mechanism within an administration -- especially a government administration -- that forces any progress-impeding emotions aside and forces results. With me supporting equality, I welcome women to be the ones who rise to the challenge and force a more rational planning process that considers the decades-long failures of those who supposedly "work" on addressing this or that social ill but don't seem to be able to ever get to the bottom of a problem that they are paid well "to solve".
I love women. I'm not against them at all. However, I'm vehemently against the practice of suppressing masculinity -- rationale, conceptual thought, recognizing and fixing failures instead of getting in one's feelings. I actually blame the men for allowing it to happen, while also recognizing that there is an air of active misandry in DC too. I won't list all of the manifestations of misandry that I see in DC, with this post already being quite lengthy. However, something that current DC Mayor Muriel Bowser said less than a month into her administration came off to me as a dog whistle to other women in the room. (Maybe she became temporarily oblivious to the fact that women used to say quite often that, "Men are dogs" and that we therefore heard the dog whistle too.) It was the last week of January in 2015 -- which is when the annual homeless count takes place. Bowser had become mayor on January 2nd. Hundreds of volunteers were gathered to canvass the city and count the homeless. Mayor Bowser entered the room and began to make her speech. She started out by saying:
"Everyone's saying that you have to be a woman to work for me. That's not true. There are some great men working for me too. There's City Administrator Rashad Young..."
She pointed in his direction, hesitated as she tried to think of a second name that would justify her use of the plural word "men" and then moved on in her speech. It came off to me as her admission that she has a girl power thing going on, despite her claim to the contrary. The girl power thing is not necessarily a problem. It becomes a problem if and when a misandrist hires a woman over a more qualified man or when she rejects a perfectly good idea because it came from a man. It becomes a problem when emotion replaces an agency's ability to do the much-needed self-criticism that would increase their progress. It becomes a problem when misandrists allow their wholesale dismissal of all things masculine to get in the way of these women doing the best job possible. It becomes a problem when men who want so much to be accepted and dated by women lay aside even the most important aspects of their masculine mindset. It becomes a problem when the apparent stupidity which has resulted from feminism-turned-misandry permeates society and a man with femme-affective disorder has the nuclear codes. It becomes a problem when we don't stop at equality but go to a place where the sex that was previously controlled becomes the controlling sex -- albeit with a generation that didn't perpetrate the atrocities of wrongful control.
All things considered, I make it a point to convey my thinking to women in a way that assumes they are (or can be) rational and that recognizes them as equals. If any of them thinks me to be forcing my masculine ways on them, it's likely because they're trying to force their feminine ways on me and forgetting that turnabout is fair play. Maybe it's because they realize that our society is more accepting of women telling men how to think and act than it is of men doing that to women. This social acceptance can make women blind to the fact that they are oftentimes doing to men the things that they as women used to complain about when these things were done to them by men. It must also be noted here that I tend to go hard on government officials whether they are men or women and that any perceived difference between how I deal with men in government versus how I deal with women is likely due to the different ways in which they react to me, with me having begun my approach in the same way with either sex. (There are still a few men in DC Government who will engage in a tense but rational conversation until we work things out, though they usually won't do this in a mixed-gender meeting.)
IN CLOSING: I look forward to the time when women are as accepting of men telling them to be rational as men have been of women telling us to be sensitive and emotional. I look forward to the time when women are as obliged to meet men's mental demands as we've been to meet theirs. I look forward to the time when the assumption that I make that any new female or male acquaintance is rational is not soon proven to be inaccurate. I look forward to the time when any wrong committed against a woman by a man is dealt with swiftly -- the woman having come forth as soon as rationally possible. I look forward to the time that women's over-compensation for having been controlled is reversed back to a place of true equality.
Sorry, ladies, but I don't subscribe to the thinking that I'm supposed to immediately believe any woman who says that she was raped or otherwise wronged by a man. Let's not forget about Mike Tyson's rape case. Some serious doubt has been shed on the story of his accuser. Don King had reasons to have Mike set up. The accuser's friends supposedly came forth to say that she was a gold digger. I don't particularly care for Mike Tyson. Despite his awesome fighting ability, I've always thought that he was somewhat dingy. Still, he deserves a fair judgment, not to have people rush to judgment based on an irrational emotion or demand that men always believe the woman who claims to be a victim. Then there is the account of a woman who was purportedly raped at U. VA, that story having been published by Rolling Stone magazine. In case you just crawled out from under a rock, that story was proven to have been a fabricated lie. Something only has to happen once in order for there to be proof that it can happen. So we now know that a woman can have her false story of having been wronged by a man published in a well-respected publication. Given the Rolling Stone article and any other high profile false accounts that may be out there, a rational man or woman is not going to immediately assume that everything they hear about a woman having been victimized by a man is true.
Furthermore, if a woman tells me that John hit Mary, I will continue to ask "Why???" no matter how many times you freak out on me and exclaim, "Why???!!! Wha da ya mean, 'Why???' !!! A MAN hit a WOMAN!!!" In the spirit of equality, I expect a woman to be as rational and well-behaved as men are supposed to be. Don't swing on a man first if you can't fight like a man. Cutting you slack just because you're a woman, physically weaker and full of emotion is not equality. If I were to initiate violence against a man, I'd expect him to retaliate. A rational woman should expect the same. I'm not alone in this respect. As this watershed moment continues, other men and I discuss whether or not we believe the latest account of sexual harassment. Then we talk about the issue as a whole and what it means for the battle of the sexes. It's not all in favor of women and their emotions either.
On several occasions over the last few months -- especially in the last couple of weeks -- I've encountered groups of men who were discussing the myriad of cases of powerful men who were being accused of sexual harassment or rape. Of course, we mention the fact that no action is being taken to deal with 45 who has clearly done at least some of what he was accused of. He's gone so far as to throw his support behind a senatorial candidate who many (including myself) strongly believe is guilty of at least some of what he's accused of. These male acquaintances of mine also mention how that women seem to be on a mission to bring down as many men as possible. There's a word for that: Misandry. I'd wager that most of those who know what misogyny is don't know what misandry is -- a result of over-emphasis in our society on portraying women as victims. When they are, I feel for them -- when they are. These men also talk about how long some of these supposed victims waited to tell their stories -- 20, 30, 40 and even 50 years -- and they go on to say that these women are only telling their stories when doing so might prevent the accused man from rising to a position of power or bring him down from power. This truth, along with the congressional pay-outs, raises questions around motives. Were it just a matter of getting justice, then it would have made more sense to report these men immediately after the commission of the offense or in the woman's early adult.
Logically speaking, I don't expect a 14-year old to have the presence of mind to report sexual abuse to the authorities such that her account is believed. I do make some allowances for emotion. Even so, I'd say that someone who was sexually assaulted in childhood should have until their 25th birthday to report the abuse and two years thereafter to bring all evidence that can be gathered. Someone who was abused, harassed or raped in adulthood should have no more than five years from the date of the alleged offense to report it and two years thereafter to compile all evidence. Once any of these time limits have expired, a statute of limitations should take effect. Additionally, once the statute of limitations kicks in, the supposed victim who was too slow to bring their case to the authorities should be forbidden to bring their story to the media. If they do, they should be sued for libel in what would prove to be an open-and-shut case. This combination of laws would eliminate any misandristic games.
As these men who are discussing the wave of allegations of sexual harassment talk about the length of time that many of the women have waited and what that means, I use the moment to promote male-female equality. I've actually developed a spiel for the matter and it goes something like this:
"If I don't speak up right away when I'm offended by you, then I'm not considered to be much of a man. I'd be told to 'man up' and 'speak up'. If women want to be seen as a man's equal, they need to do the things that men are expected to do. So, they shouldn't be waiting 20-40 years before telling their story. They should have to speak up right away like a man. Women shouldn't only want to be equal to a man when it's fun and convenient. They should have to be as rational and to act as appropriately as a man. I wouldn't be considered much of a man if I were to always play the victim. A woman shouldn't always play the victim either. And when she is victimized, she should still be required to come forth with her story as soon as possible -- not wait until the perpetrator is rising or has risen to power or until he amasses a fortune. They should be equally rational and appropriate."I've always treated women like equals. However, I realize that there's more to the conversation about equality than people generally let on. Equality is more than just a set of laws and policies. There's more to it than woman having all of the same rights as men. It's more than just receiving equal pay for equal work. There is a societal mindset that accompanies male-female equality. Certain naturally occurring elements of the male mindset have enabled men to control women in the past. I can assure you that rationale is one of them -- no matter what emotional, non-actionable description anyone gives you. Since women's liberation really got a foothold in our society around my first birthday in 1970, women have taken steps to get men to think like women rather than women seeking to take on the powerful elements of the male mentality that kept women under control for so long. I can recall the late 70's and early 80's during which men were told to be emotional, to be sensitive, to get in touch with our [supposed] feminine sides and a few other things. Women have evidently sought to make men equal to them by suppressing the powerful elements of the male mindset. Men who want so much to get the girl have kowtowed to women by often finding out what women want to hear and then claiming that they believe exactly what the woman believes. Such men have put their masculine reasoning on hold in lieu of what women tell them to believe, feel and say. They're as fake as the silicone breasts that they hope to press one day.
My brand of equality is the polar opposite. I present my reasoning to women with the assumption that they are able to understand it. I've had women commend me for not talking down to them like they're imbeciles -- even before the term "mansplaining" existed. Sometimes while I'm conversing with a woman, I'll notice that the topic has both rational and emotional prongs to it. When I perceive that we're approaching a fork in the road, I'll take steps to ensure that we travel down the rational prong -- not the emotional one. For the most part, there's no need for me to tell her that's what I'm doing. As she speaks, I'll engineer my next statement to bring forth an analysis of the problem we're discussing or to present an idea. It's an approach I've used for a number of years. Only on rare occasions do I ever see the need to tell the woman to be rational. Just for the record, with the degree to which the men's rationale and conceptual thoughts have been suppressed, I sometimes have to tell men the same thing. There's equality for you.
An aspect of equality that doesn't get enough attention is the matter of equal pay for equal work. We know that some people are paid salaries, some do piece work and others receive hourly pay. When it comes to hourly pay, I have a few quick of stories from the same job site:
1 -- I was working on the Disney Boardwalk in Florida when it was under construction. One day I saw a tiny Hispanic woman who was about 4' 6" and 70 pounds soaking wet. I told the men that we should carry the heavy items and leave the lighter stuff for this woman and at least one other woman on the site that day. The foreman, named Edgo, immediately put me in check by saying, "No!!! If women come on a man's job, they need to do what the men do!!!". Edgo was a nice guy whom I got along with well. However, my suggestion really struck a nerve.
2 -- On that same job site I saw a 250-lb man and a 170-lb man working together to carry a 30 or 40-lb roll of tar paper. They walked very slowly. I had two rolls -- one on either shoulder. As I passed them, I asked why they were working together on one roll. They said to me, "The women are getting paid the same thing as us; and we're only going to do what a woman can do".
3 -- There was a moment on that site where the tiny Hispanic woman was trying to carry a large box. She asked me to help her. I got in position and then realized that, despite its size, it was relatively light. It may have been insulation or sound-proofing foam. I saw that she was having trouble holding it with her short arms. I grabbed the box and carried it by myself. As I did that, I saw the look on her face and realized that she was struggling to justify her presence on the job site. I quietly decided that I wouldn't do that to her anymore.
These stories help to shed light on matters related to the issue of equal pay for equal work. We have an employer who demands that women do what the men do -- which is not always possible. He has a legitimate point though, given the fact that the various laborers on that job site were receiving the same pay. We have the matter of a decreased work ethic wherein the men refuse to do all that they can do if women get the same pay for doing less. We have the matter of me possibly working together with a woman to do what I could have done by myself with no trouble. I can see why some employers complain about getting less work done per employee when women are on the job. As much as I support equality, I must admit that these employers have a legitimate point.
It's easier to see the decrease in productivity on manual labor jobs than it is to see it on jobs that consist largely of thinking and planning. The longer the period of time over which plans are being made and the more moving parts the planners have to consider, the harder it is to measure productivity. If I were digging a ditch for an outdoor sprinkler system -- 18 inches deep and one ditch shovel wide -- I could be expected to dig one foot of length per minute. A foreman who returns two hours after I've started and finds that I've only gotten 50 feet along would have no problem building a case against me for slacking off. DC Government began working on ending homelessness in 2004 when the city had 8,253 homeless people. The glitch patter has gotten us to a place where we counted 7,473 homeless people in 2017. That's a decrease of 780 homeless people (9.45%) in 13 years. The dozens of "professionals" who "work" to address homelessness always come up with a line of reasoning that sounds good to the public and serves as a legitimate excuse for failure or insufficient success -- in their eyes. There is a mix of both men and women working on DC homelessness; so, I'm not building the case for decreased productivity when women do a certain job. I'm instead demonstrating the difficulty in detecting an inexcusable lack of productivity among the administrator types versus the ease with which a foreman can determine that a laborer has been messing around. The lack of suitable metrics makes it nearly impossible to do a comparison of male and female productivity in the administrative world.
I'll posit here that, in addition to drilling into those working on DC homelessness that their year-over-year average annual decrease in homeless people is 60, that they're on track to end homelessness by 2142 and that the 40 or so people who die homeless in the city each year are the majority of the average annual decrease, we should measure the administrative types and their work based on how they think. This almost brings us back around to the male-female issue. Here's what I mean. In the all-male environments that I've worked in, I didn't have to nurture anyone's feelings. If I was leading a function, I could talk to the guys about what needed to be done or what wasn't being done well enough or quickly enough. We'd plan out how to get the job done in a timely manner with the least difficulty. If I was under someone else's orders and they had a complaint or concern about our work, we'd adjust in order to rectify the matter. No one got in their feelings and we got the job done.
As I deal with DC Government administrators and their contractors, it has proven extremely difficult to get them to plan from a place of realizing that they are caught in a glitch pattern. I come off to them as a naysayer, though I'm only trying to get them to see that, though the number of homeless people went down by 877 people from 2016 to 2017, it's still 175 people higher than it was in 2015 when Muriel Bowser became mayor. (In all fairness, it was the policies of her predecessor that led to the 1,052-person spike from 2015 to 2016.) There was a 724-person increase from 8,253 in 2004 to 8,977 in 2005 and an 889-person increase from 6,859 in 2013 to 7,748 in 2014. That said, the glitch pattern runs across different mayoral administrations; but, many of the contractors have been in place for 10 or 20 years. They too attend government meetings about ending homelessness. All of this doesn't prove that the issue is a male vs. female issue. I get that. From what I can tell though, the lines have been blurred in terms of male and female thinking. I've noticed during my 12 years living in Washington, DC that men in the local professional community tend to be softer, sweeter and more emotional than men in other parts of the country where I've lived. "Professional" men in DC aren't as amenable to harsh critiques as men in Florida or New Jersey. DC men are more likely to get in their feelings when the work of the collective is criticized -- whether in defense of their "manly" feelings or of the feelings of the women with whom they work. This makes improving the process and breaking the glitch pattern nearly impossible. So, the verdict here is not that women necessarily decrease productivity, but that even a man's consideration of emotion can be used as a tool that impedes progress. There needs to be a mechanism within an administration -- especially a government administration -- that forces any progress-impeding emotions aside and forces results. With me supporting equality, I welcome women to be the ones who rise to the challenge and force a more rational planning process that considers the decades-long failures of those who supposedly "work" on addressing this or that social ill but don't seem to be able to ever get to the bottom of a problem that they are paid well "to solve".
I love women. I'm not against them at all. However, I'm vehemently against the practice of suppressing masculinity -- rationale, conceptual thought, recognizing and fixing failures instead of getting in one's feelings. I actually blame the men for allowing it to happen, while also recognizing that there is an air of active misandry in DC too. I won't list all of the manifestations of misandry that I see in DC, with this post already being quite lengthy. However, something that current DC Mayor Muriel Bowser said less than a month into her administration came off to me as a dog whistle to other women in the room. (Maybe she became temporarily oblivious to the fact that women used to say quite often that, "Men are dogs" and that we therefore heard the dog whistle too.) It was the last week of January in 2015 -- which is when the annual homeless count takes place. Bowser had become mayor on January 2nd. Hundreds of volunteers were gathered to canvass the city and count the homeless. Mayor Bowser entered the room and began to make her speech. She started out by saying:
"Everyone's saying that you have to be a woman to work for me. That's not true. There are some great men working for me too. There's City Administrator Rashad Young..."
She pointed in his direction, hesitated as she tried to think of a second name that would justify her use of the plural word "men" and then moved on in her speech. It came off to me as her admission that she has a girl power thing going on, despite her claim to the contrary. The girl power thing is not necessarily a problem. It becomes a problem if and when a misandrist hires a woman over a more qualified man or when she rejects a perfectly good idea because it came from a man. It becomes a problem when emotion replaces an agency's ability to do the much-needed self-criticism that would increase their progress. It becomes a problem when misandrists allow their wholesale dismissal of all things masculine to get in the way of these women doing the best job possible. It becomes a problem when men who want so much to be accepted and dated by women lay aside even the most important aspects of their masculine mindset. It becomes a problem when the apparent stupidity which has resulted from feminism-turned-misandry permeates society and a man with femme-affective disorder has the nuclear codes. It becomes a problem when we don't stop at equality but go to a place where the sex that was previously controlled becomes the controlling sex -- albeit with a generation that didn't perpetrate the atrocities of wrongful control.
All things considered, I make it a point to convey my thinking to women in a way that assumes they are (or can be) rational and that recognizes them as equals. If any of them thinks me to be forcing my masculine ways on them, it's likely because they're trying to force their feminine ways on me and forgetting that turnabout is fair play. Maybe it's because they realize that our society is more accepting of women telling men how to think and act than it is of men doing that to women. This social acceptance can make women blind to the fact that they are oftentimes doing to men the things that they as women used to complain about when these things were done to them by men. It must also be noted here that I tend to go hard on government officials whether they are men or women and that any perceived difference between how I deal with men in government versus how I deal with women is likely due to the different ways in which they react to me, with me having begun my approach in the same way with either sex. (There are still a few men in DC Government who will engage in a tense but rational conversation until we work things out, though they usually won't do this in a mixed-gender meeting.)
IN CLOSING: I look forward to the time when women are as accepting of men telling them to be rational as men have been of women telling us to be sensitive and emotional. I look forward to the time when women are as obliged to meet men's mental demands as we've been to meet theirs. I look forward to the time when the assumption that I make that any new female or male acquaintance is rational is not soon proven to be inaccurate. I look forward to the time when any wrong committed against a woman by a man is dealt with swiftly -- the woman having come forth as soon as rationally possible. I look forward to the time that women's over-compensation for having been controlled is reversed back to a place of true equality.
KEEP HOPE ALIVE
She's a beautiful woman.
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