Women in U.S. are not victims

This week, I had a postgraduate level course in Male Feminism.

I had written a column criticizing the women’s march and the whole, pink-hatted “Day Without A Woman” phenomenon, explaining why I thought that American-made females had so little to complain about compared to their foreign-born sisters.

I came to this conclusion after 20-some years working in the immigration field, where being a woman was, in many cases and countries, a death sentence.

So to hear my sisters complaining about not being able to get their abortions paid for, not being able to get their birth control paid for, not being able to call a bad date on campus labeled as “rape,” not being able to earn the same wage as a man (which is a statistically suspect allegation) and all sorts of other problems with the patriarchy, I got angry. When I get angry, I write. And when I write, people write back.

Only they do not necessarily use the same type of language I am constrained to use in my columns because, well, because I am the only audience they choose to reach.

Many people actually agreed with me that the protests from the sisterhood fell on deaf ears, mostly because it was that sort of “First World” navel gazing nonsense that feminists have engaged in lo these many years.

I was very happy to see that a lot of women are smarter than the marchers, and have a great deal more self-respect than the women who whine.

Sadly, there are enough men out there who’ve been brainwashed into believing that they are bad people and that they deserve to be marched against, and many of them rose up to tell me that I was wrong.

Some actually didn’t even let me get that far.

Last week I appeared on a local television show with three other panelists, all male.

When the topic turned to the “Day Without A Woman,” my brothers at the table decided to explain to me why I was a victim of discrimination, including one who was insistent that I must be, because the statistics said so.

Despite my attempts to explain that I felt fine, and that I was a heck of a lot better off than some of my clients from Guatemala and El Salvador, the fellows maintained that I just didn’t understand how oppressed I really was.

And they didn’t let me explain how I wasn’t oppressed. They just talked over me.

And then there were the emails.

One gentleman, and I use that word loosely, named Bob made fun of the way I looked, called me a harpy and decided that I was a venomous and bitter shrew who didn’t deserve to have a sweet name like “Flowers.”

But seriously, I have learned through experience that male feminists are an interesting breed.

They claim to respect women, they talk about how proud they are of their wives and the hopes they have for their daughters, they hardly ever mention their sons and the hopes they have for them, and they make sure to let me know that women can do anything men can do, only better.

Then, after having explained how much they respect women, they say something derogatory about me, a woman, who clearly does not accept the tenets of feminism.

Not all men are like that, of course.

Just a lot of them, with the general hypocrisy of the progressive (as in, I love women, dammit, you ugly shrew!)

Women are not victims in American society, although they most definitely are in other parts of the world.

We have immense and infinite opportunity, and many of us (including, for example, Kellyanne Conway) are shaking the glass shards from our hair.

Yup, we broke “that” ceiling.

So my suggestion to the “Bobs” of the world is to get out at the nearest station on your guilt trip, and realize that while being a male feminist might get you dates on a Saturday night, you won’t have much fun eating organic granola and drinking herbal tea at the woman’s collective.

I do indeed, feel your pain.