A test

When I meet a woman, I often ask if she reads Margaret Wente, columnist in The Globe and Mail.  Some say, "Yes and I don't agree with anything she says."  Those women I write off.  Those who say they love her point of view, however, are few and far between and usually of a "certain age", i.e., sixty-plus.   

I sometimes think we share the same brain because Wente and I agree 100 percent.  Like today, for example, when she writes about how privileged women are in the civilized first world we inhabit.

"In a world where men still call (most of) the shots, make most of the money and still dominate the corridors of power, it might seem perverse to suggest that women need to check their privilege too.  But oh, we do," she writes.  As I said two blogs ago, "...last time I checked, I can do or be anything I want."  Thanks to the tailwind provided women by reverse discrimination, we can pretty much thumb our noses to anyone anywhere and don't need to participate in life-threatening career choices if we don't want to.  And if we don't want to work at all and rely on a man to support us, no one will bat an eye -- except I, of course...(or is it "me"?  Bob Nesbitt?)

"For all the barriers that (sic) women face, we have abundant freedoms and privileges that are (sic) not available to men.  For example, if we choose not to spend our entire lives scrambling up the ladder of career success, nobody will care.," she adds.  Interestingly, when it comes to violence, men are the chief victims.  "Men make up three-quarters of all murder victims and are far more likely to be the targets of more serious forms of assault."  Men are also 2.5 times more likely to be sexually assaulted in institutional settings, such as schools, and of course women live longer, she also notes. 

Apparently, any man who points any of this out gets oceans of hate mail from, I assume, privileged women with cleaning ladies who have time to write in.  It's cake-and-eat-it all the way.  Wente quotes one of my favourite unorthodox feminists, Camille Paglia:

"It is men who heft and weld the giant steel beams that frame our office buildings and it is (sic) men who do the hair-raising work of insetting and sealing the finely-tempered plate-glass windows of skyscrapers 50 stories tall."

Does any educated, privileged woman in a Western society want to be a man?  Me neither.