The Ladies

Manly Men Love Strong Women

Last week, my hometown paper, The Atlanta Journal & Constitution, ran an online story entitled, "Clinton Pollster Predicts Defection of GOP Women." Depending solely on his own "internal" polling, Mr. Mark Penn - Public Relations guru extraordinaire, and Hillary's campaign strategist -- says that a full 24% of Republican women will punch their ballots for Hillary based on the "emotional" appeal of electing the first woman President.

Clearly, Mr. Penn is either purposefully spinning or indulging in a rather perverted, nearly delusional form of magical thinking.

Most of the women I know have spent a great portion of their lives -- in addition to raising fine American citizens -- doing volunteer work in our communities trying to put band aids on the myriad of social problems that have become epidemic in the wake of Democrat social policies. Unwed motherhood. Broken families. Absent mothers and fathers. Broken government schools. Sex education that teaches nothing but how to do a great imitation of an alley cat in heat.

These mostly Republican women are still trying to make sense out of a political Party that would so strenuously object to pornography filters on public library computer terminals, while exposing their seven year-olds to lessons in how to put on a condom. These "soccer moms" (a phrase coined by Mr. Penn) give hours each week to Crisis Pregnancy Centers that offer actual help to young girls whose boyfriends flunked the condom lessons, but got the alley-cat impersonations down perfectly. These conservative women are providing meals to homeless shelters and holiday celebrations and gifts for those in need. These women are a veritable army of soldiers on the front lines of social decay, fighting not with the empty rhetoric but with actual labor to right real wrongs.

So, when Hillary Rodham Clinton wails about those in our midst who have been "invisible" to Republicans, we women stand, with our mouths agape and our consciousnesses fully raised, in utter incredulity. For "the smartest woman in the world," she comes off as pretty darned dumb or blind. You pick.

From where we're sitting, Mr. Penn, it looks like you and Hillary don't get out of your little self-created bubble enough. We Republican women are plum full of emotion every time we see Mrs. Clinton put on yet another female face for the cameras, but it isn't the kind that you ever want to be with in a dark room alone.

I Am John Doe

Dear Muslim Terrorist Plotter/Planner/Funder/Enabler/Apologist,

You do not know me. But I am on the lookout for you. You are my enemy. And I am yours.

I am John Doe.

I am traveling on your plane. I am riding on your train. I am at your bus stop. I am on your street. I am in your subway car. I am on your lift.

I am your neighbor. I am your customer. I am your classmate. I am your boss.

I am John Doe.

I will never forget the passengers of United Airlines Flight 93 who refused to sit back on 9/11 and let themselves be murdered in the name of Islam without a fight.

I will never forget the passengers and crew members who tackled al-Qaida shoe-bomber Richard Reid on American Airlines Flight 63 before he had a chance to blow up the plane over the Atlantic Ocean.

I will never forget the alertness of actor James Woods, who notified a stewardess that Arab men sitting in his first-class cabin on an August 2001 flight were behaving strangely. The men turned out to be 9/11 hijackers on a test run.

I will act when homeland security officials ask me to “report suspicious activity.”

I will embrace my local police department’s admonition: “If you see something, say something.”

I am John Doe.

I will protest your Jew-hating, America-bashing “scholars.”

I will petition against your hate-mongering mosque leaders.

I will raise my voice against your subjugation of women and religious minorities.

I will challenge your attempts to indoctrinate my children in our schools.

I will combat your violent propaganda on the Internet.

I am John Doe.

I will support law enforcement initiatives to spy on your operatives, cut off your funding and disrupt your murderous conspiracies.

I will oppose all attempts to undermine our borders and immigration laws.

I will not be censored in the name of tolerance.

I will not be cowed by your Beltway lobbying groups in moderates’ clothing. I will not cringe when you shriek about “profiling” or “Islamophobia.”

I will put my family’s safety above sensitivity. I will put my country above multiculturalism.

I will not submit to your will. I will not be intimidated.

I am John Doe.

Are Professional Women Less Desirable?

And men need to feel needed too. They need to know that what they provide: the security of a home and a future for the family, is noticed and cherished. All those hours of overtime, and planning, and promotions: they are worth something. I tried, for a few years, to get my husband to consider retiring to a less stressful job, using my income as a supplement. It took me a while to realize, and I still don't understand it, that he takes great pride in the fact that he is able to support me. And he does it better than I could - I don't dispute that fact. Although he welcomes my income and he is proud of my acheivements, I don't think he wants that role taken away. That's not why I married him. But it seems necessary to him. It grieves me considerably. He is more to me than some meal ticket.

So was the feminist movement some sort of cruel hoax? Do women get less desirable as they get more successful?

That's not why I married him. But it seems necessary to him. It grieves me considerably. He is more to me than some meal ticket.

The truth is that we often want different things, and the even more unpleasant truth is that for women, what we want often includes making those we care about happy. Which means, in the end, that if we are keeping score by men's rules, as Ms. Dowd seems to want to do, we will always lose.

Quote of the Day

Manly men are manly precisely because they are pro-God, pro-family, pro-community — not "pro-man." I believe the same is true of women, who may attain their fullest potential only within the context of their relationships with the Lord, with those in their home, and with people at large — not by putting themselves in a box marked "Double-X Chromosomes." (I picture that box as an ancient, 1930s-style suitcase, bearing peeling stickers marked "Steinem," "de Beauvoir," "Friedan," etc. — literally old, obsolete baggage.)

Authentic Manhood

While I've spent a lot of time on authentic femininity, it would be an incomplete understanding of mankind to only see half of the human equation. I've found online an outline of a marvelous presentation (ed.- Warning: hostile format) by Father Roger Landry from 2002 which gives the nuts and bolts on authentic masculinity that should be read and savoured in its entirety.