Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Anzac Day not feminine enough?

I attended an Anzac Day ceremony (the day Australians commemorate those who served in the armed forces) and thought it was very well done.

But I was floored afterwards when I asked two female friends what they had thought of the service. One gave the reply that she worried that it glorified war. This attitude surprised me as the mood of Anzac Day has never struck me as militaristic. People are encouraged to be quietly reflective and to remember the human loss of the wars that were fought.

The other response, from a lovely young woman who is not at all political, was that Anzac Day is not feminine enough. I pressed her to explain what she meant and it seems that her complaint is that it is too focused on men and not women.

That's a sign of how a liberal mentality has penetrated her mind. In a society that was focused on holding together, men and women would recognise a common cause. The women of that society would think of "our men" and the men would think of the women as "our women". They would not be two groups set radically apart.

Liberal society is not focused on holding together. Its view of life is based on the idea of a self which is defined by its wants and preferences. This leads inevitably to a focus on who is advantaged or disadvantaged in pressing forward such wants and preferences. The natural solidarity is broken and replaced by a fracturing along group lines.

5 comments:

  1. Fran Wilde, a former Mayor of Wellington, New Zealand, is a Feminist. In her mayoral election campaign, she even went so far as to hold a public meeting on what it would mean to turn Wellington into a Feminist city. On the morning after Anzac Day 1993, a public holiday which is meant to honour New Zealand's war dead, she was reported in the Dominion newspaper as follows:

    "'Remembering men who died in war was important but it was EQUALLY (my emphasis) important to recognise the often-overlooked sacrifices and experiences of women,' Wellington Mayor Fran Wilde said at yesterday's Anzac Day Service of Commemoration at Wellington Cenotaph."

    Sex, Lies and Feminism by Peter Zohrab

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  2. Left wing women are worse. They just dismiss the men who died in wars because it was 'men' who started them.
    Three decades of anti male extremism had left today's men completely emasculated. The worst damage is done in schools. Boys are never given a chance but are brought up to think male = wrong, while young women, like the ones you spoke to, grow more narcisstic by the day.
    I think it's time men gave up the pretense of equality. Women will be equal to men when women put women on the moon. you only need to look at a computer to know it didn't come from the mind of a women. Even a prominent feminst has remarked that if it were up to women we'd still be living in caves.
    After more than 100 years we finally have our first female PM. Were those men who kept women out of politics wrong? Look at how well our first unmarried, atheist, female PM has fared? Lucky she doesn't have a male ego because a male sense of honour would have forced him to commit seppuku by now. Only a gormless woman could continue ruining the country like Gillard.

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  3. So, the solution is to make Anzac Day more mascualine, perhaps include a military parade of modern weaponry. Feminists can smell weakness from miles away. Feminists would have more respect for men if they stood up for themselves atleast some of the time.

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  4. Should have immediately followed up with the obvious question "Are you saying there are not enough women dying in war?"

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  5. On the start of Anzac day I spent time thinking to myself, "We protected this country in the past from foreigners and now we're allowing it to be taken over, what's gone wrong?". Needless to say this thinking put a dampener on the occasion for me and it took some time for me to relax and enjoy it. After a while of watching the pride of the veterans who marched and enjoying the fellowship of real Aussies, however, I started to really relax and enjoy the day. By the end after numerous beers and many games of two-up I was very happy and thought things were alright.

    The point I'm trying to make is that we can't let what the left or others do or say effect us to the extent that we're unable to live or enjoy our own lives, or similarly feel discouraged from contributing to or replicating our culture. I know that very many lefties don't like Anzac day, well one response to that is to say that they can get left out of it. Certainly at the bars there were a few who couldn't appreciate or enjoy the occasion and as a result they felt uncomfortable and didn't enjoy the day, while those around them certainly did.


    In the competition of values with the left and others it is up to us to demonstrate the strength and power of ours, and leave behind those who oppose or won't engage with them. We shouldn't feel down or surprised if others don't appreciate or value our beliefs like we do or like they should. The fact is that many of their arguments come out of weakness, they can't compete with those who project military values and attributes and so try to change the game to value non military traits. Its no surprise that many of these advocates for non masculine values are themselves obviously non masculine. As for the women, those who were there, and there were very many of those, they clearly enjoyed themselves too.

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