The Aug. 2 edition of Canada’s Globe and Mail included a full page opinion piece by Feminist author Starre Vartan entitled: WOMEN AREN’T THE WEAKER SEX. THEY’RE SUPERHEROES. What she proceeds to explain is that Females are verifiably more sensitive than Men when it comes to touch, taste, smell, vision and hearing. “What unites all these strengths,” she says, “is an enhanced ability to perceive and respond to the world.” Indeed in her second last paragraph she concludes: “Sensitivity fuels empathy, communication and creativity. ……….. In many ways it’s the hidden engine behind what we often call women’s intuition.”
Her thesis is clearly that the historical notion of Man as the stronger Sex was simplistic and needs to be amended. Inasmuch as the Science that led to the discoveries she cites has only recently been available, one can understand how the traditional concept of Women as the weaker sex endured throughout the centuries. But at the same time the reverence for Women expressed by Western Men in a multitude of articulations, literary and otherwise, suggests they hardly deemed Females to be second class members of the species. Indeed their celebrations of Female Beauty might actually entail an awareness of the very qualities highlighted by Vartan in her article!
Every cell in my body is unequivocally Heterosexual. Women are to me the most Beautiful Beings on the planet. But does this mean, as today’s “Woke” Feminists are prone to conclude, that I am guilty of objectifying women, of reducing them to mere objects of sexual desire? Yes, should I see a female with gorgeous legs walking along in a miniskirt, I might slow down my car and rejoice in her physical beauty. It’s a perfectly natural aspect of what it means to be a Heterosexual Male. But in my relationships with the Women who have been a part of my life, have I ever used any one of them to merely satisfy my sexual urges? Never! My enchantment with their Beauty has always entailed an appreciation of the empathy emanating from their eyes, the joy expressed in their smiles, the delicacy of their physical presence coupled with the courage they often displayed in their actions. The relationship between the Sexes, that is to say, is incredibly complex and, as every other aspect of human behaviour, determined by the moral/intellectual integrity of the individuals involved. As there are Men who manipulate Women for their sexual satisfaction, so there are Women who manipulate Men for material gain. Starre Vartan’s suggestion that Women are “superheroes” by the very fact of the sensitivity granted them by Nature, is simplistic in a fashion typical of the contemporary Left which consistently engages in generalizations about various Identity groups while actually ignoring the moral/intellectual attributes that inform all human behaviour.
Among the female celebrities I adore are Audrey Hepburn, Ingrid German, Olivia Newton John, Vanessa and Lynn Redgrave, Debbie Boone, Karen Carpenter, Jean Simmons, Lauren Graham, Alexis Bledel, etc., etc., etc.. Each of them is amazing [i.e., beautiful] in her own particular way. Yet while I have never reduced any of them to mere objects of sexual desire and would throw myself into the path of an oncoming bullet to save one of their lives, I do still get distracted by women with gorgeous legs. Does this make me a Male Chauvinist Jerk or just a regular, decent heterosexual guy???