Sleight of Mind - The StRATegy of Deception

If American women achieve equality, our nation can be a role model for other nations. Fighting against folkways and mores of other nations slows progress towards achieving equal rights for women. Concentrating efforts to achieve equal rights for women in America increase the chance for success everywhere.

Limiting equality for women to include opening opportunities to enter the profession of their choice, receiving equal pay and recognition for their accomplishments, increase the chance for success. Obtaining these rights achieves equality for women. Obtaining these rights allows women to be free to think.

A society in which women are less than equal is cheated out of half of its thinking power. Not providing equal opportunity for women keeps society from having many of its most able thinkers enter professions requiring clear and intelligent thought. This weakens the entire society.

An illusionist uses misdirection and sleight of hand to effectively manipulate their audience into believing they are seeing one thing when in fact they are seeing nothing of the sort. Magicians are forever sawing women in half and putting them back together again. Magicians perform their misdirection and sleight of hand with the purpose of baffling and amusing their audience.

Misdirection and deception are sleight of mind strategies being used to prevent women from achieving equal opportunity. Attention from the harm such inequality does to society is misdirected to another issue. The other issue is connected in some way. The other issue embroils people in emotional arguments having nothing to do with equal opportunity for women. At least three issues are used effectively in this way the "gay and lesbian" rights issue; the abortion controversy; and the "feminist" issue -- none are what equal opportunity for women is about.

This article will use these issues to misdirect you. As you read you will lose sight of the equal opportunity issue and find yourself caught up in another argument. This should not baffle and amuse you -- it should alarm and forewarn you.

The Gay and Lesbian Issue

Humans are heterosexual. Humans have two physiologically, and biologically identifiable genders. The gender difference is clear cut. At the heart of the "gay and lesbian" issue is the argument for the recognition of an alternative form of sexuality. This is a false argument. Normal sexuality can result in the birth of a child.

Whatever experience two homosexual men or two homosexual women are undergoing -- it should not be considered a normal sexual experience. It has nothing to do with the possible birth of a child. It has nothing to do with sexual reproduction. Equating this relationship with normal sexuality is a dangerous and confusing. The discrimination felt by this group is not caused by the same prejudice preventing equal opportunities for women.

There are logical reasons why a person may fear and find Homosexuality distasteful. Homosexuality is considered perverse by many religious groups. Homosexuality is simply not normal sexual reproduction or practice; it is not practiced by members of other species of the animal kingdom. Equating the plight of a group denied equal opportunity to think or work in a profession because of gender; to the plight of a group shunned for an act considered by many in society to be abnormal is a poor analogy.

This argument is not being made by psychiatrists, psychologists, and medical practitioners, making sex education programs in public schools suspect. If the simple fact homosexuality has nothing to do with sexual reproduction isn't being recognized by health care professionals how can educators attempt to teach elementary school children about this misunderstood perversion?

If adults seem to be confused, how can youngsters learn anything from them except to be confused. The subject of sex education is better left to parents. Trying to teach youngsters at an early age, something adults are confused about is lunacy. Attempting to make something abnormal normal is lunacy. The best strategy would be avoiding the issue as long as possible.

Nothing in the arguments in the last several paragraphs have anything to do with why unequal opportunity for women harms all of society.

Attaching equal rights for women to equal rights for gays and lesbians complicates and confuses the issue. It equates the prejudice resulting in the failure for women to achieve equal opportunity to the prejudice preventing gays and lesbians from achieving equal opportunity. It takes a clear black and white issue and makes it grey.

Some gay and lesbian groups are aware of this. I was recently on a college campus. It was women's history month. A gay and lesbian group put up a display of large photos of well publicized lesbian women. The women were in the military, in the space program, in the entertainment field, and in the women's movement. The display had a very small quote from Eleanor Roosevelt. The display had a small crinkled picture of Rosa Parks. I think the group was trying to say something.

Groups and individuals that use misdirection to consciously undermine equal opportunity for women are mean-spirited, amoral, unfair and treacherous -- they lack character. Another group is connecting equal opportunity for women with the equal opportunity for gays and lesbians. They misdirect attention from why unequal opportunity for women harms all to lessen competition from women. They act in their own self-interest while consciously acting detrimentally to the interest of all.

Indeed, if women achieved equality abnormal relationships between members of the same gender might disappear. Men who did not feel macho might not consider such feelings to be feminine and seek the attentions of a "real" man to protect them; women might not shun the normal relationship of males because of fear and frustration resulting from the unfair conditions under which their gender has been forced to exist.

The Abortion Issue

The universe of single parents has more single mothers than single fathers. This is because illegitimate father's are siring illegitimate children with more than one woman.

In the universe of single parents, 80% of the parents who raise the child are single mothers. While the single mother raises the child the single father is out siring more illegitimate children. The irresponsible idiot calls this making loooooooove; it is nothing more than the lust and selfish self-gratification of an arrested adolescent. This is not the way a responsible normal mature male acts. The irresponsible idiot is rewarded. Another person accepts full responsibility for his actions and raises his child.

If an unwanted pregnancy occurs there are several choices. One choice is abortion. The mother is the only parent that can have an abortion. The mother requires medical help to abort the child. The medical profession is being asked to determine whether killing a fetus is murder. This is unfair to the medical profession.

There is strong disagreement over whether abortion is murder. The argument that abortion is murder has merit. The argument that termination of an unwanted pregnancy resulting from rape is justifiable has merit.

No group seems to be willing to raise another alternative -- that the mother carry the child to term, have the child and give it to the father to carry for the following nine months. It is odd none of the women's awareness groups are actively pushing this choice. If the irresponsible father were made to take responsibility for his illegitimate child it might slow him down, preventing him from siring more illegitimate children.

The father could be given the right to abort the child during the nine months he carries it. The advantage of the father aborting the child, is that a physician isn't needed to perform the abortion -- the irresponsible idiot could do it himself.

Taxpayers who considered abortion to be murder, would not have their money spent on a procedure they strongly objected to. The medical profession would be off the hook and would no longer be responsible for deciding if killing the child was murder. The abortion issue would be solved.

Nothing in the arguments in the last several paragraphs have anything to do with why unequal opportunity for women harms all of society. The abortion argument misdirects the emotion felt by people towards the induced abortion of a fetus towards equality for women. If women were to achieve equal opportunity to enter the profession of their choice, receiving equal pay and recognition for their accomplishments, the abortion controversy would still exist.

The Feminist Issue

All families have men and women in the family. Two thirds of all families have children that are females. Why would the majority of family members sacrifice the rights and opportunities available to females to enhance the rights and opportunities available to males? I don't believe the great majority of American families would.

Since the majority of Americans, male and female, stand for equal opportunity for women why would one-half of a group of youngsters queried about their chances of becoming president have to honestly answer "No I may not become president because I am a girl." Would those youngsters fathers and brothers, mothers and sisters, grandfathers and uncles, and grandmothers and aunts, feel this is fair, or in the best interest of society?

Male members of families whose women are lawyers and engineers and doctors would certainly feel these women should be earning as much as their male counterparts; yet in all these professions the female professionals are earning 25% less then the male professionals. The fact there is still a disparity in salary means there is something else at work, preventing equal pay for equal work.

We are evolving into a society in which both the mother and father must work. What has not evolved is a shorter work week. We now have two parents working forty hours each. This results in less time spent together as a family. Children are robbed of parental guidance and support.

It makes more sense to have two professionals who each work 20 hours. Both adults would develop and practice skills to help support the family financially. Both adults would develop and practice skills to raise the children and help the family grow emotionally as a unit. As the children get older, and assume more responsibility, both adults can devote more time to their professions, or make use of their free time in other activities that help foster their personal growth.

Calling the principle that woman should have political, economic, and social rights equal to men "feminism" is a strategy of deception. It is a sleight of mind strategy that turns a societal issue into a feminine issue. It pits men against women. A society in which women are less than equal is cheated out of half of its thinking power. Not providing equal opportunity for women keeps society from having many of its most able thinkers enter professions requiring clear and intelligent thought. This weakens the entire society. This is as much a concern to men as it is to women.

An equilibrium exists between intrinsic human nature and -- social customs and institutions. In a real sense ethics and morals are the result of the interaction between these two forces. Ethics and morals are rules and guidelines for acting intelligently. If intelligence is analyzing a problem to determine what has to be done; designing solutions to solve the problem; and evaluating the solutions to determine which is the best one, then "morals" guide rational thinking, then "morals" guide acting intelligently. Acting intelligently requires evaluating your actions. Evaluating your actions includes: reflecting upon how your actions affected others in the past; thinking about how your actions will affect others in the future; and, choosing those actions which do the most good and the least harm. Acting intelligently is acting in one's own best interest, while at the same time acting in the best interest of all. Acting intelligently is embodied in the Ten Commandments, the Teachings of Buddha, the Laws of Mohammed, and the golden rule. The golden rule is the simplest heuristic for acting intelligently. No life-form anywhere in the universe can simplify the golden rule. At least two human beings discovered the golden rule. Christ taught "do unto others as you would have others do unto you." Confucious taught "don't do to others that which you would not have others do unto you." The golden rule has been preserved and passed down from one generation to the next for 2000 years. Since no intelligent life-form anyone where in the universe can simply the golden rule, human beings must be among the most intelligent life forms in the universe. Acting intelligently allows one to accept responsibility for their actions including thought. Acting "morally" is acting intelligently. By working to achieve equal opportunity for women we are acting in our own best self-interest, while at the same time acting in the best interest of all. A society in which women are less than equal is cheated out of half of its thinking power.

moi/11/30/96