The Weakest Link

 Posted by on 11 June 2002 at 10:43 pm  Uncategorized
Jun 112002
 

Cultures with institutionalized oppression of women produce weak and whiny men. The evidence? Many Arabs (particularly Saudis) seem completely unable to keep their egos intact when faced with the sharp tongue of Rita Khoury, the female host of Lebanese version the “The Weakest Link.”

Fancy that.

This story is particularly interesting because it highlights just how wrong so many leftist feminists are about masculinity. They tend to regard cultures that oppress women as excessively masculine, as strong and domineering. On this view, masculinity itself is immoral, due to its inherent aggressiveness. Men being men means fighting and looting and pillaging and raping and so on. (Don’t believe me? Go see the report of Bell Hooks’ recent commencement speech at Southwestern University.)

But male cultures that engage in institutionalized oppression of women are neither strong nor masculine. They are weak and fearful and inadequate and insecure. The men participating in them do not dominate others from a Nietzschean sense of strength, but from a neurotic sense of weakness. And they choose to dominate women because, as psychologically weak men, they are at least unlikely to lose a battle with the physically weaker sex.

But they do lose the battle in this game show, as host Rita Khoury notes:

Educated and urbane men who come on the show relish it as a challenge, but the more traditional ones have more difficulty putting up with it. I try to provoke them, not humiliate them, but it’s not my problem if they can’t answer.”

Delightful!

   
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