Meanwhile, when my wife was young she resented the fact that she couldn’t go camping with the men and boys in the Boundary Waters.
It is helpful here to note the difference between negative and positive duties. If you are blind to negative duties, then the boy who holds the door open is the only one who had any sort of duty or did anything. But it only takes one attempt to hold a door for a militant feminist to realize that all the other women you’ve held doors for have done something this woman has not. They have been modest. And a bit more thinking reveals that they have not done something that this woman has—namely, they have not kicked against the weakness of their sex. Obedience to this negative duty becomes all the more evident when the “man” holding the door for her is actually her young son who is much weaker than she is.
In other words, this whole idea of men holding the door for women is bidirectional to the extreme. You could almost characterize it that men should be strong and women should be pretty. If men feel that holding the door so that women can be pretty is a bummer of a deal, I can only say that I personally like women to be pretty. It’s certainly preferable to all the women being strong and men being pretty.
In other words, there is a double standard of sorts. Both Adam and Eve were forbidden to eat the fruit, but contrary to the WCF, they were not both responsible for the fall. Adam was. Let that sink in as you think about today. Do feminist women sin? Sure do. Who let feminism pervert this nation to its current state? Men did. It doesn’t matter how many women’s marches there were before or after the fact. “The woman you gave to be with me…” is accurate enough, but pathetic to the max. It’s an excuse.
Perhaps another example is in order. Several months ago I exchanged emails with a well-known writer on masculinity who objected to the idea that men should feel an obligation to protect women they aren’t married or related to. I brought up the example of men getting in the lifeboats last when a ship is sinking. I’m sure this man isn’t the only one today who would object to being told he should do this. It’s quite the duty to lay down your life. Where is the equivalent duty on woman? Her duty is to obey you when you tell her to take the children she bore you and get on the boat without you. Which one has the harder duty?