- Despite the resounding rejection of the European Constitution
by French and Dutch voters, the fact is, old Europe still genuflects at
the altar of socialism and collectivism. So it comes as no surprise that
feminism has taken root there as readily as mushrooms sprouting on a pile
of barnyard manure.
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- Karl Marx taught that if women desired to free themselves
from the shackles of patriarchy, they first had to wrest control over the
means of reproduction. Now birth rates in Europe have plummeted, choking
off the inflow of young workers and imperiling the financial viability
of the social welfare state.
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- The situation is especially acute in Germany, where the
population is projected to decline from the current level of 82 million
to 70.8 million persons by 2050. The fertility fall-off stems from a disintegration
of family relationships - 83% of Germans say their main reason for not
having children is their inability to find a partner or stable relationship.
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- http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/germanypopulationeconomy
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- In Europe, gender equality programs march under the flag
of what the European Union bureaucrats call "gender mainstreaming."
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- So, blithely ignoring its impending demographic time-bomb,
the German Ministry of Education and Research has announced a new gender
mainstreaming program designed to entice even more women out of the home
and into the workforce. [www.bmbf.de/en/474.php]
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- Advocates of gender mainstreaming claim they are merely
trying to promote equal rights for the sexes. But in practice, this grand-sounding
concept doesn't quite work out that way.
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- For example, men in Austria live 76 years, while women
enjoy a full 82 years of life. But that six-year disparity in life expectancy
didn't stop the government from establishing the Bundesministerium fur
Gesundheit und Frauen - Ministry for Health and Women. [www.bmgf.gv.at]
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- In Austria, some deaths apparently are more equal than
others.
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- In sun-drenched Spain, gender equality meant passing
a law that requires husbands to "share domestic responsibilities and
the care and attention" of children. Like most countries, the most
laborious and dangerous occupations in Spain are virtually all-male. One
only hopes that in this new era of gender enlightenment, the Spanish senoras
will soon be casting off their mantas to help out as hod carriers and to
work the olive groves in the sweltering heat. [www.guardian.co.uk/spain/article/0,2763,1454802,00.html]
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- In Norway it was announced that women compose only 11%
of members of corporate boards of directors, those bastions of male power
and privilege. So minister Laila Daavoey recently decreed that henceforth
all companies would be obliged to meet a 40% female board quota - or else
face closure. [www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_
page/0,5744,12770128%255E1702,00.html]
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- Once those companies shut down, I'm sure the E.U. will
be more than happy to subsidize the checks for all those unemployed workers,
male and female.
-
- But it's Sweden where the Sisterhood has made the most
progress toward true gender equality. There, almost half of the entire
workforce and 45% of the members of Parliament are female.
-
- Given these signs of an imminent gender paradise, one
might expect the Swedish fems to embrace the now-deposed patriarchs and
break into a heart-warming round of Kumbaya. But funny, that's not what
happened.
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- One of the more colorful Swedish politicos is one Gudrun
Schyman, an alcoholic who got caught not paying her taxes and was forced
to resign as a leader of the Left Party, the former Communist Party of
Sweden. Schyman apparently forgot that in socialist societies, paying taxes
is more inevitable than death.
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- That scandal didn't stop Schyman from hatching her ultra-radical
Feminist Initiative, which is now threatening the coalition government
of the ruling Social Democrats. The FI's shrill manifesto makes Schyman
sound a lot more like David Duke than Mother Theresa. [www.transnational.org/forum/
meet/2005/Schyman_FeministInitiative.html]
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- Early last month a group of Stockholm women put the Feminist
Initiative message to the test. One night they showed up at a local strip
club wielding baseball bats and umbrellas. Police ended up arresting 16
women after the melee. [www.thelocal.se/article.php?ID=1393&date=20050508]
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- And to think all these years, I had thought that women
were genetically incapable of inflicting violence.
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- In 1620 a small band of Pilgrims fled Europe in a pluckish
effort to escape tyranny and secure their religious freedom. That experience
weighed heavily on the minds of our nation's forefathers as they forged
a new country based on limited government, free markets, and individual
liberties.
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- Nearly 400 years later, a new totalitarianism is blossoming
in Europe. Under the seductive guise of gender equality, this ideological
tyranny resorts to over-heated rhetoric, intrusive government, and intimidation
tactics.
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- Maybe Europe hasn't progressed as far as we'd like to
think.
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