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Barbara Kay

Barbara Kay

A Father’s Day I’d like to see

Posted on Wednesday, June 15, 2005
Bio/Email | Barbara Kay Archives | Printer-Friendly Version

Father’s Day is meant to celebrate dads. This year, instead of buying them ties or barbecue tools, let’s pledge to roll back the ideological campaign aimed at belittling their virtues and achievements.

Ten-year-old Emilia of Regina recently wrote to the the Post with a complaint about our national anthem: “I feel left out while singing the line, ‘true patriot’s love in all thy sons’ command,’” she wrote in the May 11 edition. “My mom suggested singing ‘in all of us command.’ Now, both of us sing it that way.”

“Thy sons’ command” is a military reference to the men who have fought and died for Canada. But Emilia’s mom has taught her daughter that “correct” sentiments trump historical accuracy.

Mom comes by her political correctness honestly, though, for the deliberate marginalization of men’s unique contributions to society has for many years been percolating downward from the highest echelons.

In his March eulogy of the four RCMP officers slain in Mayerthorpe, Alta., Paul Martin began with these words: “No matter the era, it seems that children always want to grow up to be police officers ... It reflects a young heart’s yearning to keep people safe and families whole.”

If he had chosen his words for truth rather than gender-equity piety, Mr. Martin would have said, “No matter the era, it seems that boys always want to grow up to be police officers”—for although criminology attracts women nowadays, they remain a minority on the front lines. Little girls dream of many things, but not of policing. To “keep people safe and families whole” is a boy’s life-risking ambition, and the tragic death of these four men cried out for acknowledgement of that noble male aspiration.

For more than a generation, gender theorists have linked testosterone to violence against women, but ignored the fact that it is also responsible for the Sistine Chapel, suspension bridges, insulin and the taming of Falluja. Somehow, it has become acceptable public policy to militate against the innate drives of one sex to accommodate the self-esteem of the other’s.

It begins in school. Our public educators—overwhelmingly female in the formative years—have been trained by theorists with a strong bias against “masculine culture,” academic code for competitiveness, challenge and physical aggression. As a result, educational models tend to defer to female strengths, emphasizing expression of feeling over stoicism, talking over action, teamwork over rivalry and sympathy over justice. Boys eventually assimilate the subliminal message that their natural instincts are inherently linked to violence rather than to honour, valour and loyalty.

Far more men are engaged in protecting women and children from violence than perpetrating it. Healthy boys with strong fathers—and father figures like male teachers—learn that their attraction to power can be a tool for doing good. Their instincts for gallantry, fair play and protectiveness are easily mobilized when aggression is properly channeled. But when educational models repudiate the biological makeup of half our students for ideological reasons, can we be surprised that boys are floundering, or that girls like Emilia are ignorant of boys’ particular strengths and worth?

In her reflexive, conditioned conflation of gender roles, Emilia is surely unaware that it is only men everywhere—“thy sons”—for whom combat duty in the military is obligatory. Even in Israel, with universal conscription, most women can, and do, opt for non-combat roles. And Emilia probably doesn’t know that it is overwhelmingly men who take up the “death professions” of policing, firefighting and search and rescue, or the toil-intensive, hazardous work of mining and hydro repair, amongst other unappealing jobs women shrink from.

In his eulogy, the PM went on to say: “There are bad people in the world, and they do bad things. Someone must stand against them.” Well, “Someone” does, and “someone” is almost invariably a man. To celebrate Father’s Day, Mr. Martin, why not reprise that speech and, for the sake of Emilia and other Canadian girls who have been “educated” to take the sacrifices men make on their behalf for granted, give credit where credit is due?



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©2005-09 - Barbara Kay is a columnist at Canada’s National Post newspaper.  Her column appears here at ProudToBeCanadian.ca weekly, with Barbara Kay’s express permission. 


Posted on 06/15/05 at 05:18 AM

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