Feminist Grievance Campaign gets Ridicules

Uber left-wing feminist Mika Brzezinski often uses her limited time on MS NOW’s Morning Joe to air her spin on female grievances and gender inequality. Today was no different. This time it is about “androcentrism.” What?

Brzezinski’s principal guest was Karen Korellis Reuther, author of “Man Made”, a book that alleges gender bias in designs and services. Appearing on the screen were five of her most salient points.

1. Sneakers built around men’s feet. (No, this did not come from the satirical magazine, The Onion. Reuther is serious). According to her, sneakers are designed based on a male foot. Did not sound right to me, so I jumped down the rabbit hole and called my podiatrist. Turns out men’s and women’s feet come in various sizes. However, there is no particular anatomical difference that would require unique male of female sneaker designs. Size matters … and that is it. I was told that if you looked at x-rays of feet, it would be impossible to determine gender. Also, I do not believe that women’s footwear – high heel, spike heel, platform heel, open toe, pumps, strapless and all those other painful and deforming variations – are based on a male foot. They are not even based on a human foot.
2. “Safety gear that doesn’t fit women.” Reuther failed to give any examples – but she does claim that 90 percent of women report ill-fitting Personal Protective Equipment. The most common safety equipment is a seat belt in cars and planes – and I can see nothing that does not fit women as well as men. Same is true of carnival rides. When I go skydiving, that part of the rigging that goes between your legs seems to be more suited for a woman than a man. Those belts that warehouse workers wear seem equally suited for men and women. Safety harnesses for toddlers seem to be unisex. Contrary to Reuther’s “findings”, I have yet to hear a woman complain about ill-fitting safety equipment. Reuther may be right on one piece of safety gear – bullet proof vests. I am not familiar with any that have accommodation for boobs. It may also be that an auto airbag is more dangerous to bountiful women than a man – but I am not sure what you can do about it.
3. “Crash tests based on male bodies”. They must be transgender. I have yet to see a crash dummy with testicles. They are scientifically crafted to measure general impacts on the human body – male or female. They are not male bodies, but rather unisex mannequins carefully engineered to assess accident damage to typical human bodies regardless of gender.
4. “Restroom with unequal capacity.” (I had to pause here and contain my laughter.) Women’s restrooms very often have unequal capacity because of women’s potties have more “capacity”. My experience with women’s public toilets – limited as it is – convinces me that if there is an inequality of facilities, it is in favor of women. I have been in restaurants that have one restroom for men and two for women. Perhaps Reuther is confused – or offended — because the facilities are commonly referred to as “the John”. It might help if we referred to the lady’s room as “the Joan.”
5. “Medical training centered on male patients.” That is an absurdity. It is a well-documented fact that women’s medical issues get more attention than do men. There are entire hospitals and wings of hospitals devoted to women. Medical schools have special courses for female medicine. Women have a field of medicine that deals exclusively with female medical issues. They are known as gynecologists. For obvious reasons, woman have innumerable facilities providing abortion services.

Reuther went to say that women are 73 percent more likely be seriously injured in crashes. Though there are a lot of women drivers, they are still more likely to be in the passenger seat that is known to be the most dangerous seat in an accident. Also, women’s bodies are more vulnerable to injury. We know that from crash tests.

Reuther says that women are 14 percent less likely to receive bystander CPR. I am not sure how this even fits into design issues. It may have more to do with the reluctance of a man to push down on a woman’s breasts. And by the way, men are more likely to give CPR than women. So, if you have a heart attack at a women’s convention, do not expect a lot of help before the medics arrive.

According to Reuther, “many products are designed using “male defaults”. And here lies the foundation of the issue. It is a feminist term that alleges that standards are based on the male. And Reuther is not the first to make book on the issue. The concept was initially advanced in “Invisible Women”, a book by Caroline Criado Perez.

The concept has been given academic imprimatur. Scholars such as Sapna Cheryan, professor of social psychology at Washington University and Hazel Markus, another social psychologist, this time from Stanford University, have “formalized ’masculine defaults’ as situations where male-associated traits are valued, rewarded, or seen as normal/neutral in a given context, even if not overtly discriminatory”.

If I read that correctly, they seem to be contending that there is gender discrimination that is not “overtly discriminatory.” That can only make sense in the theoretical world of academia. The concept even has one of those academic names. In “He is the Subject; She is the Other”, Simone de Beauvoir’s calls it “androcentrism” (male centered).

I take three things away from this nonsense. First, it is yet another creation of academia’s propensity to deal in theoreticals beyond the bounds of reality. Second, it is an imaginary feminist grievance concocted for political posturing. And third, it is another facet of the larger “toxic male” theory that permeates the radical left-wing feminist movement. God knows, both woman and men have gender issues that are real without having to invent more – especially silly stuff like this.

So, there ‘tis.