I’m Against Sexual Assault. . .and Third-Wave Feminism

You Don’t Have to Be a Feminist to Object to Sexual Assault

by Aya Katz

The first time I was ever discriminated against for being a woman, it was by an avowed feminist. I had assumed that my Baylor Law School study partner, Patsy, would be my partner for practice court. However, when I asked her, she turned me down, stating that she believed that if she had a woman partner, then the professor would discriminate against her and fail her.

For that reason, she was instead partnering with a male, and she advised me to do the same. Patsy’s feminism consisted of preemptively assuming everyone was discriminating against women, when in fact she was the one who was biased. I went on to try all my practice court cases on my own without a partner, and I did just fine. No discrimination that I could see, except in Patsy’s eyes.

The other side to this story is that, of course, I did not grow up all my life like Patsy in the deepest, most redneck part of Texas, and was not brought up from childhood, as she was, to think that there were only three professions open to women — teacher, nurse, and secretary. I also did not find myself subjected to the gropings and other indignities that she was as a young woman growing up ten years earlier than me in the small community in which she was raised.

Patsy was biased because she grew up submerged in prejudice, and there did not seem to be any way to redeem her. Ten years into a career as a high school teacher, she suddenly noticed that the law was becoming a popular career for women, and so she switched. But she would never have been a pioneer in that profession or any other. She also believed that no woman would choose to be a stay-at-home mother unless forced to do so, and she favored laws that would make it easier for working mothers and harder for those who stayed at home. She did not hesitate to foist her own preferences on other women. The one thing Patsy did not believe in was individual choice.

When I began to practice law in Grand Prairie, Texas, most of my clients came from similar backgrounds to Patsy’s. There were many women who assumed that the very shoddy way they were being treated by their husbands was universal. And then, of course, there was the local constable, who, when I asked him to serve restraining orders on abusive husbands, accused me of being mean to men, and then went on to say all sorts of lurid things dripping with sexual innuendo that do not bear repeating here. It was a crazy world where bad behavior was the norm rather than the exception.

People were stuck in this hell hole without any way to get out, because the law, the lawyers, the social workers, the judges — everything was crooked! It did not matter whether it was a feminist social worker breaking up a marriage so she could get revenue for the state from collecting child support, or a boorish sheriff patting down an innocent victim — there was nowhere to turn to get a fair hearing. I describe this situation in greater detail in Vacuum County.

When I left the law and went to grad school, feminism reared up its ugly head again, in the form of two-body problem solutions. For the sake of women’s rights, an unqualified male professor was hired, because he  was married to a woman who had been a former lover of the department chair. That woman then went on to make sure that all other women except herself were kept out of the departmental meetings on the grounds that those other women were less adequate somehow than the inadequate husband who got there by virtue of being married to an ex-flame of the chair.

It was a bit more complicated than that, because there was also an anti-Asian bias to the exclusions, but you get the idea. Complaints concerning discrimination did not work, because the people discriminated against did not all belong to the same protected class. “Exactly what ethnicity did you say you were?” the clerk at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) asked me, squinting. If you can’t find yourself a protected class to belong to, you can forget about equal opportunity!

I despise feminists for the same reason that I despise people who engage in sexual discrimination and sexual assault. In my experience, discrimination is exactly what feminism is meant to foster. The problem is that the sexual harasser and the feminist are always in cahoots, whether we know it or not. Anybody who just wants to be treated fairly based on individual merit does not have a chance with either one. It’s like trying to choose between Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. It’s a no-win situation.

In the latest shouting match between the two establishment contenders, I am shocked by how many women are now either excusing the sexual assaults committed by Bill Clinton and condoned by Hillary, or applauding Donald Trump’s bragging about sexually assaulting women. The feminists think that Hillary is entitled to claw her way up to the top by hook or by crook, because, after all, everything is stacked up against women in our society, so that makes any crime committed for the sake of advancement just fine. And the anti-feminists are saying that anyone who condemns Trump must be a hypocrite, because, after all, men are just like that.

No, men are not all just like that. Lots of men aren’t. Unless you grew up among trash, then you must know many men who are not like Donald Trump and Bill Clinton. And no, whoring your way to the top is not the only career path open to women. Not unless all the feminists win!

So, yesterday I was accused of being a feminist, because I objected to sexual assault. But a feminist is exactly what I am not. I believe in treating everybody fairly.  That makes me a libertarian. And I am voting for the one ticket with no alleged sexual predators on it: Johnson/Weld.