Children Need More Patriarchy Not Less
August 1, 2014
(Left, OJ Simpson's father was a homosexual who left his mother for a man when his son was three-years-old)
Almost 20 years ago, psychology professor David Gutman wrote
about the unintended consequences of single-mother families.
Boys need fathers in order to detach from their mother
and overcome juvenile feelings of omnipotence. Otherwise, their
oedipal complexes will result in violent, anti-social behavior.
"Developmental disorders are a given when viewed through the lens of psychiatry."
--Russell, who sent this article.
"Mother Nature may be female, but she is not ... a feminist. She does not accredit parenting arrangements that flout her laws, even if they are promoted-in thunder-by a self-anointed Sisterhood."
Makow comment- Mankind is in the thrall of a satanic cult that inverts nature, truth and morality. The assault on gender and family is part of a long-term program to dehumanize and enslave the human race.
by David Gutmann
In the Absence of Fathers
First Things Feb 1995
(abridged/edited by henrymakow.com)
The gender feminists still don't get it... Ever since Philip Wylie wrote his angry text on American "Momism" back in the thirties, various astute commentators, ...have been saying that American children, and especially boys, need more patriarchy-in the best sense of that term-and not more "empowered" matriarchs. These children particularly need fathers who are...tough without being macho brutes, stern without being petty tyrants, and yes, affectionate-but on the whole, less nurturing than their wives.
I can write these heresies without fear of reprisal from the politically correct: I resigned long ago from the American Psychological Association, and at my age I no longer worry about building a career...
Thus, as we consider the new uniparental or bi-maternal parenting (for example: "Murphy Brown"/single mother households or lesbian couples) we have to evaluate not only the well-being, freedom, and rights of [the adults], but also the developmental requirements of the children that they presume to raise.
What is good for General Motors is not necessarily good for the country; and what feels good to new-style or homosexual mothers is not on that account necessarily good for their kids. Mother Nature may be female, but she is not ... a feminist. She does not accredit parenting arrangements that flout her laws, even if they are promoted-in thunder-by a self-anointed Sisterhood.
FATHERS ENABLE BOYS TO SEPARATE FROM THEIR MOTHERS
Let us begin with one of Mother Nature's clear ordinances, a developmental imperative that is recognized, in both ritual and common practice, by all successful human societies. In order to mature as distinct individuals and as future fathers, ... boys have to separate, in the psychological sense, from their mothers-whose biological destiny they do not share.
Men's work is done on the communal periphery; thus, before they can become creatures of the perimeter, and long before they can begin to think of themselves as reliable parents, boys have to free themselves from the sense that they are extensions of the mother-that they are no more than their mothers' home-hugging little sons.
At the proper season, patriarchal fathers-fathers, that is, who are different from admirable mothers in their own impressive ways-play a unique role in fostering their sons' psychological migration away from the Magna Mater and towards some worthy role on the periphery. The competent father, seemingly adequate to all challenges (very much including provocations from his son), stands forth in the son's eyes as enviable but also admirable: a pillar of strength.
As such, he spreads an umbrella of security under which the son can temporarily shelter, even as he slowly declares himself to be a distinct person, separate from the mother. ... Traditional societies typically organize rights of passage, ordeals of one sort or another, to mark the boy's passage from the status of "mother's son" to that of "father's son." ... If he endures with some grace the punishment that the fathers mete out, then he has earned the right to be their son, the apprentice who will some day inherit their special powers....OEDIPUS COMPLEX
The fathers' role in bringing civilization in the form of the superego to their sons has been clarified by many psychoanalysts, the leading students of what is known as the "Oedipal" track in child development. In their narrative, little boys, charged up with untested illusions of omnipotence, are driven early on to challenge the prerogatives and possessions of the father.
If they come up against true patriarchs, fathers who are neither antagonized nor intimidated by their small sons' enmity, these same little boys are quickly (and with real relief on their part) introduced to some basic propositions of the masculine reality principle: "You are not big, powerful, and supremely competent; instead, you are small, puny, and completely unready. However, matters can change; and if you pay him proper respect, your father will help you escape from your unfortunate condition."
Thus, when the small sons of patriarchal fathers realize-however grudgingly-that they cannot win the father's prerogatives and powers by force, they are ready to receive another bulletin from reality: "If you can't lick 'em, join 'em." Young sons give up infantile fantasies of co-opting the father's powers by violence in favor of a disciplined filial apprenticeship. From then on, a boy's self-esteem will be based increasingly on experiences of real mastery, rather than on hectic fantasies of omnipotence...
From now on, his enemies will not be found in his own house or significant community, but will come to him from the outside, from beyond the periphery. Fathers' sons can be very good killers, but not of their kin, or their neighbors. Mothers' sons by contrast are indiscriminate: they are murderously aggressive within the home as well as outside of it-they are apt to abuse their aging relatives, their wives, and their children.
But while the admittedly square and even priggish sons of patriarchal fathers may grow up to patronize the women of their house and town, they very rarely assault them. Instead, they are protective (sometimes overly protective) of their mothers, wives, girlfriends, and daughters: when killing is involved, they kill the men who come from the outside to hurt their women and children.
CONSEQUENCES OF MATRIARCHAL FAMILIES
What is the fate of sons who grow up without a father, or with a father who is little more than an androgynous, often ineffectual, clone of the mother?
One consequence is clear: in the absence of a compelling father, the mother's presence fills not only the outer domestic frame, but also her son's interior psychic space. These boys-the offspring of single women, lesbian couples, or devalued "pops"-will not, in the proper season, attain psychological distance from their mothers. But children without fathers will usually find alternative, though less trustworthy ways to cut the golden cord. Boys who cannot achieve psychological distance from their mothers fall back instead on unreliable substitutes: physical distance and social distance. In its essence, this could be the story of O. J. Simpson, whose case is being litigated as I write. Simpson is certainly not a typical product of misogynist patriarchy, taught by his seniors and locker-room companions to bash women. Quite the contrary: at age forty-seven, he seems to be the prototypical "mother's son," now wrecked by the troublesome passage into midlife. We have been studying casualties of his sort-black and white, rich and poor- in my clinical service for middle-aged and older adults for the past fifteen years.
Despite his celebrity O. J.'s history is in no way atypical of the syndrome. for starters, the father, known in the neighborhood as "Sweet Jimmy" Simpson, was hardly your stereotypical patriarch. Instead, he was a reported homosexual, who apparently left O. J.'s mother for a man when his son was three years old, and who died, probably of AIDS, in 1986. Left alone, O. J.'s tough and devoted mother overcomes daunting odds to raise him.
Nevertheless, as a teen-ager he predictably splits from her into the world of gangs and dope. Far from being corrupted by patriarchy, he is rescued by a celebrated black man: hearing that a potentially great athlete is screwing up, Willie Mays shows O. J. the exciting world that could be his. Thus sponsored by a "father figure," O. J. finds a route away from the mother's world that does not lead through the dangerous streets. He accepts the patriarchal discipline of coaches and locker rooms, goes on to win the Heisman Trophy, and becomes the legendary "Juice."
Simpson's violent urges towards women do not really bloom until he retires from football, when he quits the locker room. Having lost the masculine cosmetic of the sports world-the fatherly coaches, the male allies, of the NFL-Simpson (like many of our midlife patients) is then probably threatened anew by his unsundered ties to the mother within, and to her feminine exemplars in the outside world.
Once again he is in danger of becoming a "Mama's boy." Having lost the "patriarchal" or sportsman's route away from the feminine, he seems to fall back on his last-ditch, emergency buffers: behaving much like a threatened teenager, he interposes physical and social distance between himself and the dangerous women. Thus he divorces two wives, he is certainly violent towards Nicole Simpson, and driven by his pathological jealousy-the usual fears of a man insecure about his masculinity-he may have killed her. The troubles of a poorly fathered son can afflict not only his childhood and adolescence, but his later years as well.
CONCLUSION
Even as new-wave mothers congratulate themselves on their own boldness and "growth," their sons, and eventually they themselves, will be at risk. The child-rearing revolutions that, in the name of women's liberation from patriarchy, diminish the fathers lead paradoxically but inevitably to the loss of women's freedom that results from desperate male violence.
Loud blasts from the trumpets of ideology temporarily drown out the muted but insistent voice of the reality principle, but nature denied eventually returns, usually in its most primitive forms. "Take Back the Night" protests will neither repair the damage nor reverse the social entropy that causes it.
A measure of patriarchy in the home is, paradoxically, the major guarantor of democracy in our public life. We may still have a choice: either recognize the special grace and status of the father within the family, or eventually suffer-and probably in this order-criminal anarchy, then the Police State, and finally the iron rule of Big Brother over our domestic and public affairs.
---
David Gutmann is Professor of Psychology and Education at Northwestern University and author, most recently, of Reclaimed Powers: Men and Women in Later Life (Northwestern University Press).
Thanks to Russell!
Related - Makow- Feminism Deprives Girls of Father Love
--------- On the Need for Patriarchy (The Garbage Generation by George Amneus)
First Comment from Victoria:
All I can say to David Gutman's article is 'HEAR! HEAR!' As the mother of two grown sons who come from a legacy of weak males, I can completely confirm what he says. As the mother of a daughter who was not protected by such a father, I can also agree with it. While my daughter has come out of it relatively well (though, unfortunately, with a tendency to pick male partners who seem to be looking for mothers rather than equals), her two brothers are both (I don't know for sure, but would guess) still virgins, uncertain of their way with women, and equally uncertain as to whether or not they are attracted to males. What a mess...
The best parental method is for a mother to be more dominant with her daughter and less so with her sons, and the opposite is true for sons, who need a strong father figure to emulate and butt heads against, and a softer, gentler mother who can acquiesce to her growing son. In the same way, it is important for a father to exercise the gentler side of his nature in dealing with a daughter for she will then learn to seek comfort from males, but to be held accountable by members of her own sex. In the end, the whole thing is about balance and returning to the centre-point within ourselves.
Unfortunately, for society as a whole, thanks to a surfeit of 'feminism', things have gone much too far in the direction of 'strong' (i.e. overbearing) women. I know, because I've been one myself, the result of seeking to balance a father who was, himself, overbearing towards females and a mother who adamantly refused to defend her sex against the onslaught. So, yet again, we all need to work together to solve these issues by remembering that our only job in this life is to play the role we were given to play and to do so in the most balanced way possible.
Edgar said (August 3, 2014):
In general, I agree with Dr. Gutman in that children need effective and instructive parents jn order to become well adjusted adults.
However, I do strongly disagree with the assumption that OJ killed his wife. All of the suppressed and disclosed evidence points to the druglords with whom Nicole was dealing and flagrantly neglecting to pay for the drugs she was receiving via some of the waiters at the Mezza Luna restaurant.
The Mafia, Yakuza, CIA and some police officers were deeply involved. "Fats" Ippolito of New Jersey was suddenly released from Federal prison to collect the 6 month overdue multi million payment. Not only did she not pay the amount owed but brazenly defied them by contracting with another drug supplier. OJ was invited to attend a conference in her house at 7 PM; fortunately for him he was 30 minutes late after the six men in black were seen entering and leaving the house. His "bloody sock was found 3 weeks in a bush at the front of the
house THREE weeks after an extensive search".......!!
This is only one example of planted evidence . Judge Ito ,who was the husband of a prominent LA police lieutenant, forbade OJ's attorney, John Cochran, to introduce any evidence about a drug connection. Lastly, a waiter at the Mezza Luna had been subpoenaed to testify but was found murdered at 2 AM in an alley 8 hours before he was scheduled to testify. The police found neither clues nor motive.