Incentivizing Goodwill

In the Bush – Bin Laden – Eminem decade, as well as the time that followed, we have seen a global resurgence of aggressive misogyny. Many men claim such things as that the last 40 years have proven that “what men have said about women for centuries has been right all along.” There is only one problem with that claim. Women are not the same any more than are men. The presence of bad women does not damn women. And the better women do not deserve to be blamed for the actions of malicious power-hungry women who wrongfully claim to speak for women and, without their permission, dictate to them how to think, how to look and how to live.

These men do not begin to touch real wrongdoers, such as the world's Catherine McKinnons, who remain quite comfortable in business, academia or law. Instead they attack women who like them enough to want to be with them, who for the most part are kind, compassionate, hard-working and in every way better people than them. This then reinforces the misandrist slander that men are scoundrels and their aggressive recommendation that women avoid romantic relationships and family life.

If women who avoid men have successful careers, and women who are with men get knocked around, then which life will women choose? Violence against women feeds hatred of men, and abuses of feminism feed hatred of women. The real wrongdoers on both sides remain comfortable where they are, whereas men and women of good will get punished. Men near liberal centers of learning and media who believe in women's rights and are willing to be good to women get attacked by misandrist feminists, and women who like men and are willing to be good to men get abused by their husbands and boyfriends. Nastiness and violence are rewarded, and goodwill is persecuted. The result is ugliness all around and a worse world for everyone.

I once knew an Iranian woman who was a dental hygienist. I asked her, “As a woman from Iran, do you find it therapeutic to inflict pain on men?” She said, “Not at all, you are not Hashemi Rafsanjani.” People in the West – both women and men – have a lot to learn from this woman and her compatriots. They put up with vicious abuse from men in their country; but they do not generalize their hatred on the whole gender and are willing to see the next person for who he is.

Many women in feminist movement think that they are the only strong and smart women out there. They are wrong. Russian women are both smarter and stronger than they are; and most of them are much better people. Every woman from India that I've known was strong, smart and ambitious. And the women in Middle East become very strong people as a result of living where they do.

Attitude and malice do not qualify as strength.

Similarly I've known any number of men who believe that love is for sissies and that real men dominate women. They are also very wrong. It does not take much for a man to knock a woman around; it takes a lot more to love her. My former wife was, at her admission, at her worst behavior when she was with me; but I continued to love her. She has respect for me and none for the men in her past who think that abusing women makes them men.

I do not deserve to be blamed for the actions of Eminem or Osama Bin Laden. Similarly my mother, my sister and my daughter do not deserve to be blamed for the actions of Catherine McKinnon or Eve. Men are not all the same; women are not all the same. There are good ones and bad ones in both genders. And the better ones do not deserve to be blamed for the actions of the worse ones.

Both the abusive men who claim to speak for men and the vicious women who claim to speak for women are usurpers of power. Nobody has elected them to speak for 50% of humanity; yet they continue to claim to do so and maliciously attack anyone in their respective genders who does not agree. On both sides we see the worst of each gender influencing the rest of their gender to be the worst thing that they can possibly be. On both sides we see a vast usurpation of power. On both sides we see an attempt at de facto totalitarianism.

To both sides, I say, Screw you.

It is wrong to pick sides between Eminem and Catherine McKinnon. Both are disgusting, and neither deserves to speak for 50% of humanity. Instead men and women both should be given courage, inspiration and guidance to love one another and treat one another right. When my former wife left me to be with another man, I did not threaten to kill her or try to deny her contact with our daughter. I have maintained a positive relationship with her, and my daughter now has the love of both her parents.

It takes far more character to do that than it does to threaten to kill the woman or to take away her kids.

As someone with economics education, I think in terms of how to combine resources in such a way as to make the best outcome. I also think in terms of incentives. And I have come up with an economic answer to the problem of gender war – an answer that does not involve either taxpayer money or military action.

My recommendation is as follows. Combine the best of both sides. Create a large cross-cultural flux for intermarriage. Let men in feminist-influenced cultures get together with women in patriachial cultures. Let men who are willing to be good to women get together with women who are willing to be good to men.

This will realize positives both for the people involved and for society. The men and the women involved will have much better relationships than they stand to have at home. And the offending gender in either culture will have a real-world reason to improve their treatment of the other gender – or else see the other gender leave in large numbers to be with people who are willing to be good to them.

That way, love, goodwill and willingness to be good to the other gender will be both incentivized and rewarded. And ill will toward the other gender – and those who exploit it - will have much less of a grip.

It is time that good will be rewarded and ill will be punished. It is time that men who are willing to be good to women have it better than men who are not willing to be good to women, and it is time that women who are willing to be good to men have it better than women who are not willing to be good to men. It is time that virtues be rewarded and vices dis-incentivized.

And it is also time that both women and men have freedom from unelected power-hungry usurpers who claim to speak for 50% of humanity and viciously bludgeon their genders into being the worst thing that they can be.

Eminem does not speak for me, and Catherine McKinnon does not speak for my sister. Neither one of us have given either of them that right. I am me; Eminem is Eminem; neither one of us is responsible for the other's actions. Nor are the women who like men enough to want to be with them responsible for the actions of the misandrist feminists. Nor are the contemporary women responsible for the actions of Eve.

It is time that people – both women and men – say screw you to both sets of usurpers. And it is time that love, good will and willingness to be good to the other gender be rewarded and have currency in the world.