Some condenscending lady once said sweetly to me:
“Oh, you must be grateful to the feminists that enabled you to go to medical school”.

And I answered back not so sweetly: “No, I graduated before feminism, I became a doctor because of my own hard work”.

The Feminists of the boomer years seem to be more Marxist than Feminists, insisting that women are victims, men are the enemy, and hyperventillating or fainting when someone tells a dirty joke or, as Lawrence Summers found out, tries to point out that neurobiological development rather than victimhood might be the reason for the lack of females in the sciences.

Isn’t it strange that Pinay feminists can run businesses, support the family, run for every office in the government but manage to remain sweet and feminine? Indeed, most are married, seem fond of their husbands, and have several children and grandchildren, yet none of this seems to make them think they are inferior.

Perhaps the difference is that Philippine culture stresses the importance of the family, and the importance of family members to help one another, whereas in America, we stress individual freedom.

Ironically, I should not say “America”, because what I actually mean is the elite Boomer mindset. I am pre boomer, and my “mindset” is working class ethnic, which has a lot more in common with the Philippines than with the narcissistic leaders of NOW and most university Women’s programs.

What brought all this up was a comment on Austin Bay’s blog about the so called rape victims in the Army. Neither of the cases were true rape– unwise seduction might be a better name for it.

Like the VA hospitals, or Walter Reed, the “rape” of female soldiers is one of those stories that any reporter at any time during the last 50 years could “dig up” and print. But why now? Because the attacks on Bush has now evolved into attack on those in the Armed services. It’s Americaphobia. It has nothing to do with the problem of rape, which is a lot more common on your average college campus than in the Army. Nor is it about solving the problem. It has more about electing Hillary than with actual concern for the US soldiers.
As a doc, I’ve seen the whole range of sexual crime, but the crying victim (often with a history of drug abuse) who claims rape with little evidence of bruising and a story that keeps changing is not unknown. Indeed, the dirty little statistic is that half of women who have been raped claim they have been raped in the past. What’s going on here? Ask Dr. Sanity for the diagnosis, but we family docs tend to be cynical about the stories we hear from some patients…Sociopathy? Hysteria? Who knows?
But the reason that the New York Times got it wrong was that they assumed the feminist logic: Men bad, woman innocent victim.

Wait a second. If you are in the Army, you are supposed to be logical and aggressive. When I was in the National Guard and one happy drunk kept trying to pry open our door, we laughed and called the MP’s. Of course such things happen. But what is more common is the dirty little secret of the armed services: That when you put young men and young women together in small intense situations, things happen, and one of the things that happens is sex.

Short of going back to the unisex Army (without gays), where everyone took an oath of celibacy, perhaps what is needed is a “sex ed 2.0″ like we were given in Parochial school 50 years ago.

If you don’t want to commit a sin, stay away from near occassions of sin.

Or maybe they can do like unmarried Pinays do: Travel in a group on a date.

Or I’ll teach them about the elbow in the solar plexus while necking in the back of the car. Worked for me.

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Nancy Reyes is a retired physician working in the Philippines. Her website is Finest Kind Clinic and Fishmarket