Calvin Mulligan, January 18, 2025 (c) All rights reserved
“To live a lie leads to destruction.” — Darrow Miller
Imagine the kind of world we could live in if we insisted, individually and collectively, on telling ourselves the truth. We’ve been consuming lies as a society for so long that many people are now incapable of discerning between the truth and socially-approved lies. In fact some are prepared to defend a lie to their death. It’s a tribute to the effectiveness of propaganda. You may have read, for example, of zealous vaxx advocates who chronicled their journey from excellent health through a succession of vaxx injections to hospitalization from adverse effects, continuing decline and ultimately to their death. That tragedy aside, one of the most reliable suppliers of deadly and destructive lies over the past four to five decades is feminism in one iteration or another.
Here’s a roughly translated oldie: “Women can do anything men can do.”Oh there are always exceptions out there on the tail end of the curve, but in general it’s not true. And we should know better. The differences and the evidence to the contrary have been on display daily for hundreds of years. It’s a simple matter of genetics and biology. Men and women are made differently — physically, mentally and emotionally. And it follows therefore that men, by nature are better suited for some occupations and women for others. But don’t try to tell a group of “strong, independent” women that. Solidarity within the feminist sisterhood requires unquestioning acceptance of its official doctrine aided by a big doses of denial and delusion.
I recall a former boss telling me in the late nineties that his wife had been accepted into our town’s fire fighting service. He unenthusiastically explained one of the trade-offs associated with the recruitment of women into the profession. Rather than being hoisted aloft into the fireman’s carry position and carried out of a burning building, for example, fire victims rescued by female fire fighters would more likely be dragged by their boots. This was one reason he’d rather be rescued by a man. In that case, his head would be spared the bumpity, bump, bump treatment on the staircase of a burning building. That image has never left my head.
Fire rescue training videos comparing the speed with which male and female fire fighters can breach a locked door tell the same story of lesser female strength and speed with unnerving implications. But a quarter century later, we’re still pretending there’s equivalence. And much to our collective detriment, those who question the lie are ridiculed and cancelled.
I was freshly reminded of the dangers inherent in this self-imposed delusion in the wake of the LA fires. While the story is multi-dimensional, there’s a clear feminism-DEI-woke politics thread to it. Here’s how the Deputy Chief of the LA fire department and head of DEI responded to the assertion that female fire fighters aren’t strong enough to carry a man out of a burning building. Her response: “He got himself in the wrong place if I have to carry him out of a fire.” (I wonder if this would also apply to a large woman?)
Oh, is that the problem? I thought DEI was all about enhancing organizational performance and problem-solving. You know — “diversity is our strength”and all that. The Deputy’s self-righteous, DEI-inspired defence takes victim-blaming and deflection to glorious new heights. I’m sure that it’s also an enormous embarrassment to those in the profession who value logic over ideology and performance over pretence.
I suspect the human, social and economic costs of assuming female-male equivalence in fire-fighting, policing and military combat, as just three examples, are enormous. Moreover, it’s logical that male subsidizationof female performance in such roles as fire fighter, police officer and soldier is a significant factor. But I’ll leave that for others to explore. I can only hope and pray that the record-setting devastation of the LA fires will open eyes to the problem of mass acceptance of politically-correct delusions. Even the limits of the Peter principle in terms of ideologically-infused professional incompetence may have been exceeded here.
The social-political context has changed. The recent rapid decline of DEI is a hopeful sign. (See: LinkedIn article: “Message to senior management: ‘Get woke. go broke is no joke’“). Perhaps, as a society, we’re ready to be more objective and more truthful about gender differences and their relationship to human performance. Unless or until we are, the quest for improved organizational effectiveness and institutional performance and the related social and economic benefits will yield about as much as LA’s empty fire hydrants. As one observer of the culture war has wisely noted, the war against reality cannot be won. How much more proof do we need?
End Notes
LAFD’s $300,000 per-year diversity chief sparks fury for defending DEI by blaming the victim: ‘He got himself into the wrong place’
Message to senior management: ‘”Get woke, go broke,” is no joke’
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https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/message-corporate-headquarters-calvin-mulligan-wj0re/?trackingId=CLuTG284SD6qIZYchcaz%2BA%3D%3DModern Feminism is a lie — so is Post-Modern Feminism
https://darrowmillerandfriends.com/2019/02/11/modern-feminism-lies/
We’ve awakened from wokeness
https://www.theburningplatform.com/2025/01/12/weve-awakened-from-wokeness/