The purpose of this parade is, ostensibly, to "draw attention to violence against women", or some such rhetorical phrase. But the actual purpose is what you might expect: to affront, degrade and humiliate the male population in a ritual, symbolic manner. Male participants -- some voluntary, some not -- will put on ridiculous spike-heeled footwear (you know, the kind which the patriarchy forces women to wear!) and then literally walk a mile, en masse, in view of the general public. The whole spectacle is designed as a participatory public psychodrama, meant to enact the neurotic tribal narrative of a certain social cohort, and to draw more and more people into that very same script.
And the subtext is, of course, to empower women by making men more manipulable through real or imagined guilt. Well, mostly imagined, but that's fine so long as a self-flagellatory, "male culpa" ethos instills itself into the collective male psyche. That's what feminism is for, after all.
Walk a Mile in her Shoes is but one of several such public psychodramas that are periodically enacted and becoming as culturally entrenched as Easter, Christmas, Chanukah, Valentine's Day, the Superbowl, the Fourth of July, and so on. Other examples of feminist zeitgeist engineering would include Take Back the Night, V-Day, the Clothesline Project, the White Ribbon Campaign, and the Vagina Monologues.
The general public, I'm sad to say, has trotted along with all of this like obediant livestock.You will frankly not find a lot of critical detachment or acerbic intelligence at work in the vicinity of such trajectories. For the most part, people are passively sucking it all up, much as you'd predict of spectator drones who've never known a world without television or similarly invasive media.
But here and there, in a few heads, the light is on. One of those heads, needless to say, belongs to the present writer. But the present writer is not alone. He is part of a growing phenomenon which is now breaking surface and spreading out, in growing sheets and patches, all over the world. Yes, things are moving.
Thus, the recent Walk a Mile parade in Edmonton did not occur without the visible presence of a counter-feminist greeting committee. Their numbers, I grant you, were small. But they were planted in the public eye in broad daylight -- that's the important thing!
My informant, a chap known as Eric, was part of the crew on that day -- and the crew also included the notorious Girl-Writes-What. They came well equipped with signage, handouts, knowledge, the gift o' gab, and a truck with a big banner on the side. (In case you can't read it, that says "Men's Rights Edmonton.com". I like the "waving man" logo!)
So anyway, they drove the truck around, displayed signage, talked to the public, and handed out literature. You know, standard stuff for these kinds of gigs. Contrary to what I myself might have done, they did not dangle dog-collars in the air or hold up signs with shaming slogans directed at the wobbly male critters in funny footwear. No, they played it polite and cool, and chatted quietly with people. And that's fine. They're the ones on the spot, so I reckon they know the scene better than I do. Anyhow, on maiden voyages you are generally just testing the water. Eric told me some interesting, and largely encouraging, things. Overall, he said, the public was receptive and non-hostile. That is good, and it tallies with what we are seeing elsewhere -- in Vancouver, for example. There were a few episodes of snarkery from passing males, but these were minor and infrequent.
There were a couple of intriguing vignettes. On one occasion, GWW spoke with members of a high school football team, and those lads informed her that they had effectively been forced to participate in the parade. If they had not done so, they would not have been permitted to play football. I am told that they were friendly, and interested in hearing more about "men's rights."
On another occasion, a cranky old woman yelled "men have too many rights already!" Needless to say, that's rich. If I'd been there, I'd have said something like, "okay, so which rights do you plan to take away in order to make it even?"
So, I think it went nicely for them, way up yonder in Edmonton. Keep in mind that this was a first run, a shakedown cruise. You can't expect much drama in the beginning, when the enemy has not yet gotten wind of your arrival. And even when they do, they need time to scramble their forces.
This has been a report from the front, from the non-feminist revolution, a social change phenomenon which is breaking to the surface everywhere in many forms, and spreading over the ground with a flow that increases steadily in volume. It is both a force of nature and an idea whose time has come. There is no stopping it, so why not join it?
Why not join it right now?
Peace.
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