"AS THE TWIG IS BENT . . ."

One big reason for hate-radio's attraction is that callers give only "a" first name (real or fictitious) and can maintain anonymity.  They do not have to take responsibility for their hateful and, most usually, slanderous remarks.

A radio program that panders to these baser instincts entices those who have a need to feel more knowledgeable, more powerful and more competent than others.  One of the constant callers to our local hate-radio program is a woman who calls herself "Margaret."  Perpetually angry about everything, "Margaret" holds forth four square against anything and everything she decides is liberal.  She is a master (mistress?) of disinformation and erudite spin.

She is a righteous advocate for any conspiracy theory that makes Democrats, and especially the Clintons, guilty of everything from petty theft to murder.  

But "Margaret" saves her most vicious comments for people of her own gender who have had the temerity to succeed in areas formerly assigned only to men.

She ferociously attacks the rank and file of what she refers to as, "those (expletives) who want to be men."  The expletives she uses are the "*F*word-ists" and "broads."

Reserving her maximum vindictiveness to attack any type of professional woman, she gets livid when the "talk" concerns women doctors.  She would never go to one of them.

"Because of the liberal preference programs," she sputters, "women have been accepted where they do not belong and where they are incapable of functioning.  The liberal professors just pass them through and set them loose on us.  I would never hire a woman doctor or woman lawyer or a woman of any profession."

Recently when the radio hate-show host interviewed a woman college president, "Margaret" called in to challenge in a deprecatory way everything the college president said.  Again her thesis was clear.  Women just get these jobs because of those liberals and their preference programs. "Everything you said was stupid and incorrect.  You are just taking our taxpayer money and spending it on foolishness.  Women just don't know how to plan and accomplish goals.  Women should never be put in charge of a university!"

Of course "Margaret" is the darling of those who believe that women should not be allowed in the military.  "Women make our "fighting men" weaker because instead of going all out to defeat the enemy, they would try to protect the women -- all men do this naturally since it's genetic."

While it's tempting to dismiss "Margaret's" tirades, we really need to listen to women like her and understand why they have these opinions and why they are so vehement about expressing them.  

By listening, one comes to hear the sorrow and frustration of a child who has striven desperately all her life to excel, in order to gain her father's approval.  

Nothing ever worked.  Over and over daddy makes it clear that only males are important. She, "Margaret" is a female and that is that.  Female accomplishments just don't count!

For a long time, mothers were blamed for any problems that a child might have in life. Mothers have always been a convenient dumping ground for blame of any kind, so "Siggy F." was in the cultural groove on this one.

But, for some time now, we have begun to understand how damaging the actions of a sexually predatory father are to his daughters.  We have yet, as a society, to realize and do anything about fathers that condition their daughters to hate their own gender and thereby hate themselves.

Mental molestation, because this is what it is, is just as devastating to a woman's life as physical molestation.  Conditioning like this from birth can cause all a person's efforts to fail and she turns the pain of failure inward as self hatred.  Relief is found when she can transfer that hatred to a successful woman.  

"As the twig is bent so the tree's inclined."

But, a woman doesn't need to follow this pattern.  The important word here is inclined.  A women can chose, as many do, to delete daddy's malevolent message and use her intelligence and energy in positive ways.  She can learn to get along without daddy's approval because she can learn to look within herself.  She has erased daddy's instructional tapes and is playing her own.

Others, like "Margaret" will never try to change.  Her inner child is having just too much destructive fun hurting other women.  But the real payoff for her is how highly the males in hate-radio prize her and compliment her.  She does not understand that it is because she is serving their ends.  She thinks that she has finally gotten daddy's approval.

For "Margaret," ultimate approval and fame is being allowed to spout her hatred for 10 minutes on the Big Daddy Rush Limbaugh show.

Twanda@ConnRiver.net

1998-010

Copyright 1998 Renee T. Louise and Ruth M. Sprague, Ph.D. These articles may be republished for noncommercial use only, provided that they are copied intact, and that this copyright notice is attached. Address all queries to: twanda@connriver.net.

G e n d e r G a p p e r s   ^{T M}