[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 161 (Friday, September 28, 2018)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1335-E1336]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      WHY WE SHOULD ALL GET ALONG

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR.

                              of tennessee

                    in the house of representatives

                       Friday, September 28, 2018

  Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, at the height of the Bill 
Clinton-Monica

[[Page E1336]]

Lewinsky and other sex scandals years ago, I was speaking to an 
assembly program at Fort Loudon Middle School telling the students 
about my job.
  During the question-answer session, in front of the approximately 
1,000 students, one girl asked me if I had ever had an affair.
  I told them no, I had not and that I bet that almost none of their 
fathers had either.
  I have found over the years that the men who cannot be satisfied with 
and loyal to one woman are almost always repeat offenders with many 
women--such as President Clinton.
  I have become concerned during all the publicity and controversy 
about Judge Kavanaugh that some young women may think all men are 
sexual predators in the worst meaning of those two words.
  I really believe that the great majority--the overwhelming majority--
of men are good and kind people who have no desire to force themselves 
on anyone.
  I believe that most women are good and kind people who do not want to 
be in an adversarial relationship with most men.
  Men and women are different, and that does not imply that women 
should be held back in some way.
  My wife and I have two daughters and two sons and now five 
granddaughters and four grandsons.
  My biggest desire is for all of them to be wonderful at whatever they 
want to do.
  But we all need to get along. We certainly don't need to be enemies.
  In thinking about this relationhip between men and women, I include 
in the Record the following column by Suzanne Fields which was 
published in the September 27th edition of the Washington Times.

          The Disappearing `Man's Man Blues' By Suzanne Fields

       My father was not very tall. But no man ever stood taller 
     in my eyes than this particular Big Daddy. He was warm and 
     playful, a man of character and the model for the men I would 
     admire as I grew up. Daddy wasn't formally educated, having 
     dropped out of school in the sixth grade after his mother and 
     father, Jewish immigrants from Pinsk, told him he had to wear 
     his older sister's hand-me-down shoes because they didn't 
     have the money to buy him a pair of his own. He took a 
     certain pride later in having graduated from the ``school of 
     hard knocks.''
       He was a man of his times, describing himself as a ``man's 
     man.'' He became a sportsman of his era, hanging out with the 
     sportswriters of the considerable number of newspapers in the 
     Washington of those days. He promoted a world heavyweight 
     championship at Griffith Stadium in 1942 between Joe Louis 
     and Buddy Baer. According to contemporary feminist thinking, 
     he was a male chauvinist who believed that men should earn 
     the bread and women should bake it.
       I wrote a book years ago about a father's influence on his 
     daughter, titled ``Like Father, Like Daughter.'' He was the 
     person of integrity I wanted to imitate as an adult, even if 
     I didn't agree with all of his ideas. I further saw my 
     parents in a loving marriage, reinforcing the idea that has 
     lasted for many thousands of years, that men and women are 
     different and that the difference, at its best, is what gives 
     spice to life. The French famously celebrate it as ``Vive Ia 
     difference.'' But now it's not fashionable to think of that 
     difference as anything but a negative, to regard the male as 
     an aggressor, and in the worst way. My father would be 
     described as ``bad'' because he was not only a man, but a 
     white man of privilege.
       I've been thinking about my father a lot, with the 
     newspapers and television screens awash in breaking stories 
     about the evil that men do. Accusations from universities and 
     now from high schools, some true and some not, tell of men 
     who have wronged women. There's so much hatred manufactured 
     against specific ``bad'' men that it's become fashionable, if 
     not mandatory, to think of all men as evil.
       The presumption of decency for men like my father and those 
     of his times are lost in a chaos of angry assumptions about 
     men who have resisted feminine pacification. Women from many 
     different places in life, different experiences, are eager to 
     show contempt for men as if they are guilty simply for having 
     been born male. An unproven accusation of sexual aggression 
     is considered ``credible'' merely for having been made, and 
     men are told to stand up and shut up. Sen. Mazie Hirono of 
     Hawaii told men exactly that, that ``they have to shut up.'' 
     (We still don't know what her male constituents think about 
     that.)
       The editor of a gender studies journal asks in an op-ed in 
     The Washington Post, ``in this land of legislatively 
     legitimated toxic masculinity, is it really so illogical to 
     hate men?'' After cataloguing global realities where women 
     are treated badly, from low pay to gun violence, Suzanna 
     Danuta Walters, a professor at Northeastern University, says 
     American men can only be #WithUs if they follow a rigorous 
     prescription for passivity. Men must not run for office, 
     decline opportunities to be in charge of anything, step away 
     from power, and vote feminist. If they don't, ``we have every 
     right to hate you.''
       Her stunted attitude obviously doesn't reflect the 
     attitudes of all women--there's still a lot of fraternizing 
     with the enemy in the war between the sexes--but reflects the 
     thinking of a large swath of vocal feminism. The turnaround 
     of cultural assumptions is poisoning the relationships of a 
     generation of men and women. Fox News interviewer Martha 
     MacCallum struck a poignant note when she asked Brett 
     Kavanaugh's wife, Ashley, how their daughters were dealing 
     with the dreadful noise raised against their father. ``It's 
     very difficult,'' she replied. ``But they know Brett.''
       Many women know their fathers, their brothers, their 
     husbands, lovers and friends, who live beyond the malicious 
     male stereotypes, but find it ever more intimidating to speak 
     out in defense of men unjustly accused. Men are presumed 
     guilty when accused by a woman. Even asking for due process 
     and fair play for men is asking for trouble.
       I closed my book a generation ago with Loretta Lynn's 
     country hymn to the fate of our fathers: ``They don't make 
     'em like my daddy anymore.'' But her message has been drowned 
     by Helen Reddy's ``I am woman, hear me roar.'' When anger 
     trumps love and hatred trumps reason, we all, female no less 
     than male, pay for it.
       Suzanne Fields is a columnist for The Washington Times and 
     is nationally syndicated.

                          ____________________