I thoroughly disagree with a whole shitload of this, but I don't have time at the moment to go into all the reasons. Three, however, I'll skim.
1) Their rationale skips the fact that of those in uniform we look to protect us, some are women.
2) While some may look to men to protect us, it is generally from men we need protection. The overwhelming number of serial predators are men and their victims women. Same with domestic abuse. Therefore, unless a woman can hire a trustworthy full time body guard to accompany her 24/7, she had better damned well learn to rely on herself for her protection.
3) If men need women to be clinging-vine weak-willed namby-pamby little girls to bolster their masculinity, they didn't have much to begin with.

Cait,

I guess I read it differently - that it's OK for me to be "macho" these days, assume the role of protector, etc.

While I don't disagree with any of your 3 points, I also don't disagree with most of what these women say I don't think the 2 sides of the debate are mutually exclusive. Your point about women primarily needing to be protected FROM men is certainly true.

Well, I never knew it was not okay to be masculine. I'm not a raging feminist, but I damned sure don't long for any return to the 1950s. I lived through it and it was debilitating for both men and women. The one thing that feminism did was free both men and women from stereotypes.

Sorry Cait, but I must agree with the doc on this one.

Being a child of the 70/80's, I hit the dating scene in school not knowing if a girl was going to be offended by me opening the car door or paying for dinner (yes, I ran across a few that were). My social life could be ruined by doing these things and being labelled a 'sexist pig'. All that for trying to be gentlemanly.

The feminist ideal that 'men are the problem in the first place' just doesn't wash. They forgot that we can also be the solution.

The vast majority of women will need a man to stand in front of them and face down danger at some time in their lives. This is just how the world happens to work. It is then up to them to decide if this is how they want to live or if they want to do what it takes to do this themselves.

I try to do my best with the women I know and meet, by teaching them physical skills to defend themselves in just about any situation. But I cannot teach them everything and even if I did, I could not guarantee they'd use it all the time.

I know quite a few female police officers and they understand that the majority of the men on the force see it as part of their job to protect the female officers. They don't like it, but they understand where it comes from. They know that in a bad situation they would not be able to drag a wounded male torso out of harms way. And they know that all they can do is keep up the strength training. And they do.

The same goes for female fire fighters and women in military service. I have absoultely no problem with women taking any of these positions. Women in combat? If you want it, you've got it, as long as the physical requirements are the same. But, they are no where near the same.

And I must take issue with your numbers reguarding domestic violence. A logical look at the numbers reveals them to be closer to 50/50. Just as some women won't report their abuse, the majority of men will take the damage and not report it when their wife punches or kickes them. Or, when the police are called, the men are taken in because they are the physically larger party.

One of the stereotypes the feminists never took issue with was the 'angry wife with the rolling pin/frying pan'. That was/is just sick and wrong.

We absolutely agree on the idea that there should be no exceptions for women when it comes to the physical requirements for any job. Those requirements should be the same for everyone. If we expect equality, then we need to have equal standards. As to the domestic violence issue, there's no agency I know of who would agree with your assessment that the numbers are about equal as to the sex of the victim. In 7 years working as a victim's advocate, I've been on exactly one domestic violence call where the male was the victim. This is fairly typical of the experience of most of us in this service. It's very infrequent, although not unheard of, for the man to be the victim. And how many men can you think of who were actually killed by a domestic partner? Probably very few. Yet, women are killed not infrequently by domestic partners.

As to typical "gentlemanly" behavior being ridiculed, just give that a shrug. There's no excuse for rude behavior, from either sex. If a man has his arms full, I wouldn't hesitate to open a door for him. That's not a gender reversal, that's just common courtesy. As to paying for dinner, I don't see any reason why a man should be expected to pay for everything all the time. Doesn't that put women in the position of selling their "favors"?

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on the DV issue, as it is 'machoism' that leads to the lower reporting by men. I also think that the DV type couples attract to one another. But I would suggest a couple of ride-a-longs with your local police agency.

And , not trying to sound like an ass but, I think the 'selling of favors' line is quite accurate.

Actually, we are required to ride along fairly often. I don't disagree that male victims are probably underreported, but so are female victims. Many who are abused don't report, for various reasons. And there is no question that DV abusers/victims seem to find each other. And victims will leave one abusive relationship and get right into another.

As for the wife with the rolling pin, I don't give a buffalo bum whether the abuser is male or female, I say, "Take 'em to jail." And I do think cops cut women abusers slack when they shouldn't. Abuse is abuse, and needs attitude adjustment.