"When I am weaker than you, I ask you for freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am stronger than you, I take away your freedom because that is according to my principles."

The aim of civilization is to make people into citizens: their behavior to be made predictable and temperate, their actions to contribute to the whole. In many cultures, historically and currently, this is done in a top-down fashion, with the objective being imposed on all of the individuals from the top. Individualistic thought, however, seeks to instill certain understanding and sensibilities into citizens, that they may consciously and joyously seek accord with their fellow man, and by these means grow a better world organically rather than constructing it to a frame.

One of the most important ideas of this individualistic mindset is that of compassion. When informed that one is a unique person, replete with rights, powers, and a rich inner life, an imperative subsequent realization should be that SO IS EVERYONE ELSE. Prominent thinkers have devoted great time and energy to this idea in the past several centuries especially, leading to not only governmental but also social revolutions.

Now, in many different lands, including the past, women are/were not citizens. They are given a specific role, and one of highly specific value at that, rather than needing to determine their own; they don't exercise power, and are consequently unused to it. The net effect is that these cultures have exerted a far different influence on women than on men.

Therefore, when women find a time or a place in which they are given equal rights, they have no idea of how to comport themselves as citizens, because they have only acted as chattel. They separate themselves imperfectly from their former role: while dismissing the idea that anyone may suggest what they do, they cling to the idea that they are valuable and essential to the entire process. This is why they need so desperately to be included in everything, whether or not they are interested or even useful. They enjoy power for its own sake.

Women thus trample on the finer sentiments that freed them. Only ideas which currently serve them and their feelings are preserved, the rest are dismissed as useless and patriarchal. The type of man who wants them to experience the full benefit of individualistic thought, they dismiss as "beta," a term which I fully believe means "those people on whom civilization actually worked." Women told us that they deserved agency by dint of their humanity, and we believed them, fools that we are.

The quote with which I began was written by Frank Herbert, who wrote about the types and the uses of power. This quote in particular has been particularly useful in judging people's motives. Beware of those who wish to strip others of power because they once were bereft; beware those who will not extend the same courtesies once offered to them. That is why I fear women: they have learned to use power neither compassionately nor responsibly.