CHRISTINE LAGARDE, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, says such shocking things and yet no one challenges them. In this recent Wall Street Journal article, she is quoted as saying that women make the majority of consumer decisions and yet the world economy would be better off if many more women worked. Low birthrates prevail throughout the Western world. Old people are not great consumers. Economies run on people. But to Lagarde, the world economy is a competition between men and women. And she is willing to risk the whole thing so that women can win.

She also noted the key role of women in bringing Iceland out of its recession. When its economy crashed, “the banks, the funds, the government—everything was taken over by women,” she said. “So when it’s messy, you get the women in. But when the mess is sorted, keep the women,” she added, chuckling.

You see, if women can run Iceland, they can run anything. This woman is one of the most powerful financial figures in the world. She lobs insults against men. She has said that too much testosterone interferes with the ability of men to make responsible financial decisions. And no one raises the slightest objection.

Here’s more:

Back at the Carlyle Hotel, where she was staying along with a host of dignitaries for the United Nations General Assembly, she talked about the obstacles to getting more women to work: education, access and, in some countries, safety.

There is no journalist currently employed in the Western world who is independent-minded enough to ask Lagarde what she thinks women have been doing for thousands of years when they were not “working.” She obviously believes they were doing nothing; certainly nothing worthwhile and certainly not contributing to economic growth, even though they were, strangely enough, doing a lot of shopping. A woman like Christine Lagarde will happily turn around and contend she hasn’t said anything offensive about women who have done unpaid work for much of their lives when in fact she has clearly argued that they have been doing nothing.

The question is how to fix it: Some see it as a problem of individual initiative, others see at it as a collective, systemic issue. Ms. Lagarde, the first female chief of the IMF, hopes to reconcile the two views. “It’s both a collective responsibility, where society has to come together,…[and] an individual responsibility,” she said. “I’ve done things and decided my destiny was not just dependent on other people.”

Lagarde decided some years ago that her sons were not dependent on her either. She divorced their father and then left them in Europe while she took a job in the United States. She once commented (at the Women in the World Summit in New York) that a woman has achieved success as a mother if her children still speak to her when they’re grown. A feminist who has made a mess of her own home is telling the world what women should be doing. And the world slavishly listens.

Here’s more:

She is now trying to help other women. One initiative she has championed is a proposal by the European Commission to encourage more women to join the boards of companies. “We did that in France in 2010, and the number of female board members doubled in two years,” she says. And while it has made no noticeable change in the economy so far, she says, “I think it’s too early to say,” citing the European Commission’s long-term goal of having women make up 40% of nonexecutive board positions by 2020.

The idea is not to “encourage” companies to put more women on the board, but to force them. Companies in France have been ordered to put more women on their boards. That’s why female board members doubled in two years. Lagarde says, “It’s too early to tell.” Does she honestly believe that women could turn the national economy of France around? I doubt it. The most important thing is not the economy but for women to prove they can do anything men can do. Only an abiding antipathy toward femininity could drive a woman to pursue such a goal.

— Comments —

Eric writes:

Christine Lagarde seems to think that forcing companies to appoint women to their boards will make the economy more productive. A lot of other people think so too, because Sweden and Finland have had fixed quotas of female board members for years.

I am reminded of the Chinese Communists who believed that a sound Communist political education would make industrial workers more efficient. They directed the peasants to gather their plowshares and pots and pans and to melt them in crude backyard furnaces. They did so, and were rewarded with useless lumps of slag, and starvation.

Kevin writes:

There are almost no differences between the modern American feminist woman and the most cold-eyed male chauvinist pig of the 1850s (not 1950s, I said 1850s), but one:

As much as men in the distant past thought women were a race of children, could not perform duties of national importance or social value (beyond raising children), they did one thing in abundance: they protected and cherished their women. They would not let them vote, participate in national affairs or serve in the military. But they always knew that without them, society dies.

The modern feminist woman is heartily entrenched in her designs not only to supersede men, but to remove them from society completely. Many openly aspire to find a way to exterminate men from the human species and live in some preposterous lesbian utopia.

Let’s see how that works out when the next hurricane hits town, the lights go out, or the car needs the oil changed.

There are fantastic women in this country, but the feminists are openly and precisely the idiotic, irresponsible race of thoughtless children the men of 1850 knew them to be. Whenever I read about morons like Lagarde, Steinem, that chimpanzee at Facebook or Hanna Rosin, the goddess of lies, solipsism and the willful suspension of disbelief, it makes me years for the days of “barefoot and pregnant.” Because that’s where we’re heading if this idiocy doesn’t stop.

Laura writes:

Do you know of any major male political or business figure of the 1850s in Europe or America who talked publicly (and repeatedly) about the incompetence of women in their traditional sphere of accomplishments, who publicly boasted of the superiority of men over women or who publicly expressed the notion that women have a vendetta against men?

Alex A. writes:

The appointment of Christine Lagarde, and more recently Janet Yellen, to jobs at the very summit of management in the fields of national and international finance, raises questions of how they got there.

In the first place, their appointments weren’t made on account of irresistible pressure from, so to speak, women at large. It’s very likely they got their jobs because appointment boards and insider consultants, mostly consisting of men, thought it advisable. And why did they think it “advisable”? Answer: No reason apart from the mindset that arises from brainwashing. Weak and gullible men are to blame for the rise of militant feminists to positions of power. Men could stop the march of feminism, but they are afraid to.

I’d bet that Christine Lagarde and her “sisters” would argue that women like them bring qualities and abilities to the boardroom that men either don’t possess or don’t value. These qualities and abilities are, supposedly, intensifiers of humanity and signify the presence of “equality” in the workplace etc. Not exactly rational considerations for promoting women to the jobs they covet.

It’s ironic that if pressed, an honest feminist would have to admit that the femininity she repudiates is indispensable to her success in the masculine world.

But, isn’t “honest feminist” an oxymoron?

 Laura writes:

The corporate world and government have benefited enormously from the influx of women into the workforce.  These female figureheads keep the feminist project alive by convincing women that their lives of endless drudgery are liberating rather than enslaving. In other words, they keep the troops inspired. So I don’t think it’s just that men in politics and business lack the will to reject feminism.

I’d bet that Christine Lagarde and her “sisters” would argue that women like them bring qualities and abilities to the boardroom that men either don’t possess or don’t value.

Lagarde has specifically said that men are too aggressive and cannot manage financial crises well because they have too much “testosterone.”

Kevin writes:

Do you know of any major male political or business figure of the 1850s in Europe or America who talked publicly (and repeatedly) about the incompetence of women in their traditional sphere of accomplishments, who publicly boasted of the superiority of men over women or who publicly expressed the notion that women have a vendetta against men?

No, I can’t. It’s just that I can’t imagine living in the 1850s and all the men were like Matt Daymon or Phil Donohue, spewing bouquets of roses at womens’ feet. Statistically, it just couldn’t happen. How would history have been written the way it was otherwise?

Public discourse in the 19th Century had to be: “They’re girls! Are you insane?”

I’m just playing the odds at Vegas. No offense intended.

Laura writes:

Of course.

There were men in the nineteenth century who privately or in their writings boasted of superiority over women. But I don’t know of any figures comparable in power to Lagarde or Hillary Clinton who made such comments about women publicly.

Jeff W. writes:

The people at the IMF and the World Bank and the Federal Reserve are money-oriented people.  They think about money all the time.  Their job is to help the big banks make as much money as possible.  That is why it makes me suspicious when they talk about helping women, minorities or immigrants.

Consider this sequence of events:

– In 1971 Richard Nixon took the U.S. off the gold standard and immediately imposed wage and price controls to choke off an anticipated run on the dollar and the price inflation that would result from that.

– The run on the dollar didn’t happen and wage and price controls were removed.  But inflation started heating up in the 1970’s.

– The power elites tried doing different things to stop inflation.  President Ford started the “Whip Inflation Now” campaign which consisted of exhortation.  A strong push to get women into the workforce started about this time.  Adding women to the workforce pushed down the wages that were formerly controlled by wage and price controls.  The “ecology movement” also started at about this time, with an agenda to restrict consumption of energy (thus reducing demand for energy, thus reducing the price).

With the bankers, I believe it is really all about money, regardless of how they may dress up their actions as being good for society or the environment.

Women do not demand pay raises in the same way men do.  The more women there are in a workplace, the more difficult it is to organize a union.  Women are docile workers.  A combination of docility and timidity in demanding pay increases makes them the corporations’ darlings:  they are good for profits.  In demanding pay increases, men also sometimes threaten property damage or other kinds of sabotage.  Women don’t do those things.

Corporate profits also help the banks.  A profitable company is a company that the banks can profitably load with debt.

The power elites have also supported other wage suppression measures, such as open borders immigration and the offshoring of U.S. manufacturing.  Both of those moves have had profound effects on wages.   Anything that gets wage rates down is supported by corporate interests and the money printers.  The money printers’ main fear is a collapse in value of their inherently worthless dollar. Anyone who increases prices on anything, especially labor, is their enemy; but women in the workforce are the money printers’ inflation-fighting friends.

Christine LaGarde, of course, is a spokeswoman for the banking and money-printing interests.  She and the other money printers have been successful in keeping consumer price inflation below 5 percent.  (They call today’s inflation rate 1 percent, but it is really about 5 percent.)  But they have done it by creating an economic wasteland where their funny money circulates without bringing prosperity to anyone except those who are already wealthy.

So whenever I hear the financial elites praising the wonderfulness of working women, I think, “You never take a break from trying to drive down wages, do you?”

Laura writes:

And isn’t it amazing the way the press just gobbles this up.

Hannon writes:

This conversation reminds me of the impression I have of the role of women during wartime. My family was involved in World War II and the Civil War and hearing some of the stories from the perspective of women who participated gave me an appreciation of the human spirit as it transcends “gender issues” in times of real need. There was unity in the effort for common defense, with no time for gloating about new frontiers for women’s life outside the home.

On so many fronts our energy and intellect are now distracted by peacetime prosperity. Precepts like honor and self-sacrifice, still espoused by our military, have little real meaning to most people unless they know them from personal or familiar social experience. Feminism, in part, seeks to convince us that somehow peace and war are not two sides of the same coin– that we can strip away one side while leaving the other intact. Only a society with fatally weakened institutions and leadership could take such beliefs seriously. The rest of the world is not as blind to this condition as we are.

Mike writes:

“[Christine] once commented (at the Women in the World Summit in New York) that a woman has achieved success as a mother if her children still speak to her when they’re grown”

Pretty low threshold, don’t you think?

Her children don’t have to listen to her advice.  They don’t have to love her.  They don’t have to look at her as an example of a good woman.  They don’t have to follow her religion.  Nope.

All they have to do is not slam the telephone receiver down when she calls them.

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