Ron Fraser's Sexist Attitude About Women

In mid-2013 PCG's Ron Fraser wrote an article entitled "Become a Man, My Son!" (July 11, 2013). In this article he talks about men, women and children.

Let us see what Ron Fraser had to say.

Growing up in the immediate post-war years had its advantage in that society was generally not confused over gender roles. Men were to be masculine and women to be feminine. That was generally unquestioned in Anglo-Saxon society in the 1940s and 50s. As a consequence, men and women generally reflected the time-worn attributes of their sex by the way they spoke, dressed and comported themselves socially.

At the schools I attended in the ’40s and 50s, no one was labeled as being a “queer,” nor did I not know of any of my fellow students having parents affected by divorce.

Back then homosexuality was illegal. So of necessity such persons kept these things only to those they trusted. It is safe to assume that there were homosexuals he knew in his early years but they were not open about it because of the social and legal stigma against them.

By the time my eldest son went to high school in the ’70s, half of the youth in his class came from families where divorce had dislocated the family structure. It took just one generation to achieve that infamy in Anglo-Saxon society.

This ignores the fact that there were many problems that also existed in Ron Fraser's early years.

We are witness today to a great confusion which has set in with respect to the meaning of marriage and family and the definitions of traditional gender roles in society at large.

In other words Fraser is annoyed that people no longer view things the way most people did in his childhood days.

The result is that few truly know what it means to be a real man or to be a real woman as God designed and intended us to be. The fallout has drastically affected the ability of men in society to lead. To lead effectively in any institution, be it marriage, family, a corporate situation, a military role or any responsible function in society at large. ...

Note that God prophesies that it will be the traditional male roles that will disappear in our day.

But fear not, Fraser proclaims. PCG has the answers for men anxious that their masculinity will somehow be questioned and denigrated, according to Fraser.

How did the denigration of masculinity start?

We live today in a greatly feminized society.

What is Fraser really saying here? There were plenty of women back in his early days in the 1940s and 1950s. What changes he is complaining about?

It really started in Anglo-Saxon society with what Gertrude Himmelfarb calls in her masterful treatise “The De-moralization of Society” the “new” men and “women” of the 1880s and 1890s.

As in the Garden of Eden with the first attempt at “liberalizing” woman, the move to change God-given gender roles started with a certain kind of woman which Himmelfarb describes as wanting “more by way of liberation than bicycling, smoking, or reading risqué books—who sought nothing less than sexual liberation.”

So it is seen that here Fraser simplistically associates feminism with sexual promiscuity. This is terribly simplistic.

Since those early women’s lib proponents of the latter 19th and early 20th century, the feminist lobby has steadily pushed and prodded its way into the traditional male realms of yesteryear, invading and in some cases even coming to dominate them.

What nonsense. The facts are very much against Fraser on this matter. Things have somewhat improved but in so many ways women are still disadvantaged compared to men in most professions. These words are directed at men who do not like seeing women in positions of power.

This is the age of women—whom God made, deliberately, the physically weaker sex—competing with men, and to their shame, at times beating them even in traditional male physical activities.

Why is that "wrong"? There are so many fields of endeavor that one can learn to do well in. It is perfectly reasonable to expect that at times some women will learn to do one thing or another better than most men, even in work usually viewed as pertaining to males.

This is vile sexism. These words are made to make the men in PCG feel ashamed of themselves if they should somehow be outdone in any way by a woman. This is an irrational fear. A man should not be angry and bitter that a woman should happen to advance ahead of him in some way. Rather he should respect her as an equal.

The recruitment of women into our armed forces in combat roles is, perhaps, not only the worst case scenario in this respect, but also the very worst of examples to our young men and women in terms of gender role destruction.

Once again PCG's leaders condemn women serving in the armed forces. But again bizarrely no mention is made of the fact that unfortunately the sexual harassment of women serving in the armed forces seems to be widespread. Why doesn't he bring up that matter? Is the horror of sexual harassment against female members of the US armed services somehow unworthy of his attention?

Common sense should tell us that the normal physical structure of the male body as God designed it casts him naturally in the role of physical protector of the woman, who is naturally created without the muscle mass that is distributed over a male frame. So what does the perversity of feminism do to counter this natural phenomenon?

It encourages women to go off to the gym in an effort to develop manly abs and biceps.

In a better age, women’s sport was quite different to that of the man.

Today the women want to play to men’s rules. Not only that, they want to play like the men!

This is vile sexism. What is "wrong" with a woman wishing to take care of her body by doing physical exercises. Why on Earth does Fraser insinuate that women somehow want to be like men in doing such things? That seems like a very strange accusation.

In the most extreme cases, such women even change their natural affection for a perversion of their sexual role ....

Homosexuality does not work like that.

In the corporate world, women have “muscled” their way into the boardroom and in many cases have taken over the traditional male role of ceo.

This is vile sexism. What is "wrong" with a woman advancing her career just like any man? It is shameful that Fraser should try to vilify women working hard and enjoying what their hard work earned.

A book I have on my shelf espousing effective corporate management techniques, written by a male theorist, even substitutes “she” and “her” for the traditional male form of addressing a theoretical corporate leader.

I have encountered writings like that before. Partly such men do that because they wish to show women that they respect women as equals. Such men also know that some sexist men will be offended. In that sense it succeeded in offending Fraser. Such authors hope that reading such words will make men like Fraser contemplate why they happen to feel like this. But it seems that Fraser failed to reconsider his attitudes and instead lashed out against such authors in this article.

All of these trends have led to the increasing isolation of real, strong, masculine leadership in our society as a blanket of feminization has descended over it.

If Fraser really believes this then he describes a strange fantasy world that does not exist. These words are nonsense. Treating women as equals does not somehow emasculate men. Rather such men show that they respect women as equals.

It is a terribly poor form of "manliness" if a man needs to feel superior to women by knowing that certain careers and positions in society are somehow forbidden to women and available only to men like himself. That is vile sexism. Many women suffer because some men choose to bear this hostility against women.

By the very nature of things in our society, it is the woman who spends most of the day with an infant son.

In a normal situation today, Dad is off most of the time the sun is out, working at his job to support the family. He has but a brief window of time each weekday evening to spend with the children before their bedtime.

And some families are unable to arrange their lives in such a way. Should they be condemned for this? Of course not.

There are two vital activities in which Dad ought to be involved with the family in this brief slice of time—being at the head of the table to command the evening meal time conversation, and taking the opportunity after the meal, before bedtime, to fulfill his role as teacher of the children.

Does this mean that Fraser thought women are unworthy to lead a conversation at the dinner table? This attitude that men must lead the conversation with a woman seems quite problematic. It turns the dinner conversation into some mechanical operation instead of something that people manage for themselves.

How would the ministers of PCG like it if they would told that they must let their wives lead the conversation at the dinner table every night? If they do not enjoy that thought then why do they seem to expect their wives to accept such behavior? It is absurd that Fraser tries to dictate something as mundane and intimate as a family dinner. No good can come from this dogmatic attitude.

Here is Dad’s opportunity to become the children’s hero, as he tells of lessons learned through his own boyhood exploits, reads to them of the achievements of bygone heroes—not the least those heroes of the Bible—and comports himself as leader of the family. It is also a time to demonstrate the tenderness and warmth of his relationship as leader and protector of the mother, his wife, by the manner in which he relates to her in front of the children.

And young boys should also learn not to view women as being unworthy of advancing in the workplace or the boardroom, unlike Ron Fraser. Young boys need to be taught to respect women as equals.

Sons need to see and have a right pride in the strength and accomplishments of their dad. He ought to become their hero. It is the manly example of a manly father that is the greatest attribute he possesses in teaching his son to grow up to be a man in the truest sense of the word.

Here, sport can be a great opportunity to not only exhibit Dad’s own manly strengths but to teach them to his son.

What about teaching boys to treat women as equals?

Be it a backyard game of “footy,” or cricket as it was in my days Down Under, or manning the basketball hoop, or hitting a baseball in the park with dad in America, or perhaps kicking that round ball about in father-and-son soccer matches in other lands—taking the time to teach a sporting approach to the game as well as teaching basic skills are moments a son will never forget. Those opportunities build the male bonds of father-son companionship that can last a lifetime.

Fraser then complains about people using computers and using social media.

One of the great challenges to today’s fathers is to powerfully resist the overwhelming tendency of society at large to become fixated on a video or computer screen for great portions of the day.

Developing a love of the outdoors, of outdoor activities in the fresh air and sunshine, is not only healthy, but, if exposed to such situations often from infancy, the joy that a son may gain from such exposure will serve well to counter the barrage of confusion and self-centeredness with which social media will seek to attack him from the cradle and beyond.

If young PCG members use the Internet in the right way they just might encounter information that may make them question why they submit to PCG's authority. Fraser has an interest in discouraging PCG members from using the Internet in ways the PCG leadership does not want.

The worst example that a father can demonstrate to a son is to live as a couch potato, fixated by the diversion from reality offered by images conveyed by tv and the plethora of electronic devices available today.

Image says a lot to a child, especially a youth in their teens.

To have a dad that is a waddling blob of inertia will probably engender a son in the same image. To have a dad who is fit, athletic and muscle-toned will, no doubt, produce a son in the same image—IF Dad spends the time to help his son develop such a manly frame!

Maybe Fraser should instead trust the people instead of trying to influence even their private time.

Thus it is that we have to turn to Jesus Christ, who gave His life for all humankind, that they may gain inheritance with Him, as the very epitome in His human existence of true, godly manhood.

With the teachings of mankind’s Savior being expunged from our education curricula, we have lost the truest example of manhood that we can ever teach our sons. Such a phenomena in today’s society means that we are even more strongly bound to teach and exemplify that example in our homes.

In other words Fraser seems to be worried that the children of PCG might just start viewing matters differently from PCG's dictates and he expects the parents in PCG to counter any such influence from outside PCG and keep the children loyal to PCG.

This world sadly lacks such examples of true Christ-like manliness. It is a world literally crying out for manly leadership!

How often, as we observe the dominance of women in society do we ask, “Where are the men in Israel?”

This is nonsense. Men are still to be a large extent more advantaged than women in many ways in society. These words are designed to cultivate a largely manufactured sense of victim hood among his male readers in order to coax them to demand their wives should behave according to Fraser's ideas.

It is a fact that even in God’s Church, we too often see women dominating their men in marriage and family situations. Down through the ages the ways of society have had an insidious way of working their way into God’s Church. Witness the decade of liberalism which impacted the Church in the 1970s, something from which it never did fully recover—witness, in turn, the speed of the great falling away following Mr. Armstrong’s death ....

Even within PCG Fraser thinks women are too bossy and assertive. This is ridiculous. Fraser is projecting his sexist ideas that women "need" to be subordinate to men onto his followers. If their marriages are happy why does Fraser insist on meddling with their personal affairs? It is just pathetic how Fraser seemed so determined to keep women subordinate to men.

Also note how Fraser exploits the pain of what happened during the Tkach changes to compel and persuade PCG members to follow his words. Without question many suffered in those turbulent events. Fraser exploits the pain of those events to demand that his words be followed. Here Fraser insinuates that if his words are followed no such schism will occur within PCG. This is an empty promise.

God commanded the parents to teach His law and statutes to their children and to make them a talking point in the home, especially at morning and evening .... The morning breakfast conversation sets the tone for the day. The evening conversation at the dinner table and at bedtime can be a reflection on the day’s events. These are great opportunities to embed true, Christ-like, manly thoughts in a young son’s mind, taking full advantage of these moments to paint a vision in your son’s mind as to his eternal future.

These are the moments that will build true father-son bonds that will encourage your son to seek counsel from you when he meets the challenges of youth and young manhood in particular, the time when he has “put away childish things” ....

Once again Fraser tries to convince the parents within PCG to indoctrinate their children into believing that PCG's doctrines are right and that PCG should be obeyed.

Fraser ends his article with these words.

This planet needs as many godly men as God’s Church can produce.

The Church needs them.

It is incumbent on every parent of every lad in the Church to work hard to inculcate the true essence of godly manhood in their male offspring, thus enhancing the prospect of his manifesting that missing dimension in his life when God leads him by His goodness to repentance and real conversion to His way of life on the road to fulfilling his incredible human potential!

In other words PCG's leaders want the children to be raised up to be faithful, tithes paying followers of PCG.

I do not know why Ron Fraser (1941-2013) was like this. How did he get to be like this? It is unfortunate that he chose to hold on to such sexist attitudes until his last days. Ron Fraser passed away on October 7, 2013 but unfortunately it is likely that his negative views will continue to influence PCG.

I pity anyone who takes this article at face value and tries to apply these words to his or her family life. While some will just read the article and not take it to heart no doubt some will be moved to action by this severely flawed and sexist article. Fraser offered dreadful advice in this article and at times even descended into vile sexism by insinuating that women must not do things traditionally associated with men and cultivating a largely manufactured sense of victim hood among his male readers. This article is terrible.

It is shameful and frightening that the leaders of PCG allowed a man who had bitter sexist attitudes like this to have so much influence and power within PCG.