Given the history of the last 50 years, it is funny to see the specific philosophical underpinning of modern feminism. From Wikipedia:
For her 15th college reunion in 1957, Friedan conducted a survey of College graduates, focusing on their education, their subsequent experiences and satisfaction with their current lives. She started publishing articles about what she called “the problem that has no name,” and got passionate responses from many housewives grateful that they were not alone in experiencing this problem.
Friedan then decided to rework and expand this topic into a book, The Feminine Mystique. Published in 1963, it depicted the roles of women in industrial societies, especially the full-time homemaker role, which Friedan deemed stifling. Friedan speaks of her own ‘terror’ at being alone, and observes in her life never once seeing a positive female role-model who worked and also kept a family. She provides numerous accounts of housewives who feel similarly trapped.
Oh no! Housewives feeling trapped? How could it be? Fortunately feminism slayed the evil patriarchy which was the root of this feeling. Otherwise we would be bombarded in the media with women carping about feeling trapped, bitching about their lives, and consumed with a constant sense that they are missing something.
The post feminist world is a world of constant bitching. Women are either not being treated as if they are the physical equals of men, or men are victimizing them by hitting back. Women bitch about men not doing the housework and they bitch about men doing the housework, calling them a kitchen bitch (emphasis mine):
I first heard this term in Sandra Tsing Loh’s recent Atlantic story about her divorce. She used it to describe a friend’s husband who was anal and fussy and altogether too feminine—he belonged to an online fennel club, for God’s sake. Loh’s bitch was wholly unsavory, a prop designed to justify universal divorce…
My husband is less likely to freeze and label porcini-infused risotto—the Loh version—than to hover menacingly two inches away while I am chopping vegetables. “Shouldn’t they be smaller?” he asks, restraining himself so he won’t grab the knife. My mother would have been grateful. I am not. Instead, like Weil, I am often left seething with petty rage and self-pity.
They bitch about not being able to breast feed while working, and they bitch about having to work while breast feeding:
Still, despite my stint as the postpartum playground crank, I could not bring myself to stop breast-feeding—too many years of Sears’s conditioning, too many playground spies. So I was left feeling trapped, like many women before me, in the middle-class mother’s prison of vague discontent: surly but too privileged for pity, breast-feeding with one hand while answering the cell phone with the other, and barking at my older kids to get their own organic, 100 percent juice—the modern, multitasking mother’s version of Friedan’s “problem that has no name.”
I’ve gotta say, these patriarchy guys are good. I don’t know how they do it, but they have women trapped in unhappiness no matter what they do. Especially baffling is how all of the pressure to breastfeed in the article above was coming from other women.
Fortunately I did find one example of a happy feminist in an article in The Progressive titled Happy (Feminist) Mother’s Day. The author tells us about a recent conversation with her neighbor:
A neighbor and I were sitting on a park bench, watching our children play, when we got talking about the perennial issue of housework: all that thankless toil that takes hours out of your life you might have spent writing a great novel, or at least reading one. “I used to feel resentful about it,” my neighbor said. “But then I thought about my mother. She had eight kids, and her house always looked great. That was her art. She had such a beautiful life.”
Spending a lot of time caring for your children hardly makes people into more narrow, self-interested citizens.
Aha! Finally a woman who isn’t bitching about her lot in life! What is her secret? How did she outsmart the patriarchy and manage to find meaning in her life of drudgery and thankless toil? The author elaborates:
Before you start writing that outraged email, let me add: that neighbor is a part-time stay-at-home dad. His wife, a corporate lawyer, puts in long hours, and doesn’t have much time for cooking, cleaning, and daycare pick-up. He is a photographer whose flexible schedule allows him to be the on-the-scene parent weekdays. So not only does he proudly support his wife’s career, he genuinely admires his mom, and is following in her footsteps.
I’m starting to suspect the problem of women being unhappy with their lot can’t be solved by feminism.
Friedan photo from wikipedia commons.
Women will always bitch and moan, that isn’t really news. The real problem starts when men actually decide to listen to them. Bad idea.
And women talk about the double standards that men have. I bet there are a hundred double standards women have for every one of men’s.
As far as I can tell, there’s only one so-called sexual double standard that favors men: sluts suffer a drop of LTR value but cads don’t. Unsurprisingly, women complain about this all the time.
The elites need to stop extrapolating their neurosis onto the masses. All women were not stifled and horrified at homemaking- Freidan was.
Just like the saying: “We don’t want to f*ck our mothers, Freud wanted to f*ck his mother.”
Good post. This unhappiness runs so deep in some women that you really cannot do anything right in their eyes. This doesn’t apply to all women but enough of them that it poisons the well. Why? Just think of how these women affect and influence the rest! Let’s take a moment to segment this thinking.
First, you have the unhappy women who will always find the empty side of the glass. They flip flop constantly to make sure all blame is assigned to someone else. If you are involved or married to this gal you are in for a big daily serving of it. And you can game all you want but it will take incredible constant effort. I know from personal experience. Who needs that?
Then you have the gals that try to fight this with some success. They know it causes issues but are surrounded by friends from the first group that constantly belittle their choices in their partner, life, job, whatever. So on a good day you get a good partner. On a day after they have spent time with their friends from the first group you get grief over everything. Might be workable but will still take effort to keep it going.
Finally, you have the gals that have seen this behavior and decided that they want nothing to do with this attitude. They are strong enough to deflect the messaging and dump friends from the first group. They are also strong enough to tell you when they are upset but don’t sweat the small stuff. They are also the best friend a gal from the second group can have. Do you have to work at a relationship with this gal? Sure. But the effort is mutually spent on reinforcing the good attributes of your life together, not the bad.
So as a divorced man who enjoys the company of women I find it harder and harder to justify the effort it takes to fight this. Why? Because the majority of available mid forties women available are members of the first and second group, not the third. Add in the fact that a good number of them have not made any effort to take care of themselves. Not. One. Bit.
An out of shape complainer? No thanks.
An age appropriate fit gal with a positive attitude? Priceless. I’ll find her. It just may take a while!
My simply succinct question is this;
How were housewives “trapped?” Were there locks on the doors preventing the housewife from going out and enjoying life or attending college or getting a job?
I always laugh at the before us women couldn’t work meme from 60’s feminist. As I explained to my daughter when she came home w/ this trash, black women have always worked since they came to this country. We did not need white women to burn their bras for that “privilege”. I am SAHM & believe me most black women I know would trade places in a minute if you talk to them away from the herd.
Two thoughts:
First, it should be clear to any reasoning person that 2nd wave feminism was clearly a form of Marxism. This has a lot of implications, all of them bad for feminism.
Second, it should be clear that women’s happiness depends upon them, and therefore indirectly the people they choose to associate with. Since women are more social than men in many ways, “people they choose to associate with” includes not only any women they interact with face to face, but media they choose to read/view. So women who want to be happy might not want to watch Oprah, or “The View”, or other such shows. They might not want to read certain magazines, or web sites.
One thing is for sure, a man who feels obliged to make a woman happy is setting himself up for an impossible, and unending, task. A task that he will never complete, and that she will never be satisfied with, either.
I note that the last-quoted piece is yet another celebration of the feminist fantasy of the go-getting woman and passive homebody male. Interesting, isn’t it, that feminists on the one hand condemn this arrangement when a woman is supporting her man, but celebrate it when it is reversed. (Unless they’re whining about it, ala Loh.)
My position, of course, is the inverse of the feminist’s, but this flows naturally from my sexist viewpoint. (Men and women are quite different, and must fill different roles in any society that is to survive. This is why history records no feminist, unisex, or matriarchal societies of any note.) I’m not sure how feminists justify their double standard, but then, being women, I suppose they don’t feel a need to.
Added rant: Can you imagine the feminist reaction to a man who “puts in long hours, and doesn’t have much time for cooking, cleaning, and daycare pick-up” and who expects his wife to “proudly support his … career”? Also note that the woman in the story doesn’t have an actual, value-producing job: she’s a lawyer. Grrrrrrrr…….
Brilliant post.
Your descriptions of projection of rage in everyday life are huge. And your comments about taking that frustration and turning it into art…. wonderful. Edith Schaeffer said Housework could be art (and taught this, for years).
However, she was not only a Christian but stuck at L’Abri, so the elite do not count her opinion. Their loss.
Twenty:
I note that the last-quoted piece is yet another celebration of the feminist fantasy of the go-getting woman and passive homebody male.
Yes, and recall that Freidan referred to homes as “concentration camps” when women stayed there. So what are the feminists really celebrating, here? Not any kind of “liberation”, that is for sure.
@Twenty
I note that the last-quoted piece is yet another celebration of the feminist fantasy of the go-getting woman and passive homebody male. Interesting, isn’t it, that feminists on the one hand condemn this arrangement when a woman is supporting her man, but celebrate it when it is reversed. (Unless they’re whining about it, ala Loh.)
What is fascinating is that men truly would be ok with such an arrangement, if women were. If the prettiest women were looking to marry a man who would stay home and care for the house and kids, there would be no shortage of men looking to sign up. The men would be happy too so long as the women were happy and had the same level of attraction for them that they would have if the men were leading.
I think this last part is what drives the feminists so nuts. Most men are wired to find contentment so long as the big issues are going right. If cooking and cleaning meant happy healthy kids and a happy loving wife, most men would throw themselves fully into the homemaker role without a second thought. This is the final insult for feminists. Just when they tricked men into doing what they thought was the worst job possible, men were still happy.
Friedan’s problem definitely has a name — “damn she’s an ugly cunt!”
Hanna Rosin (“Rise of the Kitchen Bitch”) can bite me.
When she and her second gen feminist buddies systematically devalued men, many of us adapted in order to find mates, reproduce, and keep some domestic tranquility. We built additional value into our package by working hard at stuff that was outside our traditional roles, exactly as requested. Now it’s a problem. Yeah, I do some caretaker stuff, and I also frequently cook my @55 off, I’m also the primary breadwinner by a hell of a lot and still on top of my game. My cooking is more valuable to a woman because (1) I do more; and, (2) I’m providing the service requested. For the most part I cook better than my wife too, we both like me cooking because it tastes damn good; and as an old school woman, she’s flattered that I like cooking for her – doing something nice for her and the kid – rather than upset by it.
The *real* reason Hanna and her pals feel bitter and spiteful is because she now has to compete with men across the board, just as she and the other second gen feminists asked. She is on equal terms now and competes with them at work, and when she fails to work 50+ hours like all the men do, she gets shafted out of promotions, and no equal pay lawsuit will fix that because she’s getting equal pay. She has to compete with a man at home too now, and one of the places where women have traditionally lorded it over men, is in the kitchen. She has to compete there too. Women were considered uniquely valuable there, because Ward Cleaver couldn’t joke, and his kitchen cluelessness – the bad cooking of men in general – was considered a running joke. That’s no longer the case for all of us. In fact, it sounds like Hanna Rosin’s husband is kicking her ass in the kitchen, and her contributions there are no longer particularly valued there either; she’s one of the guys in the kitchen now, just like she’s just one of the guys at work. A traditional source of her value within the household, and in her self-esteem, is gone.
Since she feels suddenly devalued, she retaliates the way an over-emotional, mentally-enfeebled grownup would if a 7 year old beat them in a game of HORSE. She calls her husband a bitch (how emasculating…) then talks smack about what a loser her husband is on her website. How charming. At least she admits that she’s being petty and foolish, but that doesn’t excuse the fact that she’s being petty and foolish.
Yet another win for feminism.
Ps. Please don’t post any more pictures of Betty Friedan [shudder]. That shot up there is like a bottle of anti-Viagra.
I had the same thought as Twenty. The housewife role is looked on negatively as a trap or an iron cage or whatever when a woman occupies it and a career is looked on as a liberation. But when feminists talk to men, suddenly career is the trap and men are stuck there slogging away at thankless tasks they hate, whereas the housewife role would fulfil men’s nurturing sides etc.
There’s a book I’ve read called “The Bitch in the House” in which a group of young feminist women get to complain about men and family life. It includes an essay by a 26-year-old feminist about how oppressed her mother was because she stayed home to be a housewife. But the editors had the thought to include an afterword, in which the mother got to write a letter in reply. The mother wrote to her feminist daughter:
“When you and your sister were growing up, I was what your generation calls a “stay-at-home mon”. As you point out in your essay, I did all the shopping, cooking, cleaning, and much of the activity required for raising two children. I can say now that those were some of the happiest years of my life. I was enchanted by my daughters, and watching them grow from helpless little blobs into wonderful people was the most rewarding experience I have ever had. I didn’t then and still do not consider it a job. It was joy. Of course, there were times when it was trying, sad, or frustrating, but overall, it was wonderful. I wanted to be enmeshed in every aspect of running a household … I also developed friendships with my women who, like me, were home raising children. I don’t remember any of us feeling conflicted about what we were doing. For the most part, we were happy and productive and we enjoyed ourselves.”
Betty Friedan might have been an unhappy housewife but she is not representative of all women.
that should read “developed friendships with *many* women”
I live in NYC. I frequently encounter upper middle class professional career women; the real life Carrie Bradshaw’s. For years I’ve been trying to figure out why they always look so miserable. Not stressed out or tired [like their male counterparts]; these women just look pissed off.
I’m sensitive so their unwarranted sneering really bothers me. I’m a bubbly young girl that smiles a lot for no reason. Instead of smiling they make me want to avert my eyes to the floor and feel ashamed of my own happiness.
…I’ve never had an older female mentor [besides my SAHM]. Older women don’t give me kind advice, they give me dirty looks.
If feminists care so much about protecting women from the evil patriarchy, why are they scaring off a smart, pretty young girl like myself?
I’d rather be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen; “trapped” by the patriarchy
sounds like a sweet deal. A husband that loves me enough to financially support me and let me bear his children isn’t offensive or degrading. I can avoid becoming an miserable middle aged career woman because that seems to be some sort-of inevitable event these days.
I don’t usually talk about my simple domestic ambitions; I’m afraid of being chastised by others.
My Mom was wonderful. College educated and taught elementary school. Went back to teaching when I was 10
Wonderrful Mom
And a nice way to come back online from my hell month, which is now over.
If I ever start a blog, it will be called “Betty Freidan Can Suck It” or maybe something less profane. Freidan was not a suburban housewife as her fans like to claim, but a Marxist community organizer.
I am living the feminist’s dream – I’m a female consulting engineer. My feminist relatives are so freaking proud of me. I, however, have never been a feminist (not since age 14 anyway) and for me it is just a job that I am doing because I am bored, and need to eat and keep a roof on my head and stuff. I really don’t like working and if I ever get the chance I absolutely will be at home with kids.
As many may know, engineering isn’t an easy job to walk away from, as the license is difficult to obtain and requires credentialing maintenance. But the way I see it is that kids are more important than an engineering license.
Oh, I also collect antique housekeeping books. Like Mrs. Beeton, Mary Randolph, etc.
Few thoughts:
1. This comes down to contentment and “learning to be content in all things”. We live in an age of luxury to be able to be so obsessed with happiness. Isn’t the first thing any self-help guru will tell you is that you create your own happiness and cannot lean on other people, things or jobs to provide that. If women are all about choice, they should choose happiness, or at least contentment. But as pointed out, some women will choose to be unhappy no matter what you do. These are the women who use the “still” argument when talking of feminism (i.e., “women still do not earn what men do”, “women still do not have good access to healthcare”, “women still bare the brunt of housework”). Women STILL aren’t happy.
2. Of course men too may feel trapped in their jobs, but you don’t hear them complaining, perhaps because if they do they will be told to “man up”. Tell a woman to “wife up” and get back to housework and your a sexist jerk.
3. Regarding the classic claim that women couldn’t work before the 60s and they couldn’t get out and get their own job, I present the following list of “Careers for Women” from 1920.
http://fullofgraceseasonedwithsalt.blogspot.com/2010/02/careers-for-women-in-1920.html
“An age appropriate fit gal with a positive attitude? Priceless. I’ll find her. It just may take a while!”
Took me five minutes at vietnamcupid.com.
Women want an arousing man they who provides fully for them and whom they can fulfillingly complain about (like this story) all at the same time… take away one of those and they’re “bored” and on to the next man on the cock carousel.
Oh and Betty Friedan looks like Bella Abzug. F’ugly! Why is left/liberal feminist women look worse than the fictional Wicked Witch of the West? Compare Helen Thomas with the below:
Women, as a group, will never be happy. We could completely switch roles and they will complain that they’re off doing “the real work,” that they never get to spend any time with the kids, cleaning is a snap with modern appliances and cooking is really a hobby anyway.
If this trend of women becoming the higher earners (if it actually exists for one) continues, it’ll be interesting to see if women ever come close to facing the kind of pressures men have felt to provide at any cost. I’m betting not. Most women I know would never even consider some of the jobs men have *had* to do, just so they could put food on the table.
This thing with housework is funny to me. And not ha-ha, but observational oddity as per normal from me.
When I was a teen and young college student, I was a proud feminist. I do believe that there is some value to feminism — I don’t think we need toss the baby with the bathwater (and the same is also true of ‘patriarchy’) — but this was just one of those examples where feminism got in the way.
My husband was raised doing boy chores — working in the yard, mostly. His sister did girl chores — household chores. His mother coddled the hell out of him (very annoying), and when we started our relationship, he was a bit of a mess. First, he comes from pack rats, so he is one; and second, he had no idea how to take care of himself. Even through university he lived in dorms cleaned by the lovely cleaning ladies (I always gave them christmas/end of semester gifts and so did he!), ate in dining halls, and had his laundry done for him through the university’s laundry service (very affordable).
So, I’m 20 and we move in together. We were on the marriage track, so it wasn’t a big deal to me. But then, his habits move in. And I didn’t think it was “fair” if both of us were “working” (eg, going to school and working small jobs) that I should have to do ALL of the housework.
Fast forward 10 years. Different house, different jobs, now married. I’m embarrassed and frustrated as hell because the house is *always* a mess. DH won’t clean up — he does help out (cooking, not cleaning up; starting laundry, not folding/putting away; takes out trash and recycling — oh, and pays the bills! :D).
So, I don’t clean up in rebellion. He can just live with a messy house.
Guess what? Didn’t seem to bother him. And, I was always to blame. My MIL would admonish me “well *he* wasn’t raised this way!” Of course, he *was* but the idea being that she kept house for him, and therefore so should I. She never worked btw, and I do work. But that’s another thing.
What ultimately brought me to House Keeping was that I *HATED* the mess and that equalled anger and resentment toward him for “not helping.”
A friend of mine (who is sweet as pie) said to me, “Honey, baby, why don’t you just be thankful if he only does 15% of a chore, because it’s a 15% you don’t have to do?”
And I thought — well, that sucks, but I’ll do it!
And I did, and it made a huge difference. First, I always thanked him for the 15% of any chore he did. I then did the 85%.
Something happened.
I enjoyed cleaning up. I got into a system where I could keep the house completely clean and tidy and it only took 45 minutes a day (30 to clean; a remaining 15 throughout the day to tidy). I could invite friends over. My mother and MIL stopped harping on me (I still note that they NEVER harped on him). I was happier and calmer about the house, and I was judged less by other women (and men).
In addition, the cleanliness made my husband calmer. He never realized — until I started living clean and minimally (decluttering!!!!) — that he hated clutter and it made him more anxious.
So, he became calmer and happier, and I became calmer and happier, just by stepping up like a grown up person and doing what *I* wanted and needed done. Sometimes you just have to “woman up.”
And I still work and I enjoy it.
@Dalrock
I disagree with this statement. While almost certainly true of some men, I think it’s false as a generality.
This is probably true as written, but only because there are very few “prettiest women”, and so they can find a surplus of suitors almost irregardless of what criteria they adopt for them. I think your run-of-the-mill 7 might find it tougher going, though.
Meh, maybe for the prettiest women — until they start to age. Ultimately, however, I take the view that a man’s happiness comes from (or at least requires) meaningful and honorable work that is suited to his gifts and temperament, and that, for the vast majority of men, home life doesn’t meet that definition.
Again, I agree with this as written, but I disagree on what the “big issues” are.
As I said, I disagree with the “most” here.
I think you’re way overweighting a single second-hand anecdote. Most men aren’t wearing aprons, and have no interest in doing so. I think the real final insult is men who say, simply: “I don’t care about your career. You bore me.”
This is all speculation, of course. Are kitchen bitches rare because their essential male nature is unfulfilled, or because their wives treat them badly on account of excessive Beta? Or both? Hard to say, since we can’t do an experiment.
It’s unfair to think that someone could speak for the people. We need to get along with the fact that we don’t own everything, or practically anyone’s opinion. Like what happened with that Dear Woman speech, who the hell thinks they could talk for other people???
@ Butterfly Flower
Perhaps the middle-aged career woman feminists are giving you dirty looks BECAUSE you are young and beautiful. It’s common enough in female circles for the old hens to get restless when young women are around. Capitalism drops people more easily than the worst alphas.
I have three sisters. All of them have worked for women at one time or another. They all agree that they would work for a man given the choice.
They told me that women bosses are petty, vindictive, overly demanding and cheap. I will admit that there are some men that fit this category.
It appears that the economy will never recover. Therefore, the jobs held by women will become even more valuable as time goes on. This will increase the competition among women and therefore the hostility.
So much for the rewards of feminism.
@Twenty
I think you are making an assumption that isn’t warranted. You are assuming that a man who takes on the role of keeping the house and raising kids would have to adopt a woman’s frame to do so. Picture instead Gorbachev or Hawaiian Libertarian doing this, and you will have a better sense of what I mean. The housework would get done, as would the cooking, etc. But the man wouldn’t spend the other 90% of his time sitting on the couch watching Oprah and eating bonbons with the back of his hand on his forehead sighing deeply about feeling trapped. Chances are he would pick up a practical hobby which without even thinking about it would quickly turn into a side job. Maybe some carpentry in the garage while the kids are napping or at school (depending on age). Or maybe he would build fences for the neighbors, fix broken sprinklers, or take on landscaping. Maybe he would build or repair PCs for his neighbors. Maybe he would write a successful blog about sex in marriage, and turn that into a profitable book. If you had a group of men doing the stay at home thing, they might chip in together and tune up or even overhaul the engines in each other’s trucks.
Working in an office isn’t some magic key to a meaningful life. Men do it because it pays the bills, and often pays better than other options. Women follow men from occupation to occupation expecting to receive the fulfillment they see men experiencing, but the vast majority of the time it eludes them. This is because the fulfillment isn’t in the job, it is in the person and their attitude.
Men create things and fix things. It is in our nature. Most women need a social structure and never ending encouragement to find meaning in work. This is why you have women bitching about not having enough encouragement to write open source software or edit wikipedia. This is why you have groups like
Women of PerlPHPWomen creating their own software ghetto, meanwhile some man who is an MD in Australia decided one day to learn how to write C code so he could improve the multitasking of the linux kernel, and he did.If the prettiest women were looking to marry a man who would stay home and care for the house and kids, there would be no shortage of men looking to sign up.
This is probably true as written, but only because there are very few “prettiest women”, and so they can find a surplus of suitors almost irregardless of what criteria they adopt for them. I think your run-of-the-mill 7 might find it tougher going, though.
Pretty, or potentially wealthy. Even a 5 can be inundated with attention from perpetual students, “professional surfers” in a landlocked city, and untalented artists, as long as she has a degree that looks like she should be pulling a six-figure salary.
The housework would get done, as would the cooking, etc. But the man wouldn’t spend the other 90% of his time sitting on the couch watching Oprah and eating bonbons with the back of his hand on his forehead sighing deeply about feeling trapped. Chances are he would pick up a practical hobby which without even thinking about it would quickly turn into a side job. Maybe some carpentry in the garage while the kids are napping or at school (depending on age). Or maybe he would build fences for the neighbors, fix broken sprinklers, or take on landscaping. Maybe he would build or repair PCs for his neighbors. Maybe he would write a successful blog about sex in marriage, and turn that into a profitable book. If you had a group of men doing the stay at home thing, they might chip in together and tune up or even overhaul the engines in each other’s trucks.
Or they might spend time trolling other men’s blogs, advocating for polygamy or griping about how unfair the world is toward men while vehemently declining to do anything about it. They might watch porn. They might spend hours playing World of Warcraft. They might go out drinking with the boys, drinking with the fishing pole, or drinking while watching football (and insisting that no mere woman will keep them from their cherished Miller Time). They might hold regular John Wayne movie marathons.
Personal observation has indicated these to be more likely than self-initiated industry. It’s just human nature; the vast majority of people are lazy and content to be so.
This is not a diatribe against men. I am just that cynical about modern Americans.
@Lurky
Or they might spend time trolling other men’s blogs, advocating for polygamy or griping about how unfair the world is toward men while vehemently declining to do anything about it.
Not if they had a good wife and the big things were working as I stipulated. How many happily married men do you see bitching about their lives?
They might watch porn. They might spend hours playing World of Warcraft. They might go out drinking with the boys, drinking with the fishing pole, or drinking while watching football (and insisting that no mere woman will keep them from their cherished Miller Time). They might hold regular John Wayne movie marathons.
As I originally posted inline, you may run with a different crowd than I observe. Either way, even the lazy ones would be happy if the rest was working.
The 1950’s housewife had it made. She had less to do and more time to do it than any women andy time in history, including afterwards. Boredom set in and this boredom is what Freidan discovered. This was the problem with no name. Freidan was too stupid to realize this and renamed it partriarchal oppression and blamed it on men. She also falsely assumed that because some housewives were unhappy, all housewives were unhappy, and that all men were happy. She failed to consider that men were no more happy than women and that most would change their life circumstance if they could.
Instead, she set about giving women a focus for their unhappiness (men) and informing them that they are “entitled” to happiness, which unfortunately will never exist for most men or women. Since this lie can never be realized (except by a few), most women will feel betrayed and Freidan gave them permission to focus their anger on men. The misandry pervasive throughout today’s society is the result.
TDOM
You are assuming that a man who takes on the role of keeping the house and raising kids would have to adopt a woman’s frame to do so.
Dalrock is right: If I did this, I’d be hunting on weekends (likely with one or more of my kids – no testosterone displays, just fun and matter-of-fact) and being Dad – not Alternate Mom.
For my nieces, I regularly plan outings and take them to fun activities; for two months I looked after them a couple of years ago, and not one person considered me a “kitchen bitch” – I cooked as a job, sat kids down, and you’d better believe –
when they got to griping and hacking at each other, I was quick to spot the real villain and though I’ve got no idea what their mother considers appropriate discipline, there was no horseplay or vicious politics with me. One look had the older one squirming.
That’s what dads do.
Were I to stay at home and look after kids, you can bet your ass shit would get done.
(and I’d be more likely to take up taxidermy, the study of some kind of insect, etc. or get my kids doing anything outdoors. One thing I always wanted to do was do a long-term study of crows and ravens, following and experimenting on their intelligence. A lot of free time might get me doing that).
Shopping for me is a job. I get it done as quickly as humanly possible. No reason to bitch and whine about it – it’s not a sport or something fun to do or engage in. It’s to get supplies and bring them home. Cleaning: arrange it so you need to do as little work as possible; attack the work hard and get it done fast. Then have 3-4 other side projects you do as well.
That’s what men do. None of this pansy-assed whiny girl complaining.
But no need to be a jerk about it.
Like with all things, men bring way more focus and attention to almost everything.
@ Dalrock:
Not if they had a good wife and the big things were working as I stipulated. How many happily married men do you see bitching about their lives?
I didn’t come here randomly. I came here via the MRA-sphere. Most of them, put on point, would admit that the wives they have are great; they just want to bitch about the general unfairness of it all anyway. Further, “big things working” are a function of intelligence and self-drivenness. Do you really think most people are both intelligent and inclined to initiate things on their own?
As I originally posted inline, you may run with a different crowd than I observe.
I’m simply reporting observations about the members of the manosphere who either are or want to be supported by their sugar mamas. They exhibit entitled attitudes–the same as many women.
Either way, even the lazy ones would be happy if the rest was working.
Of course they would. Anyone who’s lazy is happy when they don’t have to do anything but sit around.
Are you working from the assumption that men are less fallen than women? Women are only as bad as they are because the men let them be–and enjoy it.
Dalrock is right: If I did this, I’d be hunting on weekends (likely with one or more of my kids – no testosterone displays, just fun and matter-of-fact) and being Dad – not Alternate Mom.
So you’d send the wife out to work ten-hour days, five days a week, and then when she gets home and needs rest on the weekend, you would pick up and run out the door and leave her holding the bag. Am I understanding you rightly?
Were I to stay at home and look after kids, you can bet your ass shit would get done.
Have you ever tried this?
(and I’d be more likely to take up taxidermy, the study of some kind of insect, etc. or get my kids doing anything outdoors. One thing I always wanted to do was do a long-term study of crows and ravens, following and experimenting on their intelligence. A lot of free time might get me doing that).
It always amuses me when people assume that homemaking is a matter of minutes a day and little energy.
Shopping for me is a job. I get it done as quickly as humanly possible. No reason to bitch and whine about it – it’s not a sport or something fun to do or engage in. It’s to get supplies and bring them home.
Which works fine for a blitzkrieg on the grocery, but try doing that with children’s shoes and their feet will be all over bleeding blisters within a week. Try doing that with regular grocery shopping and you’ll be spending twice or thrice what you ought to get poorer quality goods. That I have to point out these things to you suggests that you are eminently unsuited to it.
Cleaning: arrange it so you need to do as little work as possible; attack the work hard and get it done fast.
Easy to do one day, even a week. Try doing it every day for a year–with small children in the household, pets, homeschooling, and someone expecting a hot meal at the end of the day. And do it with an unremitting smile, since that’s expected.
Then have 3-4 other side projects you do as well.
Assuming they don’t get pre-empted by Billy falling down and getting a bloody nose, the cat missing the litter box by two rooms, the phone ringing off the hook, Danny sponge-bathing out of the toilet, guests arriving early, the roast turning out to have freezer-burnt and you have to quick-thaw something else, or the sink springing a leak. Sometimes, all of these at once. And don’t complain about it.
TL;DR version: It looks easier on paper than it is in practice. If you don’t realize this, you don’t know any housewives.
Dalrock said:
Most men are wired to find contentment so long as the big issues are going right.
I was counseling a young wife in a “troubled” marriage the other day. She thought it was troubled and her husband was clueless. My words to her were these:
“Men are not as emotionally high maintenance as we are so listen to me carefully before you make a huge mistake. So long as the big stuff (sex, money, etc.) are going well, he’s content. You take good care of your kids-they have two toddlers- and keep things relatively neat and cook decent meals. As far as he’s concerned, the things you see as monumental problems are just peripherals. Not deal breakers.”
She, however, was talking as if these things were deal breakers and she was about to break the deal. I think I caught her in the nick of time. I told her to talk to him about the things she feels she needs but isn’t getting because he isn’t a mind reader. She asked me how I handle it. I told I’ve learned to be grateful and content because I know I have a good husband. It takes a great deal more for me to feel dissatisfied now than it did 17-years-ago.
The interesting thing about our exchange was that she was stunned at the notion that her husband could think their marriage was fine. She thought I was nuts at first.
@Lurky
I came here via the MRA-sphere. Most of them, put on point, would admit that the wives they have are great; they just want to bitch about the general unfairness of it all anyway.
Who? There are a few happily married guys in the MRA-sphere, but they aren’t bitching about their own lives. They do take issue with the injustice of the family court system, special rights for women, etc, but this isn’t some nameless sense of malaise.
I’m simply reporting observations about the members of the manosphere who either are or want to be supported by their sugar mamas. They exhibit entitled attitudes–the same as many women.
Again. Who?
Of course they would. Anyone who’s lazy is happy when they don’t have to do anything but sit around.
Except for those who carp about a problem with no name. Hence the post.
Which works fine for a blitzkrieg on the grocery, but try doing that with children’s shoes and their feet will be all over bleeding blisters within a week.
I sold shoes at a department store my last year of college. I hated it when women brought their daughters in to buy shoes. Almost all of them talked their daughters into shoes which were too small, because the ones that fit “made their feet look like boats”. Then mom would look for special shoes recommended by her podiatrist since she had ruined her feet by wearing the wrong size shoes… Dads with kids were easy. Do they fit? Do they meet your needs? Right color? Done/next.
Try doing that with regular grocery shopping and you’ll be spending twice or thrice what you ought to get poorer quality goods. That I have to point out these things to you suggests that you are eminently unsuited to it.
Go with a list, check it off and go. That saves a huge amount of money. It is how my wife shops, and how I shop when I take it over for her. My wife makes it a point to shop early morning when her commando shopping style is most effective. The slow walkers aren’t up yet, so she is in and out in a short period of time. Browsing around ends up with lots of unneeded stuff in the cart. That I have to point this out…
Have you ever tried this?
He wrote that he took care of his nieces for two months.
Easy to do one day, even a week. Try doing it every day for a year–with small children in the household, pets, homeschooling, and someone expecting a hot meal at the end of the day. And do it with an unremitting smile, since that’s expected.
Sounds like someone is suffering from a problem with no name.
I have five children (2 of which are with me constantly), I cook and homeschool, though I admit our three teens help carry the cleaning load as they should. I do not feel trapped, Lurky. On the contrary, I feel blessed and fortunate to be able to be there with and for my kids. I feel blessed to be able to support my husband who works so hard to support his family. And I don’t mind serving him a hot meal and whatever else he needs at the end of the day. It’s not as if he spends his days loafing around the couch. His labor makes all of this possible. I do not feel trapped.
I agree with Dalrock. Sounds like a problem with no name.
Yes, I am totally a feminist. This is proven by the fact that I reject the idea that homemaking is a minutes-a-day proposition that could be done by any schlub who feels like taking it easy. My entire point was clearly that it’s an endless evil made of pointless drudgery that requires no skill, no art, and no dedication. The mention of the fifty-hour week that would drain a woman utterly was just a red herring meant to fool you into thinking I wasn’t a Friedan-worshipper.
Yeeeees, that’s precisely what I was getting at. You caught me. I have zero respect for the hard work of the ladies at home, nor any appreciation; that’s why I pointed it out. How foolish of me to think that you brilliant folks wouldn’t properly interpret “and do it without complaining” as a bitch-fest rather than an indirect expression of admiration for those ladies with a good attitude about it. They surely make it look no easier than it really is.
So, how may I dispense with this “problem with no name”? By agreeing with you that the lady of my house doesn’t actually do anything with 90% of her time, and she could probably do well to go out and get an 8-to-5 without any detriment to the home?
…Yes, that was sarcasm. You jumped to unwarranted conclusions.
(@ Dalrock: Naming names would take a touch more research than I have time for at the moment, and there’s no guarantee that I would remember to do it when I am not busy. But for one particularly annoying example, look for one “Nate” who comments on Vox Popoli; he sends his wife out to work idiotic hours while he bitches about how he needs another wife to keep him “satisfied” and help with the housework. I believe he has his own blog, but I’m not entirely sure where it is.)
Good to have you back Terry. Nice new avatar too.
BTW, I have much respect for those who take care of kids and the home. It is honorable work. One of the more irritating aspects of feminism is the constant contest to see who’s work is more valuable, pitting husband against wife instead of them working as a team.
Thanks Dalrock. It’s good to be back. I like the avatar, too. Secret Agent Man gave me roses last week so I snapped a couple of pics of the best rose and decided to use it. A digital representation that’ll be here long after the roses are dead.
Good to see you’re still putting up such informative and insightful posts.
@Dalrock
Just a quick note, as I don’t want to beat a dead horse:
My position is that men aren’t suited to home life, not that they are called to office work. Much “meaningful and honorable work” takes place outside the office.
I disagree with the notion that woman’s work, if done without a “woman’s frame”, can become consistent with a man’s happiness.
I note that you sketch out scenarios in which men left in charge of the home quickly begin to work in the wider world; this suggests to me that our views of male nature are not, in fact, that far apart.
I’m enjoying Dalrock’s Pleasantville.
Male homemakers could be blissfully satisfied by infants, toddlers, and preschoolers, cooking, and cleaning. With all their spare time , male homemakers would write books and fix fences.
All the women can be the prettiest.
Oh, Butterfly Flower, I am a mean, middle-aged career woman and you’ve made me smile. I’m smiling at the notion that you can infer anything about a person’s inner mental state from their facial expression during the work day.
If you had seen me on my way to court this morning, you would have observed my furrowed brow, intense eyes, and set jaw. I was on a mission and I was concentrating — running through the upcoming argument in my head, an argument that would have the potential to extricate a valuable small business from a lawsuit that has the potential to sink it (and deprive its employees of their job).* On other occasions during my work day, you would see the same expression on my face as I try to get from point A to point B while running through my massive “to do” list in my head. People who are getting things done rarely walk around with smiles plastered on their face, or a placid expression. It doesn’t mean they aren’t enjoying what they do. It means they are focused.
The other thing to consider is that being smiley and bubbly is not a realistic option for most professionals of either sex. When I myself was just a sweet-faced slip of a young lawyer, a (male) judge once advised me to stop smiling so much if I wanted to be taken seriously. In the professional world, smiling too much (and certainly bubbliness) is interpreted as signalling submission, an abject desire to please, an openness to being dominated by others with interests adverse to yours.
*(To the commenter above who noted that lawyers don’t do anything of value, I would note that lawyers can suddenly seem VERY valuable when you are, say, arrested or facing a lawsuit that could put you into bankruptcy.)
One of the more irritating aspects of feminism is the constant contest to see who’s work is more valuable, pitting husband against wife instead of them working as a team.
I think this is somethign non-feminists ASSUME about feminism but is rarely the case.
The thing about a two-career marriage is that both spouses understand and value what the other’s career entails. If my husband needs to spend a weekend entertaining clients, or time working late nights, I understand and support that because I have to do the same thing. We can relate to each other’s needs and we know what needs to be done to help the other person during stressful or busy periods at work.
I think this contest pitting one spouse against the other ensues only if one spouse is feminist and the other is non-feminist. For example, if the husband assumes his wife’s career is subordinate to his and she doesn’t share the same assumption, you’re gonna have a power struggle on your hands. This power struggle ensues from the differing expectations of the parties, not feminism.
@Doomed Harlot
I think this is somethign non-feminists ASSUME about feminism but is rarely the case.
The thing about a two-career marriage is that both spouses understand and value what the other’s career entails. If my husband needs to spend a weekend entertaining clients, or time working late nights, I understand and support that because I have to do the same thing.
I was referring to the feminist message in the larger media, not your marriage or the marriage of other mutual feminists. The theme of the lazy husband is quite prevalent. The term feminists often use is the second shift.
I’m surprised you have been a feminist for so long and have never heard this message. It truly is pervasive, and you don’t have to go to a dedicated feminist medium to see it.
There’s a really great MRA blog called ‘Gynotheory’ that everyone should check out. The last article went into an in-depth expose on this recent phenomenon of ‘Not All Feminists are Like That’ that’s been making the rounds on men’s fora lately. It applies to this NAWALT schmaltz as well.
American women are hopelessly mired in feminist and neo-feminist attitudes that have been drilled into their heads since they were children. They hate men as part of their upbringing, and will always seek to undermine men whenever possible.
I see a major typo in my comment. I shouldn’t have said that both parties value each other’s careers in a “two-career” marriage. I should have said that both parties value each other’s careers in a “feminist” marriage.
Of course, I am familiar with the “second shift” — but that problem arises precisely because at least one party (usually the husband) assumes the woman to be primarily responsible for housework, cooking, and childcare regardless of how many hours she spends on her job outside the home. Spouses don’t become pitted against each other because of feminism but because of a mix of differing, or contradictory, gender expectations in the same household.
As for the trope of the lazy husband, my only exposure to this has been through sit-coms. Sit-coms are hardly a feminist medium. Sit-coms often tend to be rather reactionary, reinforcing the idea that wives must bear all the responsibility on the home front because men are just overgrown children who will get away with whatever they can.
On the Not All Feminists Are Like That:
Of course, I would never say that because I really don’t care one way or the other what feminists are like. The only issue for me is, “Is feminism an idea with which I agree?” I would agree with feminism even if every other feminist in the world were a raging monster.
That said, the difficulty of discussing “feminism” is that it’s an extremely broad concept with many variations. Despite the definitional difficulties, I think it is still useful to have a word to apply to the belief that women as a class should enjoy equal status and opportunities in society as men.
As anti-feminists point out, the broadness of the term “feminism” makes it easy for feminists in debate to say, “Well, that’s not really feminism.” But this problem also makes it easy for you guys to characterize as “feminist” any behavior by a woman which you dislike, or any behavior by a woman which is assertive in any way. That’s how we get such ridiculousness as writers in the man-o-sphere characterizing Kay Hymowitz, a raging conservating woman-hater, as a “feminist Kay Hymowitz.”
When a word’s definition becomes so broad to the point where it can no longer accurately be defined, that word becomes useless
@Doomed Harlot
That said, the difficulty of discussing “feminism” is that it’s an extremely broad concept with many variations. Despite the definitional difficulties, I think it is still useful to have a word to apply to the belief that women as a class should enjoy equal status and opportunities in society as men.
I have some sympathy for your point here. I’m not anxious to declare myself a member of a specific school of thought. I would far rather approach each topic and make my case for what I believe makes sense.
But you are defining feminism such that very few people would disagree with it. For example, take equal status for men and women. Most MRAs would be delighted if men enjoyed the same legal status that women do in the family court system or with regard to domestic violence law. Some feminists might argue that the system’s bias against men was purely coincidental to the rise of feminism. Some might even believe what they are peddling.
The same goes for equal opportunity. Few would argue with equal opportunity. However, feminism in practice almost always means mandating equal (or “more equal”) outcomes. So in your quest for equal opportunity, you will be no doubt be delighted that MRAs share your desire to repeal Title IX.
On the usefulness or lack thereof of the term “feminist:”
Dalrock says feminism as I have defined it is so widely accepted that my definition is essentially useless. But you have (inadvertently I think) changed my definition somewhat to apply only to the belief that women should have equal LEGAL status. I think feminists believe women should have equal status in our CULTURE. Even if women have equal legal rights, women will still be limited in their opportunities if the weight of culture keeps them in a second class position. To give just one example of how this would work, a feminist would reject and criticize religious teaching that a woman should submit to her husband.
(I would also note that I am assuming we are talking in a western context. I don’t non-western feminists generally have the same problem as we do here because feminism stands in stark contrast to the dominant culture outside the west.)
Reading your recent comment, is it fair to say then that your objective as a feminist is to radically rework all of western culture? At what point would you stop? Do you for example take issue with Larry Summers’ suggestion that there are fewer women in advanced mathematics because there are differences in men and women (as populations)?
Also, if you are working for equality (and not superiority) what is your take on the highly biased areas of the legal system I mentioned or on men being denied the opportunity to participate in college sports due to Title IX?
I am fading fast, but I will address the issue of men’s rights, which I support.
I believe men and women should have equal rights in domestic violence and family law cases. You didn’t mention employment discrimination, but I will throw that in too. Not only that but I have put my money where my mouth is on this one. I have prosecuted female-on-male domestic violence. I have sued for alimony on behalf of a male client (though divorce is definitely not my usual area and my client died before getting a ruling). I have also brought a lawsuit on behalf of a man who was discriminated against based on sex in his place of employment and on behalf of another man who was subjected to sexual harassment by a female supervisor (as well as a man who was subjected to sexual harassment by other men on the job).
The law in these areas IS gender neutral. The problem for men in these kinds of non-traditional legal situations is not the law but the biases of people they encounter in the system. The man who is subjected to sexual harassment by a female supervisor is not going to be taken as seriously by a jury as a similarly situated woman, even though he technically is entitled to equal protection under Title VII. I would like to see a change in cultural attitudes such that it becomes recognized that a man who qualifies for alimony under the law should get alimony, a man who is assaulted is taken seriously as a crime victim, as is a man who is subject to sexual harassment on his job.
You asked about Title IX. I am not an expert on Title IX, but it looks fair to me. Title IX is about requiring equal educational opportunities (including athletics) for the sexes at institutions that receive federal funds. An institution can comply by showing that it has accommodated the interest a sex that appears underrepresented in a particular activity, such as sports. Rather than doing that, many institutions choose to slash men’s sports rather than expanding women’s sports or demonstrating that women at the institution aren’t as interested in participating. I have a beef with the institutions that choose that route because it is unfair to men (and unfair to women). I don’t have a beef with Title IX.
Dal,
Your last comment came in as I was writing about Title IX!
I don’t think I am seeking to radically change western culture. After all western feminism has roots in both the Bible and the Enlightenment (Male and female are created in God’s imagine, we are all one in Christ Jesus, all men are created equal, etc.) It’s just that I am hoping my strain of western culture wins out.
That said, I should be clear that I am not seeking to IMPOSE cultural change (not that you necessarily suggested that but I want to be clear nonetheless). Cultural change should occur by critique, persuasion, media, example, argument, etc. As an American, I support the right of preachers to preach whatever and couples to organize their roles however they mutually agree, even if I think some of these things should be relentlessly criticized.
In terms of opportunity versus outcomes, you asked about the point in the Larry Summers speech, which I read at the time and remember very well. I agree that different outcomes do not necessarily prove discrimination. There is the possibility that there are more men than women with the inherent, in-born ability to perform math and science at the most elite levels (to stick with topic of the Summers speech). However, this is speculation at this point because there is no way to know whether sex differences (to the extent they exist in this area) are a result of nature, nurture or the combination of the two. We do know that boys and girls are socialized very differently from birth. We do know that bias in this area exists. I think we should tackle these things rather than take the lazy, self-serving Larry Summers tack of, “Meh, men and women are just different and I am pretty sure of this because my 2-year-old daughter likes to play Mommy and Daddy truck.”
(In case you can’t tell, I thought the Larry Summers speech was jaw-droppingly stupid.)
I hope this is clear as I’m about to keel over from exhaustion, but I’ll try to check in in the morning. I am sure if I am not making sense, you will let me know!
Why is it ok to feminists for women to submit to employers and non-marital, non-familial authority figures, but not husbands?
What’s so special about that submission that it is not allowed when women submit to others as a daily occurrence?
Thanks for the response Doomed Harlot. I’ll come back to this tomorrow if you are still interested. Have a great night.
Doomed Harlot:
Feminism is not a ‘broad brush’ term; it is an ideology that permeates the culture. It has nothing to do with ‘equality’; it is about female supremacy.
Even so-called conservative and traditional US women operate on feminist premises. The only real difference is that the so-called ‘trad women’ are willing to tolerate a man in a monogamous relationship—so long as he ‘knows his place’, which is subservient to the wife. Aside from that, their contempt for men is exactly the same.
In that context, NAWALT and ‘NAFALT’ really amount to the same thing. You make a good point that the distinctions aer unclear, but for the wrong reasons: it’s not that feminism lacks definition, it’s that it is so pervasive that it appears in many variations. But at its core is misandry.
So, I shall posit the following as a universally applicable definition of feminism; that is to say, it must fit everyone’s criteria for what feminism is, in spite of the different perspectives that different people hold on its nature. It is a suitably limited definition, since it can encompass only those parts of feminism which all definitions hold in common. So, here it is: feminism is the project for increasing the power of women.
http://gynotheory.blogspot.com/2011/01/pig-latin.html
“I think it is still useful to have a word to apply to the belief that women as a class should enjoy equal status and opportunities in society as men.”
No, that is romantic fiction. And no such enjoyment for women who will have to face the reality.
“I am not an expert on Title IX, but it looks fair to me. ”
Trying to peel apples and oranges same way isn’t fairness, it’s idiocy. Thinking that an apple tree will start growing oranges if you change the soil and weather conditions is lunacy.
Technology might make that possible in the future, but what’s the point if you can’t reach that future.
“However, this is speculation at this point because there is no way to know whether sex differences (to the extent they exist in this area) are a result of nature, nurture or the combination of the two. We do know that boys and girls are socialized very differently from birth. We do know that bias in this area exists.”
DH the 70s are long gone.
If women really wanted to have equal status and deserved equal opportunities they’d have done it on their own and not infiltrated men’s domains and asked them to change their existing structures to suit women. And then ask for women’s only categories as an aside.
It is so ludicrous that men don’t call them out on such hypocrisy, but such is the nature of man and his nurturing(women).
A Lady, You asked why a woman would to submit to an employer but not a husband. There are a lot of key differences:
— I am not expected or required to stay with my employer for life. I have the right to walk away anytime I want. People change jobs all the time.
— My employer’s authority over me is limited in scope. That is, my employer only has authority over the means and manner of my paid work. My employer does not direct how an employee’s children are raised, when and how she has sex, how her finances are managed or what goes on in her home.
— I am not stuck in the employee role just because I am a woman. Depending on the circumstances and the choices I make, I can be the employer myself. When I was a younger lawyer, I certainly submitted to older bosses, but there was an understanding that one day I would one day BE the boss. Currently, I submit to the policies and procedures of a partnership, but I am also one of the partners making the policies and procedures.
— Employees have a recognized right to push back, make demands, and look out for their own best interests. Employees unionize. They negotiate with their employers. They use whatever power they do have to demand more money or better working conditions. You don’t have clergy saying that employees are selfish or destroying western civilization by using their leverage or making demands or complaining to the extent they are able. I am not saying that this kind of thinking is necessarily great for a marriage, but my point is that we are comparing apples and oranges here.
–I am not expected to have, nor do I desire, an intimate emotional or sexual relationship with my employer.
— Thanks to feminism, the business world is no longer a world in which women are automatically always submitting to men a la Mad Men. It is humiliating to submit to a man simply on the basis that he is a man and you are a woman. Doing so on that basis presumes that you are in the submissive position because of who you are inherently, as opposed to your individual abilities, interest, or experience at a given time.
Eric, I would agree that feminist thinking is pervasive in the west. As such, it has many variations, appears throughout the culture in bastardized forms ripe for critique (Spice Girls, anyone?), and sits in many people’s heads right along side with traditionalist gender notions, which are also pervasive (thus, the phenomenon of a woman who expects equality in the boardroom while also expecting her dates to pay for dinner).
That does indeed make things confusing. The irony is that as a feminist (and I am not alone), I criticize many of the same phenomena the man-o-sphere criticisms. Read “I Blame the Patriarchy” blog and other feminist blogs for regular take-downs on the popular culture’s “You Go, Girl,” zeitgeist of women “empowered” by such things as pole-dancing classes. The difference is that the man-o-sphere mocks such things from the perspective that women are inherently irrational, foolish, nasty creatures who should just meekly accept second-class status in order for society to run smoothly; in contrast, the feminist blogosphere criticizes such things from the perspective that this kind of “empowerfulness” is a sham, and that women are as deserving of real “empowerment” as anyone else. The term “feminism” here has a useful role in describing the perspective from which an argument or critique is made.
Namae Nanka,
You say that “feminism is a project for increasing the power of women.” I don’t necessarily disagree with this as written. The dispute is over what is not written. I think “Feminism is a project for increasing the power of women so that women have equal power with men.” But I think you are assuming that “feminism is a project for increasing the power of women so that they have more power than men.”
I just love this crap.
Doomed Harlot trying to deny that the activist institutions (such as NOW) that call themselves feminist aren’t gynocentric, and aren’t trying to increase women’s power at the expense of men.
http://falserapesociety.blogspot.com/2011/04/college-feminists-morally-grotesque.html
http://falserapesociety.blogspot.com/2011/04/proposed-save-act-tosses-your-sons.html
http://falserapesociety.blogspot.com/2011/05/despicable-training-materials-stanford.html
And here’s a comment I posted to the feminist critics blog:
“I’ve come to pretty much the same conclusions, AntZ.
It’s all “feminists that matter” that are the problem. There are some online and plenty offline that seem to be decent people. I count perhaps two as personal friends. These people have no power or real voice in the feminist movement.
One might expect, that , say, NOW would be focusing mostly on the real and sustained oppression of women in the developing world and mostly resting on its laurels (while of course guarding abortion rights) here in the USA.
Instead one finds the national org and most affiliates trying to reform the “family courts ” (already a chamber of horrors for men for both Constitutional and sexist reasons) even more to their liking. You find them behind all and helping support most of what seems more radical policies on Title IX. You find them (as Glenn Sacks did a few years ago) sometimes supporting woman’s only policies for publicly supported domestic violence shelters. You find them messing with VAWA, supporting those who have messed with student disciplinary procedures in college, and etc.
In short the actual activist arm of the modern feminist movement seems infected with radical gynocentric or even some female supremacist thinking. And because feminism is a “big tent”, NAFALT, and etc, they are rarely called on it. ”
NAFALT is “Not all feminists are like that”. Well, Doomed Harlot, you are lucky for the existence of the comments section of The Spearhead, and the existence of several other misogynistic anti-feminist blogs and websites on the internet, because if we were just comparing the activist branches in terms of what policies they support you’d find the Fathers and Families organization as well as the National Coalition of Free Men fighting for gender neutral policies, while NOW and Feminist Majority actively fight for gynocentric policies and love to throw men as a class -esp. innocent men- under the bus.
I used to identify as a male feminist. That was back when I thought the movement was for fairness and equality.
“I blame the patriarchy”? Seriously? The same person who thinks that we should throw out “innocent until proven guilty” when men are on trial?
Twisty Faster and others like her have no problem with “the system” as it stands now, the only thing they object to is who’s on top of that system- because it’s not them.
I lived with my former girlfriend, and she worked but sadly I didn’t. I kept house. I am clearly at fault for failing to realise how I was being oppressed (but by whom?) and that my life: getting up when I wanted, seeing who I wanted and when I wanted and having time to write the Complete Works of Opus from the comfort of my own living room was oppression equivalent to living in a Concentration Camp. Would I have prefered, like my girlfriend, to get up at 6. a.m. to travel into the city and leave again late at night frequently not getting back until 10 or 11 p.m. and doing so six even on occasion seven days a week? Possibly; but I never complained.
In no way is feminism, de facto, about “equality”. That was always a canard, and frankly to believe so today is downright laughable. Feminism is about increasing female power, full stop. If they surpass men in the process, so be it — let the men figure it out, or, even, who cares, we’ll start worrying about that after women have total power for 10,000 years.
We have a growing discrepancy in matriculation and graduation rates in college, today, and what does the “feminist watchdog” on education, the AAUW, have to say? Nothing to see here, move along. The only problem is discomfort with changing gender roles (i.e., “men are just stupider, and you are to be the stupid brawn, while we are to be the smart, rich people, and, yes, the power is coming to us, away from you, and we like it that way, so you’d better get used to it, boy!”). Equality? Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. They don’t give one rat’s ass about boys and young men. All about empowering themselves.
So, no, I don’t see feminism as being about equality in the least. Feminism is about female empowerment, and is indifferent as to whether it comes at the expense of males or not. As a man, and the father of a son, I know exactly what feminism is to me: a sworn enemy, in practice if not in theory. And I treat it as such.
DH
“But I think you are assuming that”
No, I am most certainly not. That was just a definition to encompass all the different breeds of feminism and I accepted, though begrudgingly, yours just a year ago, but now I’d laugh at the whole notion.
“so that women have equal power with men”
http://novaseeker.blogspot.com/2009/04/anatomy-of-female-power.html
As Brendan mentions, feminism is NOT about “equality”. A lot of us chump betas were pretty effectively brainwashed about that. And it wasn’t too hard: we were sympathetic to our mothers, sisters, cousins, and wanted them to have options in life. Problem is, mainstream feminism (not to mention the even more radical side) became just another victim group, whose main goal was to extract the best situation for themselves, with little consideration for the other half of the population. It’s pretty easy to see now, having taken the red pill, but it doesn’t take too much vision to see that: for example, how they’ve constructed an elaborate conspiratorial “Patriarchy” which has kept women down for thousands of years. Yet, if one looks at our grandfathers and great-grandfathers, how many of them were in this “Patriarchy”? Not bloody many. Like women in general, feminists ignore the majority of beta guys, and far from the “high life”, those average joes toiled thanklessly, without a “movement” to empower them.
So, like Brendan, my role as a man includes sharing this with my younger male siblings and relatives, so that they can make their own choices, rather than just being brain-washed. So latter day feminists have effectively taken a man sympathetic to their goals, and made him indifferent, even antagonistic, to their movement.
@Doomed Harlot
You asked about Title IX. I am not an expert on Title IX, but it looks fair to me. Title IX is about requiring equal educational opportunities (including athletics) for the sexes at institutions that receive federal funds. An institution can comply by showing that it has accommodated the interest a sex that appears underrepresented in a particular activity, such as sports. Rather than doing that, many institutions choose to slash men’s sports rather than expanding women’s sports or demonstrating that women at the institution aren’t as interested in participating. I have a beef with the institutions that choose that route because it is unfair to men (and unfair to women). I don’t have a beef with Title IX.
Title IX is a perfect case in point. On the surface it appears to be about equality:
No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance…
The problem isn’t the route the schools are taking. The problem is the law doesn’t protect men who are being openly denied opportunities because they are men. To my untrained eye, it says denying opportunity based on sex is illegal. However once the legal system gets out its feminist decoder ring, it realizes that this law was never really about treating people equally. It is about benefiting women. If it weren’t, it would prevent schools from actively discriminating against men.
@Doomed Harlot
(In case you can’t tell, I thought the Larry Summers speech was jaw-droppingly stupid.)
The most concerning part of the Summers affair is that he was ultimately forced to resign over it. Ideas which challenge the feminist orthodoxy are verboten, and even a former cabinet member and president of Harvard aren’t allowed to discuss them. This is the case even though as you state the feminist assumption he was challenging can’t be proven.
Even if women have equal legal rights, women will still be limited in their opportunities if the weight of culture keeps them in a second class position. To give just one example of how this would work, a feminist would reject and criticize religious teaching that a woman should submit to her husband.
This is where it gets interesting. Left out of your (and nearly everyone’s until recently) analysis is the possibility that women might prefer to submit to their husbands. You may not agree that this is in fact the case, but I presume you would accept that if it were in fact true it is incredibly disruptive to the philosophy of feminism. Like you I don’t think we should try to answer this question with the force of government. Women and men should make their own choices, and all either of us can do is make our respective cases and provide as much information as possible.
@Brendan:
Calm down. Twenty years from now son won’t be enslaved by a totalitarian Matriarchal regime.
Worse case scenario, your son will get married to a nice traditional Middle Eastern girl; your grandchildren will grow up speaking Lebanese. Alternatively, your son will get married to a nice traditional Chinese girl; your grandchildren will grow up speaking Mandarin.
I mean, if America sharply declines in the next few decades, it’s more likely to become some hodge-podge Chinese/Saudi/Dubai dominion than an evil empire ruled by Amazons.
Feminists aren’t procreating at sustainable levels. America doesn’t even have to decline, Feminists are being out-bred via immigration [like what’s happening over in Europe].
As a stay at home dad with a business on the side the big joke of course is just how easy it all is. It takes me less than 2 hours a week to clean the house, looking after our son was a breeze ( don’t over mother and let him do his own thing ) and cooking a great meal often takes only half an hour. I got our son to do his own clothes washing by about 11 yo and be independent re school lunches etc. very early on.
The Doomed Harlot Poseur claims that equality of opportunity need not produce equality of result. How one can be an attorney at law, and claim to have never heard of the concept of “disparate impact” is a mystery.
Suffice to say that equality of result is a Constitutional mandate, courtesy of the Supreme Court.
PS: The differences between men and women in terms of spatial visualization are facts, proven by science. Larry Summers was right. Doomed Harlot Poseur is free to engage in all the magical thinking she wishes, but that won’t change the relevant brain structures in women, nor will it make spatial visualization less important to mathematics.
PPS: I sincerely hope that DHP never has any male children. I would not wish that on any boy.
correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought that all Larry Summers said was that the reason there were less women in STEM fields was because less women choose to go into those fields, not because of any discrimination or natural disaptitude?
“I believe men and women should have equal rights in domestic violence and family law cases. You didn’t mention employment discrimination, but I will throw that in too. Not only that but I have put my money where my mouth is on this one. I have prosecuted female-on-male domestic violence. I have sued for alimony on behalf of a male client (though divorce is definitely not my usual area and my client died before getting a ruling). I have also brought a lawsuit on behalf of a man who was discriminated against based on sex in his place of employment and on behalf of another man who was subjected to sexual harassment by a female supervisor (as well as a man who was subjected to sexual harassment by other men on the job). ”
DH, said that she supports mens rights.
As a lawyer, she has put her money where her mouth is. (which is more than you can say for a lot of women!).
She also appears to have a solid marriage..
Get off her back!
Ooh, I see lots of comments. I was out late at a work-related social event last night, and now I have to get myself out the door to work. But I will come back and take a peek and respond, if not during lunch sometime later on today or tomorrow a.m. I don’t want to start something and then abandon it!
Ugh. It’s not lunch yet but I couldn’t wait to answer!
TO ANONYMOUS READER ON “DISPARATE IMPACT”: I don’t see how “disparate impact” law mandates equality of outcome. “Disparate impact” law is about ensuring equality of opportunity. It precludes employers from creating job conditions or job requirements that have a disparate impact on a protected class, yet are not required to do the job. You can’t try to force women out of a particular job by, say, requiring all construction site foremen to lift 100 pounds over their head, unless you can show that lifting that weight above your head is necessary to the job. It doesn’t say you must have an equal number of male and female construction site foremen.
ON WOMEN WHO PREFER TO SUBMIT:
Dalrock says Left out of your (and nearly everyone’s until recently) analysis is the possibility that women might prefer to submit to their husbands. You may not agree that this is in fact the case, but I presume you would accept that if it were in fact true it is incredibly disruptive to the philosophy of feminism.
I am not sure what you mean by “women might prefer to submit to their husbands.” All women? Most women? We’re talking about millions and millions of individuals here.
But I don’t see why it would be disruptive to feminism. So what? Does that mean it is okay for preachers to insist that women must submit? Does that mean it is okay to excoriate women who don’t submit? Would it mean it is okay to deny women opportunities at work, or equal legal rights over their own lives? Because some, or even many, members of a group or okay with being treated like 2nd class citizens doesn’t mean it’s okay to lump the rest of us into that category.
That said, the premise is faulty. Submission is attractive to some because it relieves people of responsibility (“I’m just following orders.”) I see it at work all the time — someone takes charge of something and everyone else is relieved. It’s not just women who are happy to have someone else take charge, but it is only women who have cultural permission to let someone else make the hard decisions at home.
That said, people who prefer submission generally only prefer the aspect of submission that makes their lives easier. It can be great to be free of responsibility until the person in charge makes the decision you really don’t like. Even the most determined submissive wife will admit that it sucks when husband insists on something the wife disagrees with.
@Kathy
DH, said that she supports mens rights.
As a lawyer, she has put her money where her mouth is. (which is more than you can say for a lot of women!).
She also appears to have a solid marriage..
Get off her back!
Doomed Harlot seems to be able to handle herself without anyone riding to her aid. However, I can’t be the only one who noticed that your passion in defending a woman who is dedicated to preaching promiscuity is only surpassed by your passion in denouncing a man who has sex with promiscuous women.
ON TITLE IX: It would be a violation of Title IX to deprive men of equal educational and athletic opportunity. There is no reason a man can’t sue under Title IX.
You are talking about a situation where, say, a college has 8 male athletic teams and 4 female athletic teams. To comply with Title IX, they cut 2 male teams in order to add 2 female teams. They could have added 4 female teams or they could have shown there wasn’t sufficient female interest in additional sports teams. Instead, they chose to cut male teams and add female teams.
From this, I conclude that they had finite resources and that they were unable to show a lack of female interest in additional teams. Therefore, prior to cutting the male teams, they were apparently using their finite resources to favor men’s sports at the expense of women’s. This is discrimination, which was cured by redistributing the available resources so that women could have an equal opportunity.
If it were the other way around — if institutions were spending all their athletic money on women — the men could demand similar parity under Title IX.
ON LARRY SUMMERS: The Larry Summers resignation was a great PR coup for anti-feminists because it is easy to cast it as feminists punishing someone for a “politically incorrect” viewpoint. That said, I agreed with the decision to oust Summers.
He wasn’t just some student or professor engaging in some idle speculation or intellectual inquiry. He was the President of Harvard, the face of Harvard, a guy who presumably has a major influence on recruitment, hiring, and promotion of women. If you read his speech, he has a million disclaimers stating that he doesn’t really know whether there are any inherent disparities between the sexes in this area and the evidence isn’t in — but yet, despite the admitted lack of evidence, he still believes that there are inherent disparities in ability at the highest levels.
It makes sense to me that the Harvard faculty would be opposed to having a leader who has admitted to pre-judging an issue that has the potential to affects hiring, promotion, tenure, compensation, and job assignments over which he has power.
(Paul, Yes, he did talk about women’s “choice” to forego the long hours necessary to rise to the elite levels of math and science. But he also talked about natural aptitude and gave an opinion on it, while simultaneously admitting the lack of evidence.)
EX NEW-YORKER: The concept of “patriarchy” is not a conspiracy theory, nor is it an indictment of our fathers and grandfathers. A “patriarchy” is simply the totality of values, assumptions, laws and customs that give men more power over women at the same level of society.
You mentioned that most men were betas who toiled thanklessly without a movement to empower them. Bt the labor movement did just that. And there have been other movements to benefit oppressed men — such as the civil rights movement, and the movement in the U.S. during the Vietnam war to protest the draft. Feminists were heavily involved in all of these movements.
“Feminists aren’t procreating at sustainable levels. America doesn’t even have to decline, Feminists are being out-bred via immigration [like what’s happening over in Europe].”
Trenchant comment. Oh the irony when secular, feminist Sweden is Muslim and patriarchal in a couple of decades.
Feminism and political correctness are cultural Marxist imports that are breaking on the shoals of reality just like classical Marxism did. They depend for their sustenance entirely on the State. Women are gaining power in the institutions not because of their merit or because somebody opened the door–which does happen and has happened throughout history. They are gaining power because the State has knocked the walls down for them. But even then a vague discontent persists because women realize, if only at a subconscious level, that their entry comes at the expense of making the institution a shadow of its former self. So, the goalposts are moved, the ante gets raised, and another round of bitching begins. Lather, rinse, repeat.
You see this everywhere. Women have scaled the summit of the US Episcopal Church. Try as women may, they simply do not have the gravitas or theological rigour that made the Episcopal Church what it was, so those seeking true substance gather their families and leave for Rome or Constantinople. The American Kennel Club is turning into a gay, female ghetto obsessed with the aesthetics of the show ring. Its bloodlines can no longer be relied upon to deliver service-worthy animals, so hunters and law enforcement have separate competitions and develop different bloodlines. The military has become the latest laboratory for feminist social engineering. Again, the men up the ante with Airborne or Marine combat and Special Forces or the real brass ring, Private Military Contractor, where the baddest of the badass can go and never have to worry about Title VII or Title IX enforcement again. Inevitably I suppose, unhappy women will trail along after them and demand entry there as well.
“That said, people who prefer submission generally only prefer the aspect of submission that makes their lives easier. It can be great to be free of responsibility until the person in charge makes the decision you really don’t like. Even the most determined submissive wife will admit that it sucks when husband insists on something the wife disagrees with.”
Lol… DH… You are too smart for your own good..
Ya know, I don’t really think that being submissive makes things easier..
Sheesh, the kids drive me mad sometimes(you don’t get too many women admiting that ..) I look after the home and help in the running of my husband’s business.. But just between you and me.. I found it a whole lot easier when I was an Administration Manager for a big company here in Oz.. Good money. Bonus.. Great Superannuation.. And I was good at what I did…
Giving up work and being a housewife was not easy for me (this is not a complaint)
Nevertheless, this was the path I chose.. I gave it all up for love….
Hubby and I agreed that I would stay home and look after the kids.. (hey someone had to do it!)
I have not regretted that joint decision…
My husband and I are pretty much in sync..
However, this does not mean that I am always having a ball here…
To be honest, I just do not find being a housewife and mother that easy…Some women do it in a breeze.. I dips me lid to them…..
For me it’s been a hard slog. Not only because I have a son who is autistic, but, just because I am not a natural.. Perhaps this was because I was never a particularly maternal woman.. Ya know, one who dreamt of marriage and kids..
When I met and fell in love with my husband that all changed.. He wanted kids and I was so in love with him that I wanted them too..
When I was in charge (at work) I called the shots.. Everything went like clockwork.. I had a schedule.. made a daily list.. Too easy..
Motherhood.. Not that easy( for me) I do not know what will happen from one day to the next… Lol.
Would I swap it if I could?
Nah, not on your nelly.. Despite, the hardships, I am happy.
I love my husband deeply.
And the kids? Ah.. they ain’t so bad 😉
But then, I’m a God botherer so my husband and family mean everything to me.
I have learnt to put my needs and wants aside for the good of my family..
My husband, too, has done the same thing…His job is a very demanding one.. Physically and mentally.. (He designs and builds patios and decks)He runs a succesful business.
It isn’t all beer and skittles for him either. 😉
He would prefer to spend more time with the kids.
It ain’t always easy but we are a team… and.. We do it! 😀
@Doomed Harlot
From this, I conclude that they had finite resources and that they were unable to show a lack of female interest in additional teams. Therefore, prior to cutting the male teams, they were apparently using their finite resources to favor men’s sports at the expense of women’s. This is discrimination, which was cured by redistributing the available resources so that women could have an equal opportunity.
Nope. In at least some of the cases the mens teams brought in more revenue than they cost. In some cases they even offered to use some of this funding to prop up a woman’s team. The team with men was cut anyway, because it wasn’t about funding; it was about the number of players by sex. Too many more men were interested in playing sports than women were, so some of the mens teams had to be cut.
Again, if Title IX was about protecting people from sex discrimination, it would prevent schools from shutting down a self sufficient program simply because of the sex of the participants. It isn’t. So it doesn’t. 10,000 words of eloquent legalese won’t change this.
Also, note that the interest in numeric parity only occurs where men outnumber women. If title IX were gender neutral, universities would be denying admission to women (or offering preference to men) in admissions. But is isn’t. So it doesn’t.
Kathy, I didn’t mean to imply that housework and childcare are easy at all! I just meant that certain aspects of submission make life easier, and that is (I believe) what appeals to many.
I also think “submission” is popular among a lot of women who aren’t submissive at all. The “submissive” women I used to know in my grandmother’s town all talked a lot about being “submissive” but seemed to actually run their marriages and the community life. I think “submission” appealed to them because they got to be as bossy as they pleased while preserving a facade of feminine delicacy. (These were all church ladies in Texas — Dalrock country I believe. I used to undergo enormous culture shock whenever I went to visit.)
[D: Yes, that is Dalrock country (although we don’t belong to a church). My wife has made the same observation about many women in the church hiding behind a veneer of submission and sweetness while acting quite differently.]
“Doomed Harlot seems to be able to handle herself without anyone riding to her aid. However, I can’t be the only one who noticed that your passion in defending a woman who is dedicated to preaching promiscuity is only surpassed by your passion in denouncing a man who has sex with promiscuous women.”
Er, no Dalrock.. I said that DH was a legend in her own mind.. In other words, not a slut at all. Not in reality, as she had not slept around..
Greenlander on the other hand used women up for his own gratification, even cheating on his LTR and seeing nothing wrong in it.. Nothing to admire there..
Whilst I may not agree with DH’s point of view, I certainly respect her honesty..
She has integrity, and has not used people up for her own selfish ends..
You cannot compare the two at all, Dalrock..
I cannot abide users.. NO MATTER THEIR SEX..
@Kathy
Er, no Dalrock.. I said that DH was a legend in her own mind.. In other words, not a slut at all. Not in reality, as she had not slept around..
I was referring to her preaching, not her own actions. The fact that she is advocating a different path than she actually took doesn’t change the fact that she is advocating it. She advocates promiscuity; you know this and want people to stay off her back. What am I missing?
Dalrock,
You do raise some good points. But I don’t see why raising more revenue than they cost should be the test. When sponsored by a college or university, sports is supposed to be an educational activity, i.e. something to benefit the participants. That is why the ability to raise revenue should not be the test as to whether the activity is provided.
The fact that men’s sports are more likely to raise revenue is precisely why men’s sports are likely to be favored at the expense of women’s. Women lose out on this educational activity because their activity is less popular to spectators than men’s. That is the kind of disparity Title IX is designed to remedy.
If a men’s football team is really so popular that it can afford to pay for itself, then apparently it doesn’t need the sponsorship of a federally funded college or university.
Your point about whether Title IX protects men in admissions is an interesting one. While women undergraduates outnumber men undergraduates overall, there are still plenty of colleges where men outnumber women. Indeed, that was the norm for MANY years under Title IX. Now the shoe is on the other foot. I’ve never heard of anyone suing either way due to different gender percentages in rates of admission, but I suppose it is possible.
It’s a little different than the sports issue, because there is no segregation. So the issue is whether admission is really open to all on the same basis under fairly administered criteria.
I don’t believe I advocated promiscuity. I believe I said I had no problem with promiscuity. (Subtle difference. I think it is perfectly okay to lead a conservative sex life as I myself have done. Basically, my position is whatever floats your boat as long as it’s safe and consensual and you aren’t cheating!)
What are you missing?
Talk is cheap Dalrock..
DH has been actively involved in helping men through her profession…
Read what she has done ..again, below..
“I believe men and women should have equal rights in domestic violence and family law cases. You didn’t mention employment discrimination, but I will throw that in too. Not only that but I have put my money where my mouth is on this one. I have prosecuted female-on-male domestic violence. I have sued for alimony on behalf of a male client (though divorce is definitely not my usual area and my client died before getting a ruling). I have also brought a lawsuit on behalf of a man who was discriminated against based on sex in his place of employment and on behalf of another man who was subjected to sexual harassment by a female supervisor (as well as a man who was subjected to sexual harassment by other men on the job). ”
Actions speak louder than words… She has been instrumental in helping men in her legal profession. No kudos on this blog however… No acknowledgement of the good that she has achieved.. This is why I said get off her back..
DH identifies as a feminist, but she believes men and women should be treated equally..
YOU were referring to her preaching! I was referring to her actions..
A person is ultimately judged by their actions…
If DH had screwed around like Greenlander, I would be giving her a serve too, especially if she had boasted of her fornicating prowess on this blog, as did Greenlander..
What kind of person cheats on their partner and gloats about it?
Sheesh! The man cheated on a woman he considered to be marriage material..
Bangs head on desk…
Your point about whether Title IX protects men in admissions is an interesting one. While women undergraduates outnumber men undergraduates overall, there are still plenty of colleges where men outnumber women. Indeed, that was the norm for MANY years under Title IX. Now the shoe is on the other foot. I’ve never heard of anyone suing either way due to different gender percentages in rates of admission, but I suppose it is possible.
It’s a non-issue. Per my post above, men are looking at the ROI and concluding their time and money are better spent elsewhere.
@Doomed Harlot
I don’t believe I advocated promiscuity.
Then let me rephrase it. You advocate changing social values so that promiscuity is accepted. You want to make sure that women in specific (but not excluding men) don’t feel discouraged from promiscuity. This is as you have said why you identify as a slut, even though you haven’t actually chosen that path. You want to make it more comfortable for women to be sluts.
@Kathy
YOU were referring to her preaching! I was referring to her actions..
A person is ultimately judged by their actions…
By your logic it is fine to advocate a foolhardy path so long as one doesn’t follow that path themselves. Replace foolhardy with sinful if you prefer a religious version of the statement.
@DH
“It makes sense to me that the Harvard faculty would be opposed to having a leader who has admitted to pre-judging an issue that has the potential to affects hiring, promotion, tenure, compensation, and job assignments over which he has power.”
What? Larry Summers made that speech to address the issue of why women are underrepresented in science and engineering so that they can discuss how to remedy this. He even admitted that socialization and discrimination might play a part into this. It’s only because he added another reason that natural aptitude might play a part that causes the controversy. It was supposed to make people to critically think that there are might or might not any differences between the natural aptitude between the genders.
Helena Cronin also echoes the same sentiment in her article ” More dumbbells but more Nobels: Why men are at the top” .
” A “patriarchy” is simply the totality of values, assumptions, laws and customs that give men more power over women at the same level of society.”
Patriarchy means rule of fathers, meaning the male is the head of the family. That’s it. It doesn’t mean an average men have more power than an average women. If a man have no family of his own then he is powerless.
Give it a rest Dalrock.. Stop trying to twist what I have said…You are making a mountain out of a molehill here..
I already stated that I did not agree with DH’s point of view..
Besides, DH is not advocating promiscuity.. As far as I can ascertain, she has not actively sought to encourage promiscuity in women… Get stuck into the real sluts that are doing the real damage in our society (male and female) instead of making DH your whipping boy.
DH at least has made a positive difference in the lives of some men who have been shafted by women..
Where is your condemnation of that male slut Greenlander?
Not a peep!
Now, had DH, cheated on her LTR you would have come down on her like a ton of bricks..
Shakes head…
I appreciate Kathy coming to my defense! I’m actually touched by it, so thank you very much.
I would agree with Dalrock’s rephrasing of my position — again with the caveat that I think sexual ethics are important, no coercion, no cheating, respect for one’s partner, etc.
@Kathy
Besides, DH is not advocating promiscuity.. As far as I can ascertain, she has not actively sought to encourage promiscuity in women…
I disagree. At the very least you are splitting hairs.
Get stuck into the real sluts that are doing the real damage in our society (male and female) instead of making DH your whipping boy.
She and I are having a respectful discussion.
Replace foolhardy with sinful if you prefer a religious version of the statement.
I liked that, Dalrock. Well played.
[D: Thanks Terry.]
@Kathy
Where is your condemnation of that male slut Greenlander?
Not a peep!
I’ve written a number of posts advising women to stay away from alphas unless they are ready to sign up for the full experience. So you want alpha? is probably the best place to start. Likewise I advise men to stay away from sluts, especially for marriage. If you go through my writings on sluts I don’t think you will find many (any?) cases where I shamed a specific slut. The one exception that comes to mind is Jaclyn Friedman, but in that case I’m really more animated by her advocating what I think is harmful to young women. This fits with my general theme on sluthood, which is that it is harmful to women. I’ve written multiple posts explaining why I think this is the case.
My other concern with sluthood is how traditional women have given the sex positive feminists a pass because they are troubled by what they see as a traditional double standard. Traditional women are so concerned that a man might not get sufficiently shamed for promiscuity that they stood by while sex positive feminists radically reworked the culture. Traditional women are the watchdog which didn’t bark in the culture war (along with the church). Your outrage over Greenlander’s promiscuity and defense of Doomed Harlot exemplifies this phenomenon. You called Greenlander “a worthless piece of trash” but defended Doomed Harlot and assert that she really isn’t encouraging promiscuity.
Now, had DH, cheated on her LTR you would have come down on her like a ton of bricks..
Shakes head…
In the comment where you called him trash your focus was on his promiscuity combined with his not seeing promiscuous women as fit for a relationship. But looking back through the thread I think your statement above is relating to this statement by him:
I’m dating a 26-year-old blue-eyed blonde who is on the high side of 7. (I tap some ass on the side when I can for fun, though.)
I’ve never advocated this kind of lifestyle. However, I haven’t condemned Greenlander for this statement for the following reasons. 1) He didn’t say they had promised to be exclusive. The vagueness of uncommitted sexual relationships is a feature, not a bug. I have no idea if he cheated or not. Barring some further statement from him neither do you. 2) You want to make the world safe for serial monogamy, which is the typical form of female promiscuity. I don’t see that as possible, and therefore see it in a similar light as if you told me that someone was cheating in an illegal poker game. I don’t know how to sort it all out and make moral sense of it, so I generally stay out of it. Fortunately women not interested in uncommitted sex are safe from men like Greenlander (and Marcos). They are as safe from these men as good Christian men are from contracting VD from the local prostitute.
Kathy,
Your posts are further proof that NAWALT is a load of garbage. So-called ‘traditional women’ and women like DH are operating on the same fundamental premises, both rooted in feminist ideology: hatred of men and female superiority.
See what I meant earlier about how this attitude permeates the culture?
Sure, so-called ‘trad’ women denounce things like abortion and pre-marital sex. So what? Most of you believe that you are the exclusive ‘owners’ of both sex and reproduction (note how you attack men like Greenlander but give DH a free pass for being ‘honest’ about it). So-called ‘trad’ women might tolerate a man and condescend occasionally to ‘give’ him sex—like a welfare handout— and maybe even allow him to ‘give’ them children, and support them too. No different at all than the attitudes both sluts and abortionists and run-of-the-mill feminists have.
There’s never a word from these ‘trad’ women about treating men as equals; joint responsibility with children or sharing sex as an intimate bonding experience. This is because feminist ideology has so engrained itself in the collective female psychology that so-called ‘traditional women’ are just as self-centered and misandryist as radical feminists without even realizing it. They think that they are different because they look difference on the surface. But under the surface, there is no difference at all.
You are a hypocrite Dalrock.. DH, no matter what she says has never been a slut! She herself has never engaged in such a life style nor has she encouraged such behaviour in women.
You give her no credit for the good work she has done in her legal representaions for men..
Greenlander is a disgusting example of manhood. What does”tap some ass “on the side mean, do you think..?
Since you are that naive I will spell it out for you..
tap some ass 24 up, 7 down
To have sexual intercourse with a female, generally in the ‘doggystlye’
Surely you are not that obtuse?
HE ADMITTED TO C-H-E-A-T-I-N-G..
My patience has worn thin with you.. Truly..
John; ‘Hey mike, you took that girl home last night, did you tap that ass?’
GET IT??.. Or are you going to make more excuses for that slag Greenlander? Sheesh!
I have no respect for dishonest immoral men such as Greenlander, who use crude language (such as cunt) and wax lyrical about their promiscuity as if it is something to be proud of..(You would not accept it from a woman nor should you from a man!)
On the other hand Doomed Harlot, was polite respectful and quite eloquent in her responses… she never denigrated men nor appeared to use them… as Greenlander denigrated women and USED THEM!.
The woman has integrity..
Greenlander on the other hand.. I wouldn’t spit on him.. He is most certainly a piece of trash, who, even in a LTR cannot be faithful.. And talks of the woman as if she is some trophy like possesion, whom he may deem to marry if all works out..(ALL BOW TO THE KING..)
That you hedge and haw over this contemptible man and his behaviours, makes YOU no better than him Dalrock!
Don’t even bother responding..
You’ve done your dash as far as I am concerned.. No longer interested in your opinions.. You have lost all credibility..
I’m outta here..
I won’t be back.
[D: This blog has a strict limit of one dramatic exit per customer.]
You can keep on coddling and soothing these nasty vindictive and selfish types such as Greenlander… But just remember, you yourself have a daughter.. You just better hope that she never encounters such an immoral poseur as GREENLANDER, in the future..
As for you Eric… Do you think that I give a toss what you think?
I have a good husband, who gives me sex whenever I want it. (and I reciprocate). We have a loving family together..Your bitter and jaded observations hold no brief for me. You are an idiot!
Greenlander is a slut and a user, who cheated on his LTR and is quite happy to boast of his immoral exploits.. DH on the other hand is a faithfull wife who as far as I can see has done no wrong..
As many in the manosphere have said.. Do not listen to what a woman says, but watch what she does..
Hypocrites!
One more thing, Dalrock.. You said “He didn’t say they had promised to be exclusive.”
Lol.. Yeah right.. This is the faithfull woman whom he considered to be marriage material.. If she wasn’t being exclusive then I AM SURE THAT Greenlander would not have been contemplating marriage to her.. It was quite plain after all what he thought of his sluttish female counterparts..
You really are unbelievable.. Heh!
Kathy: “She herself [DH] has never engaged in such a life style nor has she encouraged such behaviour in women.”
Dalrock: “You [DH] advocate changing social values so that promiscuity is accepted… even though you haven’t actually chosen that path. You want to make it more comfortable for women to be sluts.”
DH: “I would agree with Dalrock’s rephrasing of my position [with caveats]”
Looks like a respectful discussion to me.
That is, between Dalrock and DH.
The thing is that Kathy is focused on acts rather than advocacy. That’s understandable from the moral point of view, but it’s also an approach that has directly led to the current cultural mess we find ourselves in.
Throughout this “movement” of feminism and sexual liberation, many of the most convincing advocates have been like DH — personally sexually/relationally conservative, but advocating non-judgmentalism and de facto permissiveness relating to sexual libertinism in *others*. This makes for effective advocacy, precisely because of the human tendency to judge a person’s message through the lens of a person’s actions — i.e., “well, maybe that isn’t such a bad idea, after all X believes in that and nevertheless she’s led a conservative sexual/relational life, so maybe it’s not such a bad idea after all”, and so on. This is how radical ideas get effectively peddled through the broader community — you, yourself, lead a fairly conventional life, yet peddle radicalism in thought. That makes it more palatable and more acceptable for the mainstream culture to digest. And digest it, it does.
This is precisely what has happened in the culture. The “educated” class, which generally contains the most vocal and radical advocates of feminism and sexual liberation, personally live very conservative lives for the most part: they marry at fairly high rates and have low divorce rates. They also have a higher percentage of SAHMs, ironically, due to the income levels that permit that. But they strenuously and vociferously advocate libertinism as an option for the culture (using culture-influencing megaphones like the media, the academy, and the entertainment industry), even though it’s an option they, themselves, as a group, generally don’t choose. And what has happened? A broad collapse in marriage and sexual morality in the rest of the culture, while the educated class retains a relatively conservative lifestyle. And the chief irony is that these people have been permitted to peddle their contradictory message precisely because of the responsible choices they themselves made — as if th entire culture would also “use” libertine freedoms in the same way.
What we see DH doing is a textbook example of this kind of advocacy. Someone like Kathy doesn’t care about that very much because she cares about the morality of one’s personal actions. Again, that is understandable. But it also needs to be understood that the advocates of the tsunami-like cultural shift in sexual mores have been, for the most part, people who were advocating like DH, and from a lifestyle perspective living like DH does. The danger is clear if you’re willing/able to look past the trees to see the broader outlines of the forest here. Most people do not do this , however, for the reason I note above. However, that really only plays into the hands of the advocates of radicalism.
@Brendan
The danger is clear if you’re willing/able to look past the trees to see the broader outlines of the forest here. Most people do not do this , however, for the reason I note above. However, that really only plays into the hands of the advocates of radicalism.
I always assumed this was obvious. But I think you may well be correct that it isn’t universally understood. Along the same lines, disagreeing with someone’s argument doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t like or at least respect the person. I disagree quite often with Doomed Harlot, but respect the fact that she comes here and frequently offers reasoned arguments. She could do like some other detractors and hang out in the wings waiting to leave some snide comment about me or my family. That isn’t her style. She is here to make her case in the battle of ideas. If it were her job to defend me I’m guessing she would do so with the same tenacity that she shows in her arguments here.
By the same token, I wouldn’t have much less of an issue with the EPL author, Lorraine Berry, etc. if it turned out they really hadn’t done the things they claim in their divorce peddling memoirs. If it turned out that they had stayed married and protected their own children (in the case of Ms. Berry at least), it wouldn’t change the fact that they have encouraged (no doubt successfully) large numbers of women to leave a trail of wreckage in their wakes.
I just stumbled on this post found myself the topic of some controversy.
I “get” the position of social conservatives (like Kathy), which is that everyone should just behave ethically and do the right thing. I get it because I once was one. The problem with social conservatives that they can’t see the big picture of what’s going on in our culture and the unintended side effects of feminism. They only see what they want to see and refuse to connect the dots… as Brendan pointed out.
The problem is that as a guy, doing the “right thing” doesn’t get you anything. You need a fair amount of game just to be able to catch your equivalent in the dating market… and do get that game you need to seduce girls and understand how they tick.
Well, greenlander, it’s worse than that. Once again we see the alliance of traditional-conservative woman and feminist. Doomed Harlot Poseur wants other women to do things that will be bad for them — to pursue lots of sex (and therefore incur lots of risk of various diseases) so long as they are “honest” …whatever that means, from a lawyer. She’s in favor of promiscuity for women. She’s in favor of women having lots of sexual partners outside of marriage. She’s in favor of women having many sexual partners while married, apparently, so long as it’s “honest”, whatever that means. Of course, she won’t be doing any of these things, they are for other women, don’t you see. She isn’t going to risk her marriage. She has no desire to catch incurable disease. That’s for other women.
Well, if nothing else, the steady work that such ideas provide for divorce lawyers clearly benefits Doomed Harlot Poseur. She’s rather like a dentist handing out hard candy and caramels to people…
Now oh so traditionalist, conservative, Catholic Kathy thinks that is just fine. She hates you, but is just fine with Doomed Harlot Poseur. Trad-con Catholic Kathy is oh-so-opposed to your sex outside of marriage but she’s just fine with what Doomed Harlot Poseur is pushing.
So once again we see another example of the natural alliance between feminists and trad-cons, an alliance that sees men as sperm donors and walking ATM’s, and nothing more. Once again we see the hypocrisy of the trad-con, who rants and screeches about “fornication” so long as it’s men that are the subject….but who has no problem with that act if women, even married women, are doing it.
Oh, how I wish for Mark Richardson to drop by, so he could explain once again how incredibly different tradcons are from feminists.
PS:
Isn’t this slwerner’s cue, to show up and defend Kathy from mean old me and evil Greenlander?
Doomed Harlot Poseur, I’m sure that you are fully aware of where Disparate Impact came from — the Duke Power lawsuit in the 1970’s — and how it has become de facto a quota system, where any numerical imbalance in anything that might affect a protected class is taken as proof of discrimination. The AAUW studies of the 1990’s that “proved” discrimination against women in higher education were little more than that: women were over 50% of the general populace, but less than 50% of college students, ergo a “pattern of discrimination” was proven. Of course now that the misandry promoted by AAUW — and other feminists just like you — has borne the expected result, a steady decline in men going to college, there is no longer any talk from AAUW about this subject. You will not see a study from AAUW claiming discrimination against men on the mere basis of percentage of undergrads, because AAUW was never about equality, but rather about female supremacy. Just as feminists have been for over 100 years.
Feminism is the doctrine that teaches men are expendable animals. Feminism is the political movement that created the false rape industry, and promotes it actively. Feminism is the lie that all men are rapists, and the laws that have been enacted in the last 30 years to make it so. Feminism is the anti-scientific superstition that men and women are exactly the same, except women can have babies.
Which brings me to Title IX. You glided right past a simple fact: fewer college women wish to participate in collegiate level sports than men, on a percentage basis. There is no way to achieve the mandatory “balance” you claim is easy, without steadily eliminating men’s sports. And that, I submit, is the real intention of Title IX enforcement since the Clinton years, to systematically eliminate men’s sports from colleges and universities. It is part of the larger picture to discriminate against men in higher education, in order to further degrade men’s chances of economic success.
And the “why” of that is obvious, once one understands that feminism is merely another version of Marxism.
Griggs v. Duke Power is often trotted out by HBD types, but they conveniently leave out that unqualified white men were hired for higher paying jobs without having the requisite, uh, ‘g’ and credential (HS diploma). Another merit myth.
A Lady, I’m not interested in re-litigating _Griggs_, I’m pointing out that Disparate Impact has become de facto a numbers game, sometimes with some obfuscatory dressing on top. Title IX as applied since the first Clinton administration is but one example, there are others.
Nice try. No cigar.
Anonymous Reader – “Isn’t this slwerner’s cue, to show up and defend Kathy…”
I’m afraid I’m going to have to disappoint you on this one. While I like Kathy, and believe her to be one of the good ones, I do sometimes have disagreements with her, and this is one of those times.
Brendan explains it much better than I could:
”The thing is that Kathy is focused on acts rather than advocacy. That’s understandable from the moral point of view, but it’s also an approach that has directly led to the current cultural mess we find ourselves in.”
I agree with his assessment of why this has been problematic (and, I do hope that Kathy will read his post carefully, and with due consideration to it’s applicability to her seeming defense of DH).
My own general frustration with SoCons/TradCons might be seen as having a similar basis. As I see it, most of them seem to give their approval of the injustices that men (disproportionally) suffer. To me, they seem something like a herd of wildebeests’ being preyed upon by lions. They see some other guy get “taken out”, and they just cannot seem to care since it wasn’t them. Even though they may agree that such issues represent injustice and long-term problems for society, they never-the-less give their tacit approval via their silence (or efforts to “minimize” the issues).
I could list off numerous examples of anti-male injustices wherein this seems to happen – divorce/(anti-)family court, paternity fraud, etc. – I’m sure most men know the list all too well. But, for the sake of brevity, I choose to focus on the issue of false rape allegations (FRAs). Most every conservative man (and woman) when asked would agree that individual instances have been produced grave injustice against innocent men, yet, they always seem to manage to “just not give a damned” about the issue overall. For the most part, it seems that they are simply unable to feel a personal connection to the issue (sort of like the wildebeest who didn’t get caught, who can go back to grazing while still within view of the lions devouring their unfortunate herd mate).
Of course, some TradCons are much worse, like one Jesse Powell, who has gone so far as to write that he fully supports innocent men being wrongfully imprisoned due to false rape allegations against them, because he rationalizes, sending innocent men – non-rapists – to prison will somehow serve to protect women from real rapists. But, most of his fellow TradCons would prefer to simply ignore the realities of those issues which don’t play into their preferred “woman are better than men” memes.
While the suggestion “NAWALT” is generally a truism, conservatives continue to hold to a reversed view which assumes “most men are like that” when it comes to male pathologies – bad fathers/husbands, abusers, philanderers, and, yes, even potential rapists. They seem to comfort themselves with the pretty little lies that the men who fall to the host of anti-male injustice MUST have been the “bad ones”, at least as a matter of statistical probability. No need to concern themselves any further. And thus they extend their tacit approval to the continuation of such injustices.[/rant]
I’m not going to defend Kathy here, either.
She overreacted and misread Dalrock and was not very fair to him. I will note that greenlander has not denied cheating on the girl he said he was considering for the LTR, so insofar as it is true he is cheating , I condemn him. But I can’t condemn his general attitude, as that is what conditions are like on the ground in many places of this country right now.
As for DH, I agree with two things:
1. She is not an innocent bystander in the system but actively profits from it
2. Her examples of working for men’s rights were merely examples of using present laws in ways that benefit the occasional male client, not any indication that she realizes that some laws need tremendous reform or repeal.
That being said, she seems able to take care of herself and doesn’t seem to be mad at Dalrock, nor , does it seem to me, that Dalrock is picking on her. Thus , Kathy’s over-reaction is disappointing to say the least.
slwerner, I will give Kathy this possible out: she should read and think more carefully before she declares her support to a feminist. But frankly, I’ve seen this kind of female double standard in churchianity women enough times in the last 20 or more years and no, there was no misunderstanding or accident, that I’m very skeptical of her actual position and intentions.
While the suggestion “NAWALT” is generally a truism, conservatives continue to hold to a reversed view which assumes “most men are like that” when it comes to male pathologies – bad fathers/husbands, abusers, philanderers, and, yes, even potential rapists.
This is a very interesting insight. Because MMALT is the inverse of NAWALT. It is something that would only occur to a person who, consciously or unconsciously, pedestalizes women – declares them to be just “better than men” in some crucial sense. And that in turn fits in perfectly with far, far too many trad-cons thought patterns, culture, dogma, and so forth – not to mention the whole neo-Victorianism we see on some trad-con websites, such as the one Jesse Powell beta-orbits.
Now, there is another group that clearly believes MMALT (some flat out state AMALT), and that is feminists. Pinned down under a truly determined argument, very few feminists will assert that All Men Are Rapists (I’ve encountered a couple of lesbian separatists who were the exception). I suspect that Doomed Harlot Poseur is one such, she’d hardly marry a rapist herself. But the notion that Most Men Are Rapists? Why, I wager there’s not but a handful of feminists of any sort – gender, equity, equality, second wave, third wave, new wave, permanent wave – that would not go right along with that.
And so you may have articulated the hidden link between trad-cons and feminists. The real reason why trad-cons have proven to be totally ineffective at combatting 95% of the feminist avalanche. And that reason is quite simple: they share key premises. It’s all but impossible to make a principled stand against a group of radicals when you basically share significant parts of their world view. Sure, feminism assumes the absurdity that men and women are exactly the same, except women can have babies; and traditional conservatives generally don’t go along with that, or not too far. But that isn’t as critical as one might think, compared to NAWALT and Most Men Are Like That. NAWALT and MMALT justifies all sorts of evils, from false rape accusations to false sexual harassment accusations to the overt discrimination against boys in public schools, to the utterly one-sidedness of “family court”, and so forth and so on. This is the Rosetta Stone that allows us to understand why so many tradcons approach all these obvious, clear, horrible injustices with a bit of throat clearing, and a timid “Yes, I see your point, but…”. There is no “but” when a man is thrown into prison because some woman was bored! Not if you really believe in justice…and you don’t believe MMALT.
Let me make slwerner’s insight totally, blatantly, obvious:
Traditional conservatives and feminists see men and women in almost exactly the same way.
Therefore, they will agree on many things, although not all, and even ends, although not all. Therefore, tradcons will perpetually going along with feminist proposals, just not all the way to the conclusion. Therefore, tradcons will perpetually be saying “Yes, but…” to men’s rights issues.
If trad-cons are to be of any use to civilization, they will have to give up the pedestalization of women, NAMALT, and they will have to also quit thinking of men as animals, MMALT. The deprogramming of trad-cons might not be easy, but it seems more likely to work than denting the invincible ignorance, prejudice and hatred of feminists.
Interesting (loose) parallel that is emerging here. Hatred for the drug user (the Gamesman chasing and catching women to use them for his pleasure), and love (or at least tolerance) for the drug pusher (the person encouraging the women to “find” themselves sexually, which is often via the Gamesman).
.
Waiter, I’ll have a thick slice of irony with that societal collapse. Thank you!
Dalrock:
Kathy’s dramatic exit reminded me of a saying I’d read recently on another blog: “Anglobitch anger is a barometer of truth”.
That aside, I never accused either Kathy or DH of hypocrisy; I was pointing out the opposite: that Kathy was being entirely logically consistent. If one starts with the premises of male inferiority, or as the faux-traditionalists reverse the statement, that women are the ‘owners’ of sex and ‘have all the power in relationships’, then it makes logical sense to defend female promiscuity and denounce it in males. It’s the premises that are flawed.
The NAWALT Orchestra can’t posit a fundamental difference in their own attitudes and radical feminism. In fact, most of what’s being promoted as ‘traditionalism’ is little more than ‘Feminism With A Smiling Face’. I’ve heard many ‘comservative’ self-styled relationship experts making statements like: “Women are the civilizing force in a culture” (the same as the feminist ‘Men are Neanderthals’). Or, “Women have all the power in relationships” (like feminism’s ‘fish and bicycles’).
It’s these attitudes that need to be challenged, not the window-dressing.
slwlerner:
Those are some excellent points. In fact, the closer so-called ‘traditional’ positions are examined, the more they emerge as the mirror-image of feminism. Misandry is at the bottom of both; and that attitude is embedded in our culture.
A lot of good posts here, definitely worth reading after digesting another outstanding post from Dalrock. Some comments from Greenlander are my focus;
“The problem is that as a guy, doing the “right thing” doesn’t get you anything. You need a fair amount of game just to be able to catch your equivalent in the dating market… and do get that game you need to seduce girls and understand how they tick.”
This, this right here. This is the key for anyone who cares one whit about society or who gives a tinker’s damn about their children especially their female children. Anyone who wags their fingers at people like Greenlander but do nothing about how his attitude changed in the past when he was one of the ‘nice guys’ are ignoring a very large issue in society. I don’t care if it makes women feel good to shame people like GL, and it doesn’t matter if we get shamed for not jumping on their bandwagon and making him feel like crap for what he is doing.
The bottom line is, by focusing on the act rather than advocacy as Brendan brilliantly pointed out, one is simply p!ssing up a rope. You are wasting your time, period. As you finger wag, even more are being produced by this society, what makes more sense, shaming the one, or stopping the production of many more?
Ladies want more ‘nice’ guys, than start rewarding them for being nice instead of punishing them for it. Paige stated that women like strong men in another post. She’s right on the money, but who is to teach these young men how to do that when masculinity is vilified and fathers are denigrated at every turn?
Women do not teach men how to be men, let me say that again, WOMEN DO NOT TEACH MEN HOW TO BE MEN. Go ahead and try to prove me wrong, all you will do is prove me right.
Channeling Nerdlinger; what was it that Obi Wan stated to the undersea people in “The Phantom Menace”? He stated that whatever happened to the surface people, would in turn affect them too. Ignoring the invasion on the surface was foolhardy on their parts and he warned them ahead of time. Guess what, it did affect them and they where run out of their homes as a result.
If women don’t give a rats @$$ about what happens to men, in turn this indifference will negatively affect women as well, full stop. “Nice Guys” don’t spontaneously appear, they are trained from birth by the ‘nice responsible men’ before them.
“The problem with social conservatives that they can’t see the big picture of what’s going on in our culture and the unintended side effects of feminism.”
Possibly, but the one thing which I can’t shake is that some don’t WANT to see. The ostrich approach doesn’t work so well in reality, some will only find out once it’s far too late.
I think this thread has probably played itself out, but I just wanted to acknowledge that I came back and read some of the criticisms of what I am advocating.
Omnipitron:
Greenlander’s history is a fairly typical example. Before I dropped out of the relationship market, I always heard from my exs (that is, the ones who bothered to say goodbye at all) ‘You’re really the nicest guy I’ve ever met, but…(fill in the blank with the excuse of your choice and, of course, it’s all your fault, too).
Now you see that I’ve evolved, according to the NAWALTers here, into a ‘jaded and bitter loser’; and that is, of course, my own fault, too.
Although, admittedly, it’s better than the lot of most other decent guys I know. Most of them went from being ‘really nice guys’ to nervous wrecks, substance abusers, and a suicide or two; after their wonderful treatment from the Un-fair Sex. Luckily, I found the MRM just in time to avoid sharing their fate.
A few of them went Greenlander’s way: going from a nice guy to unapologetic users and since they changed, they’ve had no difficulty at all getting regular sex and making kids. The same is true of most of the worst and most dysfunctional males I know.
Really, the best option for any decent man is to get out of the American relationship scene as quickly as possible. Abandon these bitches permanently and leave them to the kinds of bums they really want, anyway. They’ve done NOTHING for the last 4-5 decades but tell men how much they hate us; then using their ’empowerment’ to back up that hatred. It’s time we men realized that women mean what they say, and will act accordingly on any male naive enough to think that ‘not all women are like that”.
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“Women will always bitch and moan, that isn’t really news. The real problem starts when men actually decide to listen to them. Bad idea.”
This is the truth.
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@Dalrock
Not only do I need to frame this comment, but remember that 80’s movie Mr. Mom? W/ Michael Keaton IIRC?
As I vaguely recall, the hubby, after a number of hurdles to clear, became the successful homemaker, and quite competent at it. They went back to the old arrangement because SHE didn’t like the hard-charging corporate world (in all fairness including a de rigger case of sexual harassment)
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The funniest part of the “Happy (Feminist) Mother’s Day” piece (emphasis mine):
“His wife, A CORPORATE LAWYER, puts in long hours, and doesn’t have much time for cooking, cleaning, and daycare pick-up.”
OF COURSE she’s a corporate lawyer! But the author could have just as easily substituted “Editor-In-Chief of a major magazine”, or, “Owner and CEO of a successful cigar import business” and the advertisement…er, I mean ‘true life account,’ would have read the same.
Good stuff!
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I have four married female cousins. Three are stay at home moms, happily and by choice. The fourth wishes she could quit her job and be a stay at home mom, but her husband doesn’t bring home enough bacon.
I honestly don’t understand this “problem with no name” crap.
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