We live in a strange time. Female entitlement is rampant as a result of feminism, yet sometimes the female entitlement message runs afoul of feminists. JCPenney™ recently pulled the this shirt from its online store following a petition drive and outrage from feminists. The shirt said:
I’m too pretty to do homework so my brother has to do it for me
The copy on the page said:
Who has time for homework when there’s a new Justin Bieber album out? She’ll love this tee that’s just as cute and sassy as she is.
The strange thing is this kind of I don’t have to do anything because I’m a woman theme is extremely common today exactly because of feminism. Given the choice between teaching women and girls real skills and teaching them moxie, feminists chose the latter. Feminists didn’t think Amelia Earhart needed to do her homework and learn how to use navigation equipment or communicate in Morse code; there were men for that. All feminists cared about was that she was cute and sassy, just like the girl the shirt is aimed at.
See Also: To thine own self be true
To be more honest, the t-shirt should say “boyfriend” and not “brother.”
I see a new clothing line for this: I’m too pretty to buy drinks, so I get strangers to do it for me (100% true, everyone will admit).
… to work, so I have my boyfriend to do it for me.
…to save money..
…to look after my physical security…
Any more???
One hears stories of some female students in University exchanging sexual favours with professors in return for good grades or being “helped” with their coursework by other more gifted male students. I don’t think this is just a recent phenomena, although perhaps the blatant marketing of this behaviour is and more disturbingly it being directed at a younger age group (7-16) that this t-shirt is aimed at.
Re: Exchanging sexual favours for good grades…..
It is literally the PUSSY PASS.
That is true of one dynamic, but I think that one kicks in at a slightly later stage than the age group this shirt was intended to appeal to. For the girls in the 7-16 age range, I think it would be more likely that it would read –
“I’m too pretty (precious, etc.) to do homework, so our father makes my brother (“HAS to”) do it for me.”
It’s what I call the “Biden Effect” – http://www.avoiceformen.com/misandry/chivalry/vawa-corrupt-law-and-joe-bidens-abusive-sister/
According to Biden’s own words his sister regularly beat him in his childhood and adolescence. “And I have the bruises to prove it,” he said, at a senate hearing on violence against women, December 11, 1990. To make sure the audience knew this wasn’t a joke, he added, “I mean that sincerely. I am not exaggerating when I say that.”
As with any victim of abuse, even with the Vice President of the United States, it is imperative to consider the long lasting psychological impact, especially given how the abuse was delivered.
In Biden’s brief tell-all, he acknowledged that the beatings he received were condoned and sanctioned by his parents, and that he was prevented from defending himself; That he was literally, in fact, powerless to make the abuse stop.
“In my house,” he stated, “being raised with a sister and three brothers, there was an absolute. It was a nuclear sanction, if under any circumstances, for any reason -even self defense- you ever touched your sister, not figuratively, literally.”
“My sister, who is my best friend, my campaign manager, my confidante,” he continued, “grew up with absolute impunity in our household.”
If flashing a bit of “cute and sassy” isn’t enough to get some young man to volunteer to do it for her, there will certainly be some white-knight out there willing to force the young man.
Somewhat off topic but a hilariously unintentional result.
Did you read the gizmodo piece that trashed some guy for being a gamer? She did an online dating service, and met this dude. She then trashed him for playing Magic. Since he was a world champion. Even goes on a second date with him. Then trashes him for his hobby. Actually, his income, at one point.
Bottomline: After trashing him in the article, the comments informed her that not only is he a managing partner at a privately owned hedge fund, he is a multi-millionaire. But she couldn’t get over Magic: The Game. After this, I don’t think he’ll have any problems getting much better dates.
I don’t get it. Prior to feminism women didn’t have to work and they weren’t allowed to. After feminism they can work but don’t want to.
“Dan in Philly says:
To be more honest, the t-shirt should say “boyfriend” and not “brother.”
I see a new clothing line for this: I’m too pretty to buy drinks, so I get strangers to do it for me (100% true, everyone will admit).
… to work, so I have my boyfriend to do it for me.
…to save money..
…to look after my physical security…
Any more???”
Once upon a time, that was a good strategy for pretty women, and it worked fine.
Nowadays, any woman who wants to be pretty instead of useful should feel free to be. Any man who buys a woman a drink (or dinner, or the movie, or…), or works while she stays home, or manages the money for her, or has to protect her when she willfully puts herself in dangerous situations should go ahead and treat the woman as a child who doesn’t get the rights of an adult, since she has abdicated the responsibilities. A woman can be equal if she’s willing to take the downsides of that as well, but any woman who expects to never pay or work should not expect to be treated as another citizen.
Any man who thinks it’s worth the cost to have a pretty thing around can go for it, but shouldn’t pay any attention to her opinions or demands or anything, as one treats a child who needs to be cared for.
“Ducky says:
I don’t get it. Prior to feminism women didn’t have to work and they weren’t allowed to. After feminism they can work but don’t want to.”
Demanding THE RIGHT TO something doesn’t mean they actually want to do it.
“Mike43 says:
Did you read the gizmodo piece that trashed some guy for being a gamer?…After this, I don’t think he’ll have any problems getting much better dates.”
One can only hope that future men who might date her think to google as well and come upon that piece. It’ll give men a very clear warning before they even meet her.
Any man who buys a woman a drink (or dinner, or the movie, or…), or works while she stays home, or manages the money for her, or has to protect her when she willfully puts herself in dangerous situations should go ahead and treat the woman as a child who doesn’t get the rights of an adult, since she has abdicated the responsibilities.
I never had a say in feminism, so not all women are responsible. As well, many women would be more than happy with traditional gender roles–the man works outside of work, the woman works inside the home, and that doesn’t mean she’s a child. Or that means she’s not willing to take the downsides either?
And not only that, but women used to work since the beginning of time–my great grandmother was a teacher.
Any man who buys a woman a drink (or dinner, or the movie, or…), or works while she stays home, or manages the money for her, or has to protect her when she willfully puts herself in dangerous situations should go ahead and treat the woman as a child who doesn’t get the rights of an adult, since she has abdicated the responsibilities.
I never had a say in feminism, so not all women are responsible. As well, many women would be more than happy with traditional gender roles–the man works outside of work, the woman works inside the home, and that doesn’t mean she’s a child. Or that means she’s not willing to take the downsides either?
And not only that, but women used to work since the beginning of time–my great grandmother was a teacher.
I do think its funny that feminists completely miss the entitlement theme and seem rather to be upset that the shirt infers girls don’t have the brains for homework. The fact that such a shirt even exists is because of feminism. We were told in another controversial tshirt that boys were stupid, throw rocks at them. Aw, but now we want those ‘stupid boys’ to do our homework.
Feminists didn’t think Amelia Earhart needed to do her homework and learn how to use navigation equipment or communicate in Morse code
Heh, if she had learned Morse code and how to navigate, she might not have wound up as fish food.
I want a shirt with a picture of Amelia that says “Too pretty to learn Morse Code”.
Chels,
Given no societal standard, all couples can negotiate the roles they want to play with each other.
There’s a difference between a traditional ‘woman does the housework, and raises the kids, and maybe homeschools them, and keeps everything running, and does all the cooking and shopping and organising while the man works outside of the home’ and a ‘man makes money while woman does ‘fulfilling’ work that makes no money’ or the ‘make makes money while woman stays home with children in school and modern appliances that make housework not a full-time job’ options.
Kai, with the new technologies, it has become very easy to do the housework in just a few hours. However, what right do you think you have to tell a man who prefers that his wife be at home even if she doesn’t homeschool her kids that she’s just taking advantage of him and he shouldn’t treat her as an equal?
In many cases, it just doesn’t make for the wife to work outside the home, as her salary would barely cover the costs of daycare.
And saying “oh, but all couples can do what they want!” is a copout when you pass such a harsh judgment on them both–it’s like saying “no offense, but you’re both idiots”.
I’m not saying you’re totally wrong, as I don’t see any point in the woman staying home after her kids pass a certain age, but I wouldn’t dare tell a man that his wife is a child because of their living arrangements.
I intended to make a distinction between women who are at home with children at home and women who are at home with children in school.
When a mother stays home with children under the age of 6, it makes total sense for one partner in the marriage to raise the children, rather than working to pay someone else to care for them much of the time.
But if the children are in public school, a woman at home with no children at home has a lot of free time and doesn’t seem to be fully contributing. If for an individual couple, they find it works, and the man is happy to do all the providing if the woman cooks and cleans and gets the kids to and from school and manages the house things, that’s certainly up to them.
My point about men feeling free to treat women as lesser is in regard to the women who insist upon being taken care of. The ones who simply expect that a man will buy her food and drinks and a house and not require her to contribute. That’s a different situation from one in which a couple has talked and agreed on a division of labour.
“Chels says:
And saying “oh, but all couples can do what they want!” is a copout when you pass such a harsh judgment on them both–it’s like saying “no offense, but you’re both idiots”.”
No, it’s not a copout, and it’s not like saying that – I never said I was trying not to offend. I fully believe that people have the right to do things that I think are dumb or wrong.
The appropriate comparison would be “you’re both idiots, but you’re certainly free to be idiots”.
I don’t pretend to make nice when I’m insulting someone.
Chels
I never had a say in feminism, so not all women are responsible.
Cool. I never had a say about feminism either. Doesn’t change the fact that I’m guilty of various crimes until proven innocent in some cases, thanks to feminists. Life is not fair. Deal with it.
Kai, a woman that stays home even while the kids are in school is taking care of the husband, the kids and the household. Some men prefer that their woman stays at home from the moment they have kids, because they find that this is how their household works best.
Even if a child goes to school, their program is going to be something like 9 until 2 or 3, and then someone needs to be there to take care of them. If a woman works, it’s unlikely that she’ll be home until 6, so they still need to pay a babysitter. I’d say that until the kids can fend for themselves, it’s totally justifiable for the woman to be there at home.
As well, even if the man takes care of the woman financially, the woman takes care of the man in different ways–washing his clothes, cooking his food, etc.. and a lot of men really appreciate that. I know that my boyfriend gets ecstatic when I cook for him or when I bring over home cooked food. As well, he certainly doesn’t have a problem if I’d choose to stay at home even after the kids are old enough to be independent because he makes plenty of money and he feels that I can contribute in other ways, just as significant. I’m not saying I’d do this since I really like working, but most women don’t want to work full time, most want to work part-time. And so what if they’re not very career oriented? I thought this blog promotes family values and people want women to put their families first.
One of my uncles is happily married and his wife never worked since the day they got married and they have only one kid–they have one of the happiest marriages I’ve seen.
Actually, Dalrock, the snit fit over this T-shirt fits in with a standard feminist rationalization hamster meme, the Strong, Independent Wimmen Who Are Being Held Down By The Patriarchy.
See, blank-slate thinking informs that every grrl is just as good at any homework assignment as any stinky boy. So implying that a grrl would have her brother/father/etc. do homework for her is a putdown of her mighty, strong-grrl powers. It’s the same thinking that had a conniption fit over the “Math is hard” Barbie. This hamster is the one that insists anything less than 50% female engineers is Proof of Misogyny….but a 60/40 female/male ratio in higher education is simply a natural result of wimmen’s superiority.
See, to this hamster, all female humans are exactly equal to all male humans except when they are superior. Any simularity to Orwell’s famous line from “Animal Farm”, “All animals are equal, except some animals are more equal than others” is purely a coincidence.
I never had a say in feminism, so not all women are responsible.
Nobody had a say in the course that Irene just took, but they still got flooded – responsible or not.
Didn’t you know, Anonymous? Anything a man can do, a woman can do (and better!) But the things women are better at, men still can’t touch.
Women are just like men – but even more awesome!!!!!!1!!one!!!
TFH, you seem to have solved a great mystery… 😀
Chels, again – if a couple agrees that it’s worth it to them, it can certainly work. Some men may be satisfied to have their woman running the house. A woman with children in school can generally do some part-time work as well, but if both of them are satisfied with her at home, I don’t see a problem with that.
The ones for whom I have no respect are the women who just *assume* that they can stay home, and the men will work. the ones who feel they are entitled to not work. The ones who take a part-time job and assume that his money is ‘ours’, but her money is hers. the ones who stay home but still expect the man to pull a share of the housework. It’s the entitlement aspect seen in some women who plan to marry instead of learn marketable skills that I think is wrong and undeserving of adult accord.
Now, a snake would be an easier pet to maintain than a cat, given that the snake does not shed hair, scratch the furniture, or run away, and can be left without food for a week if you are on vacation.
Had you tried to pet a snake? is not the same at all. Also cats have baby like sounds I think spinsters fill their maternal needs with their cats, who act more like babies than dogs.
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2009/07/14/2625281.htm
Dalrock
Can I ask you a question? A friend knows a girl who by the age of 21 had self admittedly slept with over a 150 guys. She would often message her friends and offer up tricks for money, mind you she wasn’t a prostitute more a nymphomaniac who would offer it up for money when she was broke, now 26, she continued to do this up to a year ago,
The friend found out she got married 3 months ago and he has taken it upon himself to contact the husband and inform him about her past. The initial phone call was intense but he has agreed to meet up with him.
Is he morally justified in doing this?
I know you directed this to dalrock, but it’s a really interesting question.
I see the moral justification – it doesn’t sound like this was ever a secret promised to keep, but rather common knowledge that she somehow managed to keep from a guy long enough to marry him. I don’t think people are morally required to not tell what is known.
I would question whether he is morally obligated to inform the guy…
You know what a lot of women of means that didn’t need to do housework all day did when the kids were at school? They volunteered. They did amazing public goods as part of women’s organizations. Volunteering it great, you can organize it to be part time and flexible and not interfere with family while you still get out of the house. You make friends, its more fulfilling.
Personally, I want to home school, but I would respect a woman that kept an immaculate home and used the time the kids were at school to do enough volunteering and good works for the both of us.
jonnycomelately:
I think it wrong to speak up now…post marriage. If it was a traditional marriage ceremony people were given a chance to speak up at the wedding, OR “forever hold their peace” !
Pre-marriage, yes, a friend advises a friend…post marriage…pray for him, support him when she returns to her true nature, steer him in how to hide money and property etc…but it’s too late for the truth now.
I have a close relative who owes everyone and their brother money, is a huge drunk, liar, scammer, all around dirt bag. He introduced me to his fiancee and when the moment was right I asked her how she intends to deal with his debt problems…she had no idea there were such problems and she asked me to elaborate, I did. WELL, she married him anyway ( I knew she would…it was LOOOOOOVE ya know) and gee, guess what, 10 years of money problems, a nasty bankruptcy judgment and a marriage on the rocks. She called me recently, asking for advice on how to protect her pre-marriage property…I reminded her of my warning…stone silence, hang up.
Just know, if you decide to tell, you will make an enemy out of both parties…people simply don’t want to face truth…he doesn’t want to be told he married the town tramp, and she doesn’t think yesterday even happened…all the other girls are tramps and sluts, not her.
Chels, TFH: FWIW, my wife is pretty much the ideal that Chels describes herself to aspire to, and has been a homemaker since slightly before the kids came (we now have 3 pre-school aged ones). TFH would agree her raising them at home right now is far more valuable than anything she might do away from home, so I won’t dwell on this. I would like ot point out that since I make enough money that anything she might make at any job would just be fun money, her contributions to the household BEFORE the kids far outweighed anything she might have brought home with a regular paycheck. Why? Because she never disparaged the job of a housewife and always took it seriously.
As a result, not only do my kids get love, attention, and values far better than any day school mops, I get:
Homemade meals which are quite frankly much better than anything I ever eat out (she’s quite ruined me for dining out, as I hardly ever eat anything she doesn’t make better at home).
A household run in such a way which allows me to focus on work and not have to worry about most domestic things.
A thrifty and frugal shopper who has saved me thousands.
A woman who can and does keep herself beautiful and sexy.
All in all, not a bad life for me. The only thing which I regret is the world being what it is, most women work and so she has fewer friends than she would like. When she worked she had a lot of social outlets, now she has few. I have told her when the kids are in school if she wants to work until they get home, I’m ok with it, though I’d rather she stay home full time.
I know I’m kind of bragging here, but I actually have a point. There ARE women (AMERICAN women) who know how much better a family can be when she embraces the role of the housewife. Such women are the opposite of lazy and privileged – they contribute FAR MORE to the happiness of their husbands than any working woman, as well as their own. If you as a man manage to find such a woman, do not let her get away, marry her! If you are a woman, consider becoming such a woman, and then find a man who deserves such a wife. This is a path to true marital happiness, I can tell you from my own personal experience (as well as a few others I know).
Division of labour worked well for many years, and I don’t mean to imply that for those couples who are both satisfied with their division there is anything wrong with it.
Of course, it does require a man to be able to support a family on his income alone, which is not quite so easy as it was 60 years ago. For those who can and want to, it usually works well.
Kai, the thing which annoys the living heck out of me is when I hear working girls run down homemakers, SAHMs, and so on, inplying they are lazy, or spoiled, or trophy wives, etc. Or, on the other hand, they are treated as mis-guided semi-slaves, who cannot hope to find fulfillment working inside the home. I will hear both contradictory viewpoints from the same women! I don’t provoke such women, but I wonder at the power of their hamsters, which direct them to think of hommakers as at the same time spoiled princesses and put upon servants.
Anyway, the system works wonderfully as long as both parties understand and embrace their roles. The man has the be the producer, because (for one) women are naturally better at raising the babies the carry and bring into the world. A wise man will allow for this and gear his life so he can afford to live on just his income, either through earning a lot of $$$, or choosing a lifestyle which is modest enough, or some combination of both. A wise woman will cultivate in herself those values, virtues, and abilities which make homemaking so rewarding for both parties. And these men and women have to likewise be wise enough to know what to look for in their opposite number, which is usually where things fall apart, as Hollywood and feminism tends to denegrate those very values which lead to such happy lives, and young people are very impressionable to such things until it’s too late.
Kai, what bothered me the most about your comments is that you equated a stay at home wife to a child and her husband to an idiot (not that you’re the only one, this idea is very popular). No wonder that women feel so much pressure to have successful careers at the sake of their families! A lot more women would choose to work part-time or stay at home if they wouldn’t be denigrated for their choices, and if society would be more accepting. Btw, your comments on this thread go totally against the ones that you made on another topic, in which you stated that women should be taught to make decisions prioritizing their families.
As well, this idea that you have to be the same to be “equal” doesn’t really work, I find the whole idea of competing with your own husband idiotic.
However, I do agree that a woman should only stay at home if her husband’s salary permits her to, and he wouldn’t have to increase his workload to make up for the difference (I would never agree to him having to work crazy hours and work himself into an early grave so she’s able to stay at home).
As well, I would have been more sympathetic if you’d have said that she’s an idiot to give up her financial independence like that because he could leave at any time, and then she’d be screwed.
Chels,
Cheers, thanks.
Mrs and I made a joint decision that she would leave her career to be home with the kids. We adjusted our life/house/car/bills so that we could do this…we have never cared about keeping up with the Jones. We live a comfortable life, no complaints, but no excess either.
Mrs has received nothing but flack from the sisterhood…I mean really brutal trashing from them. First, it’s NONE of their business, second, they would all trade places with her in a heart beat.
Yes, there are times she misses her work world life and she intends to get back to it… WHEN IT IS RIGHT FOR OUR FAMILY!!!
Buck “…second, they would all trade places with her in a heart beat.”
Well said, Buck, well said. Make sure you remind the Mrs. of this as she might get confused why the sisters are backbiting. She might make the mistake of thinking they would be glad for her! I occasionally have to remind wifey of this fact as she takes such criticism to heart too much.
My original statement :
“Any man who buys a woman a drink (or dinner, or the movie, or…), or works while she stays home, or manages the money for her, or has to protect her when she willfully puts herself in dangerous situations should go ahead and treat the woman as a child who doesn’t get the rights of an adult, since she has abdicated the responsibilities.”
You have fixated on one small part (the least part) of the cases I brought up. I should have been more specific on that one, but my ire is for those who simply expect to stay home and be provided for while making minimal contribution. Mothers and housewives who take care of their children and husband are not part of that.
I fully respect women who have decided (with their husband) that working in the home will be best for their family.
It is from some men that I have heard the complaint about some entitled women who assume they will stay at home and do no work, or those who are ‘stay at home mothers’ with nannies and/or housecleaning services. Or those who stay at home while their husband works out of the home, and then complain that he doesn’t do half the housework.
My intention was to focus on women who *don’t* pull their weight in anything, yet expect to be treated as adults.
I don’t believe that couples have to do the same things in order to be of equal value to each other.
Kai, humor doesn’t always translate on the internet. My original post was just a joke. I certainly get your point, and in all fairness I have known many women who want to be treated as a spoiled princess/trophy wife, and the only thing I’m less interested in is a feminist wife. But the trophy wife trope is all too frequently used by feminists to justify their contempt for all homemakers, even when it’s quite obvious that couldn’t possibly be the case.
Though I go be “Dan in Philly” I actually live in Jersey, and I joke with my wife that she should write a book titled “Memoirs of a REAL real housewife of New Jersey,” to, among other things, dispell this particular meme.
“Dan in Philly says:
Kai, the thing which annoys the living heck out of me is when I hear working girls run down homemakers, SAHMs, and so on, inplying they are lazy, or spoiled, or trophy wives, etc. ”
“Chels says:
September 2, 2011 at 10:48 am
Kai, what bothered me the most about your comments is that you equated a stay at home wife to a child and her husband to an idiot (not that you’re the only one, this idea is very popular).”
I understand why this impression was given, but it was not my intention, and it is not my belief. I meant to reference only those women who see staying at home (and NOT working on really anything; even the home) as their birthright – with the women who expect men to pay good money (on dinner and such) just to be in their presence.
“Dan in Philly says:
Anyway, the system works wonderfully as long as both parties understand and embrace their roles. The man has the be the producer, because (for one) women are naturally better at raising the babies the carry and bring into the world.”
I fully agree with this on a general ‘in most cases’ basis. I think whatever arrangement a couple desires can work if both people understand and embrace their roles.
“Chels says:
Btw, your comments on this thread go totally against the ones that you made on another topic, in which you stated that women should be taught to make decisions prioritizing their families.”
My comments in other topics are that women should be taught the realities of fertility decline and the tradeoffs between career and family time, and that women *who want a family* should be careful to make decisions when they are young that will ensure they get to have that family. I equally respect the fewer women who choose to prioritize a career over a family when they have made that as an informed decision. I believe that while most women (or men) can be generalized to want similar things, there will always be statistical outliers, and as long as they know their options and can make an informed decision, and take responsibility for it afterward, if the traditional role doesn’t work for an individual or a family, I wish them great luck in their chosen alternative.
And I believe that anyone who chooses to marry should put the marriage first, and that anyone who chooses to procreate should put the children first.
“Dan in Philly says:
Kai, humor doesn’t always translate on the internet. My original post was just a joke. I certainly get your point, and in all fairness I have known many women who want to be treated as a spoiled princess/trophy wife, and the only thing I’m less interested in is a feminist wife. But the trophy wife trope is all too frequently used by feminists to justify their contempt for all homemakers, even when it’s quite obvious that couldn’t possibly be the case.”
As long as we’re giving each other the benefit of the doubt and not jumping on the worst possible meaning, we do fine with the weaknesses of text-only communication.
I have no respect for women who claim that what they want is choices for women, but denigrate any woman who does not make the same choices as they did – and this goes for women on both sides of the ridiculous ‘mommy wars’.
This post is typical of the anti-feminists’ habit of conflating anything they dislike about gender relations with feminism. The soft bigotry of low expectations has been part of our culture’s attitude towards women at least going back to the Victorian era and, unfortunately, there is still a strong strain of this in our culture. Feminists have consistently spoken out against it. Indeed, arch-feminist Simone de Beauvoir identified the temptation to take a free ride from men who are willing to give it as a great moral trap for women, as well as an obstacle to women’s advancement. And indeed it is. The criticism of this sweatshirt is part of a long feminist tradition calling b.s. on paternalism and coddling — hardly some puzzling inconsistency on our part.
“Buck says:
Mrs and I made a joint decision that she would leave her career to be home with the kids…
Mrs has received nothing but flack from the sisterhood…I mean really brutal trashing from them. First, it’s NONE of their business, second, they would all trade places with her in a heart beat.”
Are there no SAHM in your area that she could spend time with instead of the careerists? Most places I’ve seen have groups and meetups where SAH mothers can spend time together – and these would be likely to support her choice.
DH, I think some of the objections about the victorian era was the expectation of physical virtue among women, which was not expected from men. That is, women were perceived to be expected to be true and men not. If that is true, how does that reconcile with your statement that era was equated with the soft bigotry of low expectations?
“Soft bigotry of low expectations” Hmmm. That’s why a women even now can never hope to gain more respect from any action other than that of raising her children in a fashion which leads to their, and societies, greater benefit. Working for the betterment of society and civilisation has never been a low expectation, and oddly enough is no different than what is expected of men. And is also the root cause of the present extremely low levels of respect for females in modern society.
I agree with Chels that being a homemaker is not a free ride. Yes, the homemaker is freed from the stresses of having to bring in an income, but she also has a lot of hard work to do, and she pays a price by sacrificing or reducing her ability to gain personal power, prestige, and earning capacity.
Are housewives looked down on? Yeah. Is that feminism’s fault? Not so much. Housewives will always and inevitably be looked down upon in a capitalist society, because they do not create wealth, earn money, or exercise any power outside the influence they might enjoy over those closest to them. If anything, the status of the housewife has improved in many ways as a direct result of feminism. Conservative groups (like Focus on the Family, for instance) make a big point about talking about the important role of the housewife. They HAVE to try to flatter the egos of the women in their camp because these women now have many more options to leave the home than they did 40 or 50 years ago. It’s supply and demand, baby. If you want housewives, and there are substantially fewer housewives, then you need to do something to make housewifery more appealing. And when housewives do choose to leave their normal round of duties and speak out politically or take on some other more public role, they are more likely to be taken seriously now than they were a generation ago because women in general are taken more seriously.
Feminists and housewives are not enemies, much as the right would like to make us so. Most housewives I know believe that women should be equal citizens in our society and most would applaud the notion that women should enter leadership roles in our society as well. They recognize that they and their daughters benefit when women have the same opportunities and respect even if they personally choose not to take on a non-traditional role.
I never got the whole point behind a “feminist housewife”–how can you be a feminist when you have to rely on a man for pretty much everything? doesn’t that defeat the whole purpose of feminism (and of girl power)?
“If anything, the status of the housewife has improved in many ways as a direct result of feminism.”
How big are you planning to make this hole DH? The story of feminism is the story of a decades long direct attack on the family. This is akin to claiming that the status of jewish people was improved thanks to the efforts of the german government.
DH, if feminism is not anti-housewife, I have not seen a single example of this in real life. Feminism as a movement should choose better spokeswomen to deliver their message if that is what it is. All feminists I have ever seen generally regard homemaking as unrewarding, unfulfilling, and unrecognized, the perview of those too dim to make other choices or too spoiled to prove themselves in the “real” world.
@Doomed Harlot
BS. Feminists are always carping about what a trailblazer Earhart was. She is presented as a hero. There may be a few feminists on the fringe who object to her being celebrated for her achievement of sitting on her rear while men flew her across the Atlantic, or to the fact that she couldn’t be bothered to learn the technical stuff (do her homework) and generally left that to men in the cases where she did the flying. But 99% of the time she is held out to women and girls as an example of what they can hope to achieve. This has nothing to do with the Victorian age, and everything to do with feminists in the late 1920s through today.
More succinctly, you can’t push for affirmative action while complaining about the bigotry of low expectations.
Chels,
It’s hard for me to speak for feminist housewives because I am not a housewife and never will be. The housewives I know fall, who are all pretty feminist, fall into a number of camps: (1) many women, like my mother, who didn’t start thinking in feminist terms until they were already housewives; (2) women whose housewifery constitutes a temporary leave of absence of several years from a career that they will resume when their children or older; and (3) women who became housewives because of personal circumstances or proclivities, but who fully support the rights of other women, including their own daughters to choose otherwise, and to be treated like full human beings and equal citizens. There is a reason that Sarah Palin is wildly popular among conservative women, and that’s because they are excited at the idea of a woman being as influential as she is on the national scene.
The counter to the lack of capitalist value in a housewife is the point about the discounting of the contributions she makes to a man’s career – that a man who has a wife at home to take care of everything on that front can put more focus into his job and do better for the both of them.
Feminism has a lot of different meanings to a lot of different people. Plenty of women call themselves ‘feminists’ and simply make up what they want it to mean.
I am more confused by the ‘logic’ of traditionalist women who say that their husbands are the head of their house, but want to be elected president…
“Dan in Philly says:
All feminists I have ever seen generally regard homemaking as unrewarding, unfulfilling, and unrecognized, the perview of those too dim to make other choices or too spoiled to prove themselves in the “real” world.”
You haven’t crossed the latest wave of ‘everything a woman does is empowering’ feminism?
Stay at home? you go, girl! Working? What a trailblazer? On welfare? How empowering!
There is a lot of this in the ‘sex-positive’ ‘fornication is feminist’ groups.You should admire all those ’empowered’ women making sex very very available for men….
Doomedharlot
“They recognize that they and their daughters benefit when women have the same opportunities and respect even if they personally choose not to take on a non-traditional role.”
This is the problem…opportunities…of course, within reason, but “respect” is not given…EVER!
Several years back the Navy was desperate to promote a female fighterjock…why?…PC idiocy…well, they pushed along a nice gal, very bright, etc beyond her skill level and she killed herself in a crash. When her training officers suggested she be placed in transports, cargo etc, the feminist brigades were out in force demanding her fighter training continue. ANY male would have been washed out, but when the “hear me roar” crowd was told by the pro’s that their poster girl didn’t measure up, they were threatened with losing their training assignments if they did not make shit into shinola. The feminist brown shirts had their dogma script at the ready…unreasonable standards, good-ol-boy network, bias, threatened by talented women, blah blah blah.
Result, a bright young gal dead at the alter of feminism…when do we call this murder?
This whole modern notion of equality is just poppycock…of course all should have equal protection under the law, all should be treated with worth and dignity, employment should be based on skills, but each of us has strengths and weaknesses and ignoring this fact is down right dangerous.
“Buck says:
This whole modern notion of equality is just poppycock…of course all should have equal protection under the law, all should be treated with worth and dignity, employment should be based on skills, but each of us has strengths and weaknesses and ignoring this fact is down right dangerous.”
Whether it’s women, or short asian men, or unprepared poor students, when equality of opportunity turns into seeking equality of outcome, we all lose.
Also note how the feminists at Jezebel call the shirt “destroying your daughter’s self-esteem”. Blowing something up to ridicilous levels = destroying? I don’t think so.
Surely, Earhart is the ultimate symbol of not being coddled. She attempted a death-defying feat in which you absolutely cannot skate on being daddy’s little princess, and she paid the ultimate price. (And I understand that she did, in fact, fly her own missions after an original stunt in which she was merely a passenger. No one is celebrating that particular trip.)
Affirmative action is irrelevant. First, at least in the U.S., it exists only in two narrow categories (government contracts and college admissions). Not only that, but colleges are starting to use affirmative action to favor men so that women don’t overwhelmingly outnumber men on campus. I am not aware of feminists advocating that affirmative action be expanded to other areas. Second, affirmative action doesn’t have anything to do with giving women or minorities a free pass. Beneficiaries of affirmative action have to be qualified and they have to do the work. I attended an academically rigorous boarding school that sought out minority students from underprivileged backgrounds. These kids often had some deficits in their preparation for the coursework but they were expected to work for their grades. If they couldn’t hack it, they failed. Affirmative action was an opportunity that they wouldn’t normally have, not a free ride. Now I think affirmative action is certainly open to criticism (what about underprivileged white kids?) but I don’t hear anyone advocating that women or minorities be given a free ride.
Kai, the thing which annoys the living heck out of me is when I hear working girls run down homemakers, SAHMs, and so on, inplying they are lazy, or spoiled, or trophy wives, etc. Or, on the other hand, they are treated as mis-guided semi-slaves, who cannot hope to find fulfillment working inside the home. I will hear both contradictory viewpoints from the same women! I don’t provoke such women, but I wonder at the power of their hamsters, which direct them to think of hommakers as at the same time spoiled princesses and put upon servants.
Indeed, because shuffling files around an office, processing forms, selling real estate, or manning a cash register are all tremendously difficult jobs requiring the utmost sophistication and brainpower with years of training….
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not putting those jobs down, they’re fine jobs and I don’t think women (or men) working those jobs are lazy or dumb or unskilled. But it’s not like the average female working outside the home is doing anything all that grueling or that requires a triple digit IQ. Most just have jobs. Good for them, but they shouldn’t let it go to their heads.
Are there no SAHM in your area that she could spend time with instead of the careerists? Most places I’ve seen have groups and meetups where SAH mothers can spend time together – and these would be likely to support her choice.
My wife is a SAHM who also does part-time consulting work (from home) and volunteers for a couple of local community organizations. Our youngest isn’t in school yet. Her circle of local friends includes:
-Another SAHM who’s starting to do part-time consultime work from home now that her youngest is in school full time
-A working Mom who would like to be a SAHM but is working a 9-5 corporate job to generate cash flow while her husband gets a startup business off the ground (all her kids are in school full-time)
-A SAHM who volunteers nearly everywhere in the community.
-Two former SAHM who have recently gone back to work when their youngest entered school.
She gets lots of support.
Dan in Philly points out that the work of housewives has economic value in a capitalist society, because their willingness to do that work frees the husbands up to focus on career. I agree with this point wholeheartedly.
One problem reason housewives don’t get respect is that their economic contributions — which are very real — are invisible to many people because housewives don’t actually bring money into the household or their own purses directly. People in a capitalist society don’t tend to value those whose work doesn’t command any income or create wealth. That’s unfair, but feminists did not create that problem.
The problem with housewifery isn’t housewives. It’s the expectation that one half of the population should be waiting on the other half, while allowing the other half to run society.
“Doomed Harlot says:
The problem with housewifery isn’t housewives. It’s the expectation that one half of the population should be waiting on the other half, while allowing the other half to run society.”
Don’t worry – you are not expected to wait on someone today. You have the freedom to negotiate whatever you want with your partner, should you have one. So if for others, the ‘one person supports the other’s outside-of-the-home work so both benefit’ method works, what’s the problem?
Kai,
Feminism has had a lot of success in our culture, but there is still a widespread expectation that it will be the mother not the father who will take the career hits for the sake of the children, and that it will be the wife not the husband who does most of the housework and childcare. The negotiations over these issued don’t occur on a level playing field. If I say, “Hey, I think I am doing too much childcare,” the pushback is, “What kind of mother are you?”, pushback that doesn’t have the same social sanction if you try to turn it around on men.
That said, at least the situation is improving, but I do see the difficulty of negotiating a fair division of labor at home as one of the biggest remaining challenges, at least for women in my demographic (privileged, western).
I think that kind of answers your queston. If a couple decides in a vacuum that one person supports the other and the other does the housework, then there would be no problem with that. But these things don’t happen in a vacuum. It’s always the man who has to provide the support and the woman who has to do the housework in these situations, and the overwhelming force of social sanction and expectation backs that up. This has a major effect on women. I certainly grew up wondering if I would be able to pursue my profession fully or if I was going to somehow get sucked into being the primary caretaker for most of my family at the expense of my profession. This wonder and concern had a huge effect on the psychology, and I think the drive, of a lot of women of my generation; it was an anxiety that began even before the teenaged years and persists even today as I contemplate possible motherhood.
It’s the expectation that one half of the population should be waiting on the other half, while allowing the other half to run society.
And it’s better to wait on your boss than it is on your husband? The men that I know do not think in the individualistic terms that you do–the man’s success is not his success alone, it’s their success, and they realize the important role their wives played. He works for them, not for him, and everything is theirs and it’s about them (note the big distinction?). One simple example of this is me cooking for my boyfriend–sure you might think it’s oppressive, but the look on his face of sheer happiness and gratitude makes it all worth it.
I certainly grew up wondering if I would be able to pursue my profession fully or if I was going to somehow get sucked into being the primary caretaker for most of my family at the expense of my profession.
it was an anxiety that began even before the teenaged years and persists even today as I contemplate possible motherhood.
…………. that’s all I can say; I don’t know what’s there to say to a woman who’s mentality is all about her and what she wants, to a woman who’s career is more important than her kids–I’d say you’re better off without any.
That example above doesn’t make sense without adding that he does a lot of things for me too, he goes out of his way to ensure that I’m satisfied and happy.
Chels…for someone so young you’ve got a great head on your shoulders. Your boyfriend is a very lucky dude and I second Stephanie Rowling’s goodwill to you.
Chels,
I think you are kind of proving my point when you say that you don’t know what to say about a woman whose career is more important than her kids. This is the kind of mentality that places enormous pressure on women to be the primary caretakers in the home. If you aren’t willing to do that then, you’re a bad mother who doesn’t care about her kids. In contrast, no one would ever say that a man who doesn’t want to be primary caretaker to the kids is a bad father who doesn’t care about his kids. That’s why it is extremely difficult for women to negotiate an equitable division of labor with boyfriends and husbands — there is really little-to-no social pressure on men in this area.
As for your preference for waiting on your husband rather than a boss– hey, whatever floats your boat. I would point out that it is something of a false choice, since a lot of us are the boss or are working towards becoming the boss. But even putting that aside, the point remains that regardless of your personal preferences, the fact remains that it is unfair to expect, as a matter of culture, religious belief, or ideology, that one half of the population should wait on the other half.
In terms of your boyfriend’s delight when you do something nice for him, that’s very sweet. And I can relate to the pleasure that you take in doing something special for him that makes me happy. In college, I had a three-year relationship with a man who expected me to clean up after him and bring him his food. One of the most frustrating aspects of this, besides the sheer sexism and presumptuousness of his attitude, was that it robbed me of the pleasure of doing nice things for him because he just accepted it as his due. Now, in your case, it sounds like you have a very nice boyfriend and a very nice relationship with him but what does that have to do with anything we are talking about?
Chels: “I don’t know what’s there to say to a woman who’s mentality is all about her and what she wants, to a woman who’s career is more important than her kids–I’d say you’re better off without any.”
She is better off, the man who is married to her is better off, and all those children born to parents who actually want them are better off than being born to her.
It looks like the idiocy of feminism is about to run its course if young women like you are waking up to being willing to do what they really want instead of what the shysterhood tells them to do.
I actually do know what to say to a woman who says those things, I just don’t think you’d like them very much. And I didn’t say that you’re a bad mother because you want to work, I said that you’d be a bad mother because you put your own needs in front of your kids, the tiny people you willingly brought in the world and who had no choice in the matter. You can definitely be a good mother and still work, that wasn’t my point. While you make it all about you, the majority of men don’t—show me a man who works for his benefit alone, who’d refuse to take his sick kid to the hospital, wake up in the night to change diapers, who refuses to drive them to various extracurricular activities.
As well, you focus too much on equality, whereas the focus should be on fairness; huge difference between the two, and once you have a husband, it’s about you, and when you have kids, it’s about them. To borrow from Dalrock, you’re an Alpha who thinks she’d be happy with a Beta, but that’s not reality.
There’s the same pressure on men to be good fathers, but you don’t see it because it amounts to them doing different things than women.
As for your preference for waiting on your husband rather than a boss– hey, whatever floats your boat. I would point out that it is something of a false choice, since a lot of us are the boss or are working towards becoming the boss. But even putting that aside, the point remains that regardless of your personal preferences, the fact remains that it is unfair to expect, as a matter of culture, religious belief, or ideology, that one half of the population should wait on the other half.
In terms of your boyfriend’s delight when you do something nice for him, that’s very sweet. And I can relate to the pleasure that you take in doing something special for him that makes me happy. In college, I had a three-year relationship with a man who expected me to clean up after him and bring him his food. One of the most frustrating aspects of this, besides the sheer sexism and presumptuousness of his attitude, was that it robbed me of the pleasure of doing nice things for him because he just accepted it as his due. Now, in your case, it sounds like you have a very nice boyfriend and a very nice relationship with him but what does that have to do with anything we are talking about?
As a preface, I have a master’s degree, I have a successful career, and I make very good money for my age. Would I give it all up? In a heartbeat, because, personally, I find my satisfaction and happiness in my personal life. I’m the kind of woman who feminists love to bash, tell me I’ve been brainwashed by the evil patriarchy into thinking that a husband and kids could actually make me happier than any career ever could! *gasp*
Regardless of whether you’re a manager, you still have a boss, unless you own the company, so don’t flatter yourself.
And for the millionth time, the expectation is not that you’d be a servant to your husband, the expectation is that you’d to whatever’s necessary for your family’s happiness. No double standard there, because the same is expected out of men.
As for your college boyfriend? That’s what happens when you go for the bad boys.
Correction:
and once you have a husband, it’s about you and him, and when you have kids, it’s about them.
Omnipitron
Thanks, I’ll make sure to tell him 😉
Chels, You continue to prove my point. You assume (without basis) that a woman like me who expects her husband to share equally in childcare so that we both can have careers is a selfish bitch. In contrast, you characterize a man who works hard at his career as working not for his own benefit alone. These are the pervasive assumptions that make it extremely difficult for women to have an equal role in society.
The whole boss thing is moot (and yeah, I’m a partner in firm, it’s really not that rare) because, as I said, whatever floats your boat. But my point still stands. You are positing an ideology where by half the population is waiting on the other half. It would be a completely male-run world, and yes, I do have a problem with that.
In my case (since you decided to speculate), I do not work solely for my own benefit. I work for my husband’s benefit. I work for the benefit of any child I might have. I work for the benefit of my clients. I also believe it is important to maintain the foothold women have won in the professions and my work contributes in a small way to that. I work for the women who may come after me.
Also, your assumptions are misplaced. Sexist college boyfriend wasn’t a bad boy. And I’ve been in a happy marriage for many years to a man you would probably call a “beta.”
DH, I have nothing against you, and the choices you make. In return, however, I expect the same from you—I thought feminism is all about choices, but you’re continually proving that it’s really only about one choice; which is one of the reasons why I grew skeptical of feminism.
As well, I never nowhere said that I support a completely male run world, that would be quite hypocritical, seeing as I have an education myself, I work, and I don’t think women should be restricted to the household. I just believe that women who work inside the home should be respected and not judged so harshly.
This whole fight between working mothers and SAHMs is absolutely ridiculous, and I don’t see its point, neither is better than the other, they’re just different.
Chels, I’ve got nothing against you or choices either. When did I ever say otherwise? My honest impression though — you talked about how much you get bashed by feminists, but you came out swinging first.
That said, the idea of feminism as being all about “choices” is a bit of an oversimplification. On the one hand, feminism has accomplished a great deal of choice for woman. But that doesn’t mean all choices are equally feminist. Otherwise, the concept of feminism becomes meaningless.
My basic take: The work housewives do has real value to their families, both economically and otherwise. Housewives are entitled to respect and should not be presumed to be idiots. At the same time, it is fair to say that the choice to be a housewife does not do much to further or maintain the interests of women as a group, and as such, it is not a particularly feminist choice. The idea that women, and only women, should be housewives should be relentlessly criticized. The “mommy wars” are idiotic and, I think, largely the creation of the media. In real life, I think women generally get along just fine. At least the ones I know seem to.
Doomed Harlot wrote:
========================
Affirmative action is irrelevant. First, at least in the U.S., it exists only in two narrow categories (government contracts and college admissions)
========================
Oh really? Government jobs now plus all private firms which do government contracts plus college admissions are narrow categories now? What about public companies? For example Goldman Sachs does AA, and also many other companies. Are you trying to misinform the readers of this blog?
2 Doomed Harlot
Are feminists going to get rid of enormous privileges women have in the US now in the name of equality? Such as renounce ultra-favorable treatment of women by courts and media, affirmative action programs, freedom from registration with military. Do feminists want to reduce enormous women’s spending power advantage to match men’s?
Feminists have consistently spoken out against it. Indeed, arch-feminist Simone de Beauvoir identified the temptation to take a free ride from men who are willing to give it as a great moral trap for women, as well as an obstacle to women’s advancement
This is the problem with the word “feminism”. It describes two different ideologies. The feminism before the seventies (let’s call it “classical feminism”) was about going down the pedestal and do things like men. That is, stop being housewives and becoming workers. This implied giving up female sexual power to be men with vagina.
And this should be without women’s acquiescence. Simone de Beauvoir told Saturday Review this (June 14, 1974, p. 18): “No woman should be authorized to stay at home to raise her children. Society should be totally different. Women should not have that choice, precisely because if there is such a choice, too many women will make that one.”
(This wouldn’t have worked but it was not know back then, because science was based on the blank slate and claimed that men are women were the same and all the genders differences were due to social indoctrination.)
What was the point of women giving up their sexual power in exchange of being corporate slaves? The point was socialism/communism. Socialists realized that you can’t destroy capitalism until you destroy the family, including gender roles (this was Gramsci’s insight). This is why early feminist were socialists: Simone de Beavoir, Betty Frieddan.
But the average woman is not willing to give up their sexual power so easily. So feminism was a minority force until the seventies. Then, feminists discover the brilliant technique to bring feminism to the masses: consciousness raising (CR) sessions. A feminist prepared a meeting of non-feminist women and encouraged them to talk about their problems (as if women need such an encouragement). After all this yakking, complaining and bitching, the feminist woman who led the meeting ended up concluding that all these problems were due to men’s oppression and patriarchy, that feminism would end these problems and urged women to take a political action in favor of feminism. This revealed to be a brilliant strategy. When CR was included in the Universities in the form of “Women’s Studies” courses, feminism became mainstream.
But there was a price to pay. After all this bitching and complaining, feminism was not about building the communist society anymore. It was about advancing the private interest of women in form of public policies (“the personal is political”). It was about retaining social and sexual power in the traditional woman’s area while, at the same time, trying to have privileges in the traditional men’s are. This was called “equality”.
So topics like men’s lack of commitment, divorce (à la Eat, Pray, Love), reforming education to help women succeed without deserving it, the right position of the toilet seat, women being more sensitive and spiritual, men being worth nothing, rape date, sexual harassment, you go girl! became the central issues of the movement. The communism idea was rejected and feminism became a movement to the unfair advancement of women, society be damned. Let’s call this “cafeteria feminism”, which is the only version of feminism surviving today.
The central slogan of “cafeteria feminism” is to grab power for women as much as possible, no matter the consequences. A corollary of that is that a woman is entitled to everything she wants, without having to work hard to get it, so the society has to change to give it to her without much effort. Another corollary is that a woman can do whatever they want but she doesn’t have to pay the consequences, that are moved to the state or to a man nearby.
In “classical feminism”, the idea of equality was honest: equality meant that men are women should be treated equally. In “cafeteria feminim”, the idea of equality was dishonest: it meant that women were entitled to the same outcome than men, even if they only worked half as hard as men.
So, in “cafeteria feminism”, a woman can act like a traditional woman when it suits her (and therefore, demand chivalry from men and the society) and like a classical feminism woman when it suits her (and demand equality). It is the ultimate con job. But it wouldn’t have worked if men weren’t so pussywhipped and they stopped doing anything for the possibility of having a bit of pussy. This is why American men deserve what they have allowed to do, when they decided to dump God and start worshiping the Pussy Goddess.
Let’s call this “cafeteria feminism”, which is the only version of feminism surviving today.
And it’s for a reason.
Pure liberalism tends to be either anarchistic and amoral or destructive and immoral of society and civilization. Liberalism needs “common-sense” injected somewhere along the line to survive. It needs that “unprincipled exception” (hat tip to Lawrence Auster). Imagine the consequences of ‘complete liberalism’ ruling today. You wouldn’t have laws punishing this or that, there would be no such thing as men and women’s bathrooms as the norm because it would be discriminatory since it ignores transgenders and people whom unfortunately suffered with mutations, you would have so many utterly bizarre things taken to its logical conclusion and so forth. The call for “moderation” in politics perhaps even embodies this theme since “moderation” is nothing more than moderate liberalism (e.g. liberalism restrained with a couple of ropes here and there). These “unprincipled exceptions” logically have a non-liberal idea or part of it mixed in to restrain the impulse of liberalism.
There’s a reason why a couple of bloggers in the far-right blogosphere want little to no opposition to liberalism in the mainstream. They instinctively know that without those “common-sense” people and positions liberalism would simply not only go faster but would take us over a cliff with a tremendous, frightening fall. Neverthless my opinion is that these “unprincipled exceptions” won’t disappear overnight and that the decline of the West will probably occur slow (e.g. slow decline) as it has for the past centuries and decades followed by a fall. I think the key for the “unprincipled exceptions” to vanish quicker is that as liberals push conservatives out of sight and conservatives are weakened liberals have most of the playground for themselves and nobody to stop them.
Traditional conservatives should perhaps try two things:
1 – Stop playing by the rules of liberalism. Politics is a method of imposing certain rules and obligations for society from a certain framework. That framework today is liberalism and it comes from a set of beliefs. While politics is important without a doubt the most important aspect yet is the culture and the philosophy underlining a civilization. Influence and change that.
2 – Don’t simply react to liberalism. We need a combination of reaction and provision. Provide the alternative to liberalism. Build and nourish, don’t just attack. Create separate communities, display alternatives in books and so forth.
So, in “cafeteria feminism”,
Wonderful term. Completely agree. Kind of reminds me of the term for liberal and heretical Catholics (e.g. cafeteria Catholics).
I’m a nobody,
Yeah, those feminist women sure are stoooopid, giving up their “sexual power” in order to be corporate drones. Ha ha, joke’s on them, but they are too dumb to realize they are just dupes of the socialists.
Look, I’m 40. Would I be better off beholden to some guy who thinks I’m a dried-up hag (at least according to you lot) but keeps me around and feeds me because he remembers that I was hot at 22? Or is it better to be able to feed myself (and my husband and kids) and, also, to have some equal power in my own household and relationship? To me, it was self-evident from the time I was about 12 that “sexual power” was a bunch of bullshit. Sure, being sexually attractive is a good thing because it’s more fun than being unattractive, but I wouldn’t, you know, make it my life plan, unless it was all I had.
As for cafeteria feminism, I don’t accept that we have reformed education to help women succeed without deserving it (that’s a good one), or the rest of your list. Everything on your list is either untrue, not evidence of cafeteria feminism, or it’s just chickenshit like the cultural joke about men leaving the toilet seat up.
Doomed Harlot —
> it is fair to say that the choice to be a housewife does not do much to further or maintain the interests of women as a group
“as a group” caught my eye.
Individuals typically write on political and social issues with an implicit idea of “the first person plural”. Who are the “we” that I identify with? “The people,” “fellow-citizens,” “people-like-me,” “my gender,” and so on.
I’d have to be persuaded that such a thing as the interests of women-as-a-group can be usefully defined, and that they would be worthwhile for us (heh) to pursue.
(In the context of this discussion, that is — not in a historical or trans-cultural sense, e.g. men-only voting or FGM. For context, I’m a guy.)
– mgwk
Anonymous,
Well, obviously there can be an argument on what the interests of women are. But most women in our society would agree that not being second-class or subordinate citizens is in women’s best interest. If most of us decide to become housewives, then we are simply never going to have as much power or say in our society, or even our own families, as men are, nor will we ever escape the paradigm that women rather than men should be primarily responsible for home and childcare.
Nonetheless, I support a woman’s right to say, “I don’t give a crap. It’s my life. My desire to be a housewife is more important. Or I am in a situation where the best thing for my family is to stay at home with the children.” In that sense, feminism, certainly in the U.S., is about “choices.” It is the traditionalist, not the feminist, who demands that women fit into a particular, narrow, uncompensated role for the good of the collective as a whole. It is ironic to me that traditionalists often will argue that feminism is a creature of socialism or communism, and then the same traditionalists will turn right around and say, “Well, yes, women have an obligation to be SAHMS, despite the lack of any incentive or reward whatsoever, because we think it is best for society as a whole.” When it comes to women, otherwise good capitalists immediately lose all respect for the concept of enlightened self-interest.
In that sense, feminism, certainly in the U.S., is about “choices.”
It has never been about “choices”. The only choice for feminism is moral liberalism since that is its essence -> http://www.thinkinghousewife.com/wp/2011/06/choices-and-duties/
Whether you like it or not Doomed Harlot not only is the “feminist have it all” ideal flawed but the whole idea that “feminism gives choices” a fallacy as well. It presents liberal goods as good by default and by logic the opposite is seen as wrong. At least conservatives are honest about this. Liberals just present that this aspect doesn’t even exist. Or even worse respond that opposite goods are somehow given their due when in reality they’re not.
Apologies I meant Liberals just pretend that this aspect doesn’t even exist.
Doomed Harlot,
Read your statement. It reads: feminism is about choices, but we all know what the right and wrong choices are (wink wink) and we all look down on the women who make the wrong choices behind their back.
“escape the paradigm that women rather than men should be primarily responsible for home and childcare.”
Escape implies inferiority. The one “stuck” raising the children is inferior. People who make that choice are making the wrong choice.
What I don’t think your understand on a more fundamental level is that it isn’t a “paradigm” or “patriarchy” or “tradition” that makes women want to be caregivers. It’s biology. Its millions of years of evolution. It’s natural, not because you played with barbies growing up or had some idea put in your head, but because its simply the way people are wired deep down.
Men don’t sit around judging women’s choices, except when those choices are the result of greed, ignorance, and arrogance (as they are with feminism). Men criticize other men for those things too. The manosphere celebrates the positive aspects of women that men aren’t good because they are our partners, and laments when they discard them for crass knock off male habits driven by the negative aspects above. Men don’t dislike that women have careers, they dislike when their having careers makes them act like bitches and ignore their children. If you really can “have it all” then do it, but it doesn’t take a genius to observe that most women trying to “have it all” are failing at having it all.
Doomed Harlot,
“Would I be better off beholden to some guy who thinks I’m a dried-up hag (at least according to you lot) but keeps me around and feeds me because he remembers that I was hot at 22?”
If your a good wife and mother a man will see value in those things. Its not our fault you people spent the last few decades drilling the femininity and nurturing tendencies out of women so most of them don’t have any value left as women outside of their snatch, because they don’t act like women but men with vaginas. Well once that vagina loses its value all your left with is a bad version of a man.
Doomed Harlot.
If you were honest, I would be glad to debate with you (and explain some issues you raise in your comment to me).
I only look for the truth and I am not afraid to say I am wrong if somebody proves me that I am. There is nothing that I love more than debating another person with different ideas that makes rethink my ideas and, hence, improve them. I am not attached to any ideology: feminism, MRA, PUA, etc. I am only attached to the truth.
But, for this debate to be possible, the other person should want to seek truth as much as you do and should want to be involved in a a rational debate, based on logical arguments and on exchange of ideas.
Not you. You are put things in my mouth I have never said (strawman), you have told that some arguments are untrue without explaining why and you have used snark to hide your complete lack of arguments.
Obviously, I have better things to do than to waste my time feeding a troll like you. So keep on trolling and I will keep on ignoring you.
I meant: “the other person should want to seek truth as much as *I* do “. Of course, Doomed Harlot, you don’t seek the truth, only to confirm your preconceived ideas that have become attach to self-esteem. Bye, bye, troll.
I care about what traditionalists say as much as I care about what feminists say, and that’s not at all. Traditionalists insist that women be SAHMs, whereas feminists insist on being careerwomen. What I wish more women would realize is that each choice has its drawbacks (SAHM–no career; careerwoman–no family).
However, the choices are not presented as they are; feminists insist on being able to having it all, but it’s simply not possible–you cannot be a CEO and still have time to look after your husband and after your kids.
I’m not one to force women into either option, but I do want them to see the facts for what they are and choose based on their preferences. What I don’t want to happen is women waking up in their mid 30s-early 40s and realize that they made the wrong choice; that they’d much rather have been wives and mothers. This is the only wish that I have–that women choose with their eyes open so they won’t have any regrets later on, and there would be no more articles in various newspapers with women crying that they’re either single or childless.
And DH, I feel truly sorry for you that you’re 40 and you’re only now contemplating motherhood.
PS: and for the life of me, I can’t figure out what’s so wrong with taking care of your own husband, and why it’s such a shame to admit that doing this might actually make a woman happy.
@Chels.
Completely agree. Each person should take their own decisions. But each person should have good information instead of propaganda.
And yes, nobody can have it all. This is a stupid idea. You always have to make compromises.
And I really don’t give a shit about the sisterhood–the sisterhood is not the one that supports me, that keeps me warm at night, that cares when I’m down, that makes me happy and that would walk through fire for my sake. On the other hand, my boyfriend does and I only care about him; the decisions that I make are about him, us, our happiness and our future together.
Doomed Harlot @ 10:38am —
Thanks for your reply.
> But most women in our society would agree that not being second-class or subordinate citizens is in women’s best interest.
It seems that you’re debating on this thread with people who advocate that women should be second class or subordinate citizens. Could you quote them? If you think that’s my position, could you quote me? Thanks. Paraphrasing accurately is really hard for most people, I have found.
> If most of us decide to become housewives, then we are simply never going to have as much power or say in our society, or even our own families, as men [do].
As to power in society — direct power — I agree. That seems to be very important to you. As to power in the family, I don’t see that. Either in terms of abstract argument, or in the lives of people around me.
By the way, the way you use the term “housewife” seems to have a whiff of scorn about it.
> nor will we [women] ever escape the paradigm that women rather than men should be primarily responsible for home and childcare.
Sounds like you have escaped exactly that paradigm in your own life, so I assume it isn’t impossibly hard.
If most women were Early Birds, would “we” have to construct social-welfare programs to turn them into Night Owls, since everyone knows that Night Owlness is objectively superior?
If women were (on average) shorter than men (on average), would “we” have to stretch them on Procrustean Beds?
You sound very ill at ease with the idea that many other people (by which I mean many women) are inclined to make choices that differ from the choices you would have them make.
Ten years ago, I would have urged my daughter to become a Feminist. Today, not so much. I would rather that she come to know herself, and create her own path in the world.
-mgwk
WINK-WINK, WE KNOW WHAT THE “RIGHT” CHOICE IS: What I said was that some choices are more feminist than others. I don’t sit around disdaining housewives, much as you all would like to believe that is what feminists do. I absolutely acknowledge that many housewives (a term I use on this site only because conservatives seem to prefer it, by the way) have other goals in life or are making the best choice they can under their circumstances or have other reasons for their goal. Basically, what you are trying to do is turn feminism into a meaningless concept, while accusing me of being mean to housewives if I don’t play along.
WOMEN ARE BIOLOGICALLY PROGRAMMED TO BE HOUSEWIVES: I am not aware of any evidence of this. I have spent my life watching women flooding into the professions even after being raised to believe that they should be housewives.
HAVING IT ALL: The whole “You can’t have it all” cliche depends on the idea that “having it all” means having a career AND being all things to all people at home. Obviously, you can’t do everything a homemaker does and work full-time in a demanding profession. Personally, I wouldn’t even want to try. But you can have a good family life and a career. I’m surrounded by men and women who do.
TFH IS CONFUSED: TFH falsely claims that I resent my husband for earning less than I do — a feeling I have never in my life experienced or uttered. In fact, I am grateful that my ability to pull in a good income freed me to marry a man of my choice without regard to financial considerations and that my income has freed my husband to pursue work of his choice without having worry about having to support me or any child we may have.
CHELS FEELS SORRY FOR ME: Bless your heart, Chels, but don’t worry about me. I feel incredibly fortunate to have been able to wait until now to consider having a child. Obviously, if my husband and I felt we had to have a child at all costs, we would have started trying 10-15 years ago. But my husband and I preferred to wait until we were good and ready and then roll the dice. Also, when these blog posts and articles bemoan (or gloat over) the supposed misery of older, infertile women, it seems that they have never heard of a little thing called adoption.
ARE HOUSEWIVES ARE INFERIOR? Some have pointed out that the work done by a woman at home has value. I agree whole-heartedly and have said so up-thread. Housewives, however, do occupy a subordinate position socially, relative to their husbands, and relative to others, because it is a relatively powerless position. It is not fair to expect all women and only women to occupy this subordinate position.
Forgive me if this sounds snippy or confrontation (my intent is not to start a fight here, I only recently started commenting and I rather like this blog and its host, so I don’t mean to soil things around here), but in reference to this:
“But that doesn’t mean all choices are equally feminist. Otherwise, the concept of feminism becomes meaningless…it is fair to say that the choice to be a housewife does not do much to further or maintain the interests of women as a group, and as such, it is not a particularly feminist choice. The idea that women, and only women, should be housewives should be relentlessly criticized.”
This sounds a bit too much like “some are more equal than others!” Plenty of things don’t “further or maintain the interests of women” or do so only debatably. Being a housewife (with the possibility of raising the next generation’s daughters) doesn’t help women enough? Well, there’s nothing that says being a lawyer like you necessarily helps women–in general, people hate lawyers, to take a hypothetical example, so one could argue you’re damaging the progress of women by associating your gender with such a notorious profession.
You would, of course, claim this is silly, and I would agree. The problem is, claiming Ms. Chels’ (or anyone else’s) decisions as being “less feminist” is equally silly. There’s no way to tell how they’re raising their children or whether or not they’re doing little or a lot to “advance the cause of women” or “ensure women have power” or whatever.
This isn’t to say I’m in the same camp as TFH or other MRAs in regards to women working. At this point in history, I think technology has essentially made it an inevitability; since devices such as the dishwasher and vacuum cleaner have made keeping house much easier, many men would find it reasonable to request their wives find jobs so as to make some more money in their free time. I am simply pointing out that calling yourself “more feminist than thou!” is, at least in the long run, not really sensible.
Anonymous,
You asked where anyone said women should be second-class citizens. I think that when women do the bulk of the unpaid and often exhausting labor at home, it is difficult or impossible to achieve positions of power or influence in society at large. There is a reason that 2 of the 3 women justices on the Supreme Court are single and childless.
My goodness, when I was a child, men ran literally everything. You would only rarely hear a woman’s voice discussing a matter of importance on the news. There were certainly exceptions but, boy, did they stick out. That’s because women were mostly at home or working in secretarial jobs. Now that has certainly changed radically in the ensuing decades such that I am able to practice law without anyone batting an eyelash over it. But women still do the bulk of child and home care, and that’s a major reason why there are so few women in Congress, running major businesses, etc. etc.
Hurp,
I think you make a valid point. I do think that being a lawyer helps women to maintain a foothold in a profession that, love it or hate it, has a great deal of influence. It would be more feminist to be a nuclear physicist, a career in which women are still a rarity.
You know, on the feminist blogs, there have been discussions of things like beauty standards. I conform to convention by wearing nylons, heels, make-up, jewelry, etc. I personally don’t see this as more burdensome than shaving one’s face and putting on a coat-and-tie. But others disagree and see my “choice” as contributing to a culture in which women are valued primarily for their appearance and have to spend excessive amounts of money and time fussing over their appearance. I acknowledge that my choice to wear make-up is, at the very best, a neutral choice, and at the worst, actively unfeminist.
Maybe it’s an arcane point, but I think we can hold on to the category of “feminist” and give it some meaning beyond just “every women’s choice in every area of her life” is automatically feminist. You can be a great feminist and still be a housewife, but being a housewife is not in itself a feminist choice. (For the record, the most influential feminist in my life, was my mother, a housewife and a secretary. She is a feminist because of those experiences.)
By the same token, though, it would be foolish to purport that housewives have little influence–and no, this isn’t just due to “feminists forcing conservatives to pay more attention to one of their constituencies.” The people responsible for raising, caring for, and educating the next generation will by necessity have a very great influence on the future, arguably more so than lawyers who’ll be forgotten after their last case or even nuclear physicists who come up with theorums which will have to be applied by the generation that comes after them. If “maintaining influence” is your criteria for a “feminist” occupation, it’s not clear that housewives have as little influence as you seem to imply.
Doomed Harlot @2:55pm —
> You asked where anyone said women should be second-class citizens.
Not really. Pick any notion, no matter how silly and somebody on teh Intrawebs is advocating it.
At 10:38am, you had written
> But most women in our society would agree that not being second-class or subordinate citizens is in women’s best interest.
So I responded @1:48pm: “It seems that you’re debating on this thread with people who advocate that women should be second class or subordinate citizens. Could you quote them? If you think that’s my position, could you quote me?”
In other words, I’m suggesting that avoiding straw men leads to better threads. I haven’t advocated second-class or subordinate citizenry for women, so it seems fair to ask you to establish the relevance of the point that you brought into the discussion. And for you to make clear that it’s your argument, not mine.
– mgwk
“I don’t sit around disdaining housewives”
No, you go on the internet and disdain them. Maybe you are standing up when you’re at your computer.
“I am not aware of any evidence of this. ”
You should read this site. There is lots of great information. Studies, papers, etc.
“I’m surrounded by men and women who do.”
Are you? I’ve worked in pressure cooker industries. Those people hardly seemed to have very satisfying anything. They were very neurotic and egotistical, as I imagine you to be.
“TFH falsely claims that I resent my husband for earning less than I do — a feeling I have never in my life experienced or uttered.”
Never experience or never would admit to experiencing? I’ve talked to lots of girls like you, none of them handle marrying down very well. Over the years resentment of the man grows.
[D: Removed overly personal comment. Please see my note above.]
Doomed Harlot,
So basically, doing anything feminine is unfeminist. Got it. No wonder you people are neurotic messes. You reject the very core of your beings.
Doomed Harlot,
“that’s a major reason why there are so few women in Congress, running major businesses, etc.”
Counter hypothesis, there are few women at the apex of most pursuits because they don’t want it enough. Men who reach the apex have been rewarded with a multitude of mating opportunities, so those genes have been passed down. By contrast women that played it safe and followed the herd got to reproduce in greater numbers. These patterns of behavior are locked in by millions of years in evolution and they aren’t changing because you think they should.
Doomed Harlot wrote:
=================================
Housewives, however, do occupy a subordinate position socially, relative to their husbands, and relative to others, because it is a relatively powerless position. It is not fair to expect all women and only women to occupy this subordinate position.
=================================
That’s bizarre. How come that a stay-at-home mom is in a subordinate position with respect to her husband? Let’s take average people. A husband is a cog in a corporate machine, he has bosses, fears of layoffs, difficult coworkers, pressure to deliver etc. He has the duty to provide for the family (enforcible by courts). Stay at home mom has no enforcible duties to her husband, she doesn’t have a boss, she runs her household how she wants, she has plenty of free time which she can dedicate how she wants. She has more powerful position in the family (due to the current family law). She has significant spending power. Women in the US spend about 80% of total money (women’s spending power is about 4 times larger than men’s spending power). How her position could be described as subordinate? She is clearly the boss in the family.
Gosh, I’m so happy not to call myself a feminist, you all are so bitter and preoccupied by what other people do and what they think of you. As well, you argue that you’re fighting for the sisterhood, but you’re actually fighting for a very small percentage of women, as most women would rather be housewives than have careers. Therefore, you don’t fight for me, in fact, you’re making my life more difficult by enforcing your choices upon me and by making it very hard for women to stay at home.
If feminism was really about advancing women’s status, then you’d fight so that housewives don’t receive so much scorn from the public, you’d fight so that being a housewife would be acceptable–however, a prominent feminist did once state that women shouldn’t be allowed to have the choice to stay at home, because too many would make it. That’s exactly your mentality, and the mentality you put forth.
As well, a housewife isn’t subordinate to her husband, they’re a team, and they both need each other; just because one doesn’t bring in money doesn’t mean she’s inferior. Nevertheless, personally, I honestly don’t care that I’m equal to my husband, what I care about is fairness and that we have a successful marriage; I’m not about to bring out the scoreboard. Not to mention that what Sandy said is correct, the pressures of working far exceed the pressures of staying at home.
The ridiculousness of calling for an apology for informing a woman of her failed genes in a world where “beta genes” are ridiculed every day by female bloggers should not be lost on anyone.
Well said, Chels! It’s like a breath of fresh air among all the feminist drivel which has saturated the airwaves for the past almost 5 decades. You can keep your husband, and the Domed Hoodrat can have her shysterhood – we’ll see who has someone stand behind her through the years, take care of her when she is sick, and be there for her when she is old. My money goes against the shysterhood.
You will likely have to spend a lot of time over your lives arguing with women trying to get you to validate the poor choices they made by making the same choices. You have the advantage over them of seeing how their lives turned out and all those promises they were made turned out hollow. That $300,000 or so that they are going to have to earn in order to spend on trying to get pregnant later in life really didn’t add to the quality of their lives at all, and surely diminished it by forcing them to spend more time working at something they had to pretend to enjoy – but didn’t really.
I’m sure you have heard the old saw that no one ever looked back from their death bed and said “Gosh, I wish I had spent more time at the office.”
The strangest thing about old feminists is that people would forget about them fairly quickly and not hold the animosity toward them that so many people do, if they would just fade away and stop trying to mess up other people’s lives as badly as they messed up their own.
It seems contexts like that of DHs argues for equality in relationships but actually the fact that is disguised that she leads. However, most women are not happy in this situation and suffer from a lack of dominance. But she also cannot claim that her husband does not measure up to her demands because that would imply she made a pure choice so everything is claimed to be equal in her life in that respect!
It was this comment from Doomed Harlot that really sprang out at me:
“Would I be better off beholden to some guy who thinks I’m a dried-up hag (at least according to you lot) but keeps me around and feeds me because he remembers that I was hot at 22? Or is it better to be able to feed myself (and my husband and kids) and, also, to have some equal power in my own household and relationship?”
The traditional idea was that men and women married young enough so that they were able to share passionate life experiences together, have children together and bond as a famly unit and that this would keep the marriage going even when the wife was no longer as sexually attractive as younger women – and that’s mostly what happened.
Doomed Harlot is typically feminist in that she wants a more formal means of controlling her relationships with men. The personal, emotional relationship won’t do – she wants to control things through the “power” that her position in society gives her.
It really is a doomed strategy. Doomed Harlot talks about women acting as a group to protect their interests. If that mentality spreads to men, then no amount of formal power that women hold will do much good. Men will then act selfishly for their own interests and Doomed Harlot’s position as a lawyer will be inconsequential in holding her husband’s loyalty.
The best strategy for women? Marry a man who is not only “cool” or “hot” but who also shows signs of character and principle. Marry when a man is still young enough to deeply appreciate the romantic/sexual connection and when you can gift children to him. Show the loyalty to him that you would like him to reciprocate. Articulate the family values that work to hold relationships together. Build up to him the importance of his role as a father and husband within the family, and how important he is to the happiness and well-being of yourself and the children. Try to live in a more traditional area with other family oriented couples. Be proactive in keeping up the sense of connection within the marriage.
Mark, you’re an intelligent guy. I have yet to disagree with anything Dalrock writes. You have a great blog, and I agree with [i]much[/] of what you write. I think the main thing is that you project a logical reasoning process onto women that, for the most part, they don’t actually possess (especially when they are young).
Of course you’re right when you say that the best thing is for women to marry men of character and principle. But it’s simply a naive and ineffective message. Women respond to culture and incentives much more than logic. That’s the problem with social conservatism: shaming men into becoming men of character and principle and demanding that women be attracted to such men is simply not going to work out.
I respect that you’re married and have a family. But being in that situation blinds you to the reality on the ground: twentysomething women don’t reward men for that behavior. Men know it on some level, which is why so many are just dropping out and not becoming productive members of society. It’s a self-reinforcing cycle. Nothing will change it until Big Government can’t afford it all and the incentives disappear. It will be a painful readjustment for society when that happens, and it’s difficult to foresee what will emerge.
In the meantime, I hope that everyone enjoys their bread and circuses ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses ).
“I respect that you’re married and have a family. But being in that situation blinds you to the reality on the ground: twentysomething women don’t reward men for that behavior. Men know it on some level, which is why so many are just dropping out”
Greenlander, if what you write is true then things haven’t changed much since I was in my mid-20s (roughly 1990). I am all too painfully aware that women haven’t been rewarding younger men for traditional character traits – that’s something I’ve experienced personally.
But things change as the balance of sexual power in relationships changes. There’s a kind of tipping point as you get older at which you realise as a man that you’re in a much stronger position to attract attention from the opposite sex than your wife is.
Doomed Harlot seems to be worried about this. She is, perhaps, insecure about what might happen when her husband can leave her for a younger, more sexually attractive woman. In my comment I was criticising her belief that she can make herself secure by bringing money and status into the marriage, thereby wielding “power”. I just don’t think that’s how women succeed in winning the loyalty of men.
What to do about the situation facing 20-something men? I wouldn’t advise men to give up on cultivating masculine character. It’s worth developing character regardless of how women behave. It’s also worth advising young men to present in a self-confident, non-supplicating way to women. It’s worthwhile presenting the facts to women about the pitfalls of delayed family formation. Yes, a large percentage won’t be influenced, but some are likely to be. If the life script presented to middle-class women was altered even to the extent of allowing family formation at 25 rather than 30, then a large number of 20-something men would find themselves in dramatically improved circumstances.
@Chels!
You are brilliant never heard a better rebuttal of feminism. Is true I will never have an abortion I don’t need affirmative action to get ahead at anything I set my mind too. I don’t care about an “equal” relationship I care about a happy relationships. Their fight is not for me, so they should just leave us alone when we say we know what we are doing and that we are happy, and that we trust our men and men in general not to use our choices against us and that we are willing to endure whatever consequences we might face for it. My hat to you. 🙂
TFH,
But again I agree with you. I can remember the moment in my mid-20s that I realised that a wife could leave me for another man, take the children with her and that I would have to go to work to support her new household. It struck me as monstrously unjust and demoralised me for a period of time.
The laws do need to change. Where I differ from some others in the men’s movement is that I don’t promote the idea of men going their own way whilst the laws are still in place. That’s not because I don’t recognise the risk or the injustice, but because I don’t believe men should deny themselves the fulfilments of family life.
TFH,
Your criticism of the mainstream conservative movement for ignoring current divorce laws is valid. Unfortunately, it’s typical of mainstream conservatives to protest a damaging innovation until it becomes instituted, at which time it’s then accepted. I’d like to think that the traditionalist conservative movement I’m part of will be more principled than this.
We’re going to disagree on whether it’s worth the risk to marry a Western woman. Although the general risk of divorce is 40% the individual risk varies a great deal. If you are a man with a good education, a reasonable income and if you marry over the age of 21, then the risk drops considerably. There do exist Western women who are highly committed to their families – I can’t fault the dozen or so married women who are part of my social circle.
I am not bothered by the idea of being a “biological dead-end.” Lots of people (including my husband) are infertile. My husband would never have had a biological child no matter what, and his life still has value and meaning. (In case, it’s not clear, we are going the donor sperm route for now. Adoption is Plan B only because it is much more expensive and legally complicated.)
Mark says that I want more formal means of controlling my relationship with my man besides the good will that he might have for me for committing to him and having his children at 22. I think “formal means of control” is overstating it. What I want is an equal amount of leverage within the relationship, which stems from having an income, social power, and the ability to walk away. When both parties have these things, both parties have to work at the relationship. It is nice to think that a man will give a dependent woman an equal say in the relationship out of gratitude or fond memories — and some do — but human nature often doesn’t work that way. The dependence of another person is a corrupting influence.
In terms of influence, I agree that a housewife can have a great deal of influence within her family and that this influence can persist down the generations. (My own mother was a housewife until I was ten and then she was a secretary. She is my biggest influence and the person in my life whom I most admire.) But the housewife, my wonderful mother included, is still a second class citizen socially and politically. Her work is incredibly valuable and influential, yet she benefits I hope to use my life my have to contribute to keeping women in a position of social and political equality, and being in the professions is one way of doing that. Again, I don’t disdain housewives, much as you would like to believe I do, but in making my own life decisions, it was important to me to make a feminist choice (not to mention that, like most women, I am not attracted to the housewife role). Besides, working mothers also have influence over their families too. In my case, my father was hugely influential in my life, and he worked very long hours outside the home.
Part of one of my sentences disappeared. Should say: “Her work is incredibly valuable and influential, yet she benefits only in the most intangible ways.”
TFH, I know you desperately want to believe that I despise my husband for making less than me, but you cannot point to a single thing I have ever uttered that indicates any such thing. I am extremely proud of my husband’s work! My discussion of marriage as a poor deal for women was in the context of TRADITIONAL marriage and the ways in which TRADITIONAL ideas still harm women within a marriage.
I think it was also you or maybe Mark R. who speculated above (can’t scroll up easily to double check) that I am worried about my husband leaving me for some cute young babe. It is amazing to me how entrenched and unshakeable and universal your views of what ALL women must think and feel. My husband has a number of women friends, including younger women in his office, and I have never once worried about it. I am also friends with a number of men I work with, so it goes both ways. Perhaps, we are unusual but we just don’t experience sexual jealousy; it is a completely alien emotion to me. I also think sexual jealousy is counter-productive; there’s not much better way to ruin a relationship than being constantly paranoid about your partner’s possible infidelity. (My sexist boyfriend in college was a jealous type and it was most unpleasant.) Much better to trust your partner on that front. Besides, there are worse things in life than getting dumped.
Doomed Harlot,
You have romanticised the traditional male provider role. The role did not give the average male political and social power. Men did it out of a commitment to their families. They got out of it love, sex and children; a sense of completed manhood; and a feeling of helping to perpetuate a tradition they identified with.
You state:
“I think “formal means of control” is overstating it. What I want is an equal amount of leverage within the relationship, which stems from having an income, social power, and the ability to walk away. ”
You have confirmed my original point. You are seeking a formal means of controlling what happens in the relationship. But you’re mistaken if you think this is going to help you.
a) Having an income. Research shows that the divorce rate increases with every percentage rise in income of the wife relative to the husband. You are not going to increase the stability of your marriage by earning a high income relative to your husband, you are going to decrease it.
b) Social power. This seems to me to be an example of female solipsism. Because women are more likely to stick with a man who has social power you assume that it’s equally true that men will be held in thrall to women with social power. False assumption.
c) The ability to walk away. Haven’t modern divorce laws propped up the female ability to walk away to the nth degree? The average woman can walk away and take the children and a very large percentage of her husband’s income with her. It’s possible, in fact, that by earning a lot of money and being relatively independent, that you are giving your husband a greater opportunity to walk away, as he can argue against spousal support.
Doomed Harlot, if you knew the male mind you would not try to control what happens in your relationship via the leverage of money or social power. If that is what is supposed to restrain men, then you would just make it more fun for the average man to play up. Better to encourage the innate sense of decency and fairness of the average man, the sense of belonging to a family unit, the masculine sense of responsibility to the future, or even conscientiousness or guilt in regards to infidelity. All of those will be more effective measures.
Doomed Harlot wrote:
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What I want is an equal amount of leverage within the relationship, which stems from having an income, social power, and the ability to walk away. When both parties have these things, both parties have to work at the relationship.
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Right now women in the US have more leverage than men in marriage, due to the current family law.
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It is nice to think that a man will give a dependent woman an equal say in the relationship out of gratitude or fond memories — and some do — but human nature often doesn’t work that way.
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BS. The US government gives a wife power to have more than equal say in the marriage.
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The dependence of another person is a corrupting influence.
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Then motherhood is bad, because children are dependent on the mother. According to you, the mother corrupts them.
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But the housewife, my wonderful mother included, is still a second class citizen socially and politically.
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How so? Women have more political power in the US than men do. Women are the majority of voters, also women have very strong feminist lobbying organizations which men don’t have. If an average woman has an average job, how does it make her more politically powerful? In fact it makes her less politically powerful, because it reduces her amount of free time, which can be dedicated to political causes. Also why do you think women have less social power than men? Women have more time to socialize, they have huge spending power, the media in the US caters to women and bashes men routinely
Mark,
I think you are making a few incorrect assumptions.
First, you are assuming that every woman’s goal is or should be to hold onto her man at all costs. Surely it is preferable to be single than subservient. Having a man just to have a man seems foolish. (I seem to recall that the statistics show that women who earn the highest incomes have the most stable relationships, but that’s irrelevant since most of us don’t structure our lives around getting and keeping a man no matter what.)
Second, you assume I am unaware that my husband can walk away as easily as I can. But as I said BOTH parties should have to work at the relationship. That includes me. (And, of course I wouldn’t get spousal support. That would be insane. Not only that, husband would get half of the family assets, rendering us BOTH much poorer. We both have just as much to lose in a divorce.)
Third, you say that traditional provider-men had no social power but instead worked nobly and selflessly in hard jobs to support their families. (You seem to be the one romanticizing the role.) I am the daughter of a traditional provider guy and let me tell you that he indeed had FAR greater social power than my mother, as did ALL the men in our milieu when I was a child. Are you asserting that provider-men came home and were not in charge of their families? That they weren’t the heads of the households, outranking their wives in basic decisionmaking? That they didn’t enjoy material and social rewards for their work outside the home? You know, I was there. I saw it with my own eyes.
Fourth, you also seem to assume that the average man will no longer have a sense of conscientiousness regarding fidelity or a sense of belonging to a family unit or innate decency if there is equality in the relationship. But it’s the opposite. Any person’s innate decency is likely to be compromised if that person is given too much power. Power corrupts. Checks and balances.
Relationships are much better when both parties have their own resources. Resentment is much less likely to fester. As just one example, my husband doesn’t have to structure his career around my material needs; he is free to make mistakes. He needn’t feel that my needs ever hold him back. There are no Blondie-and-Dagwood moments in which I am bullying him to go into his boss and demand a raise.
My opinion about SAHMs:
An idea that women shouldn’t work and stay at home is a very weird idea, it’s anti-conservative and anti-feminist. Throughout the history women always worked, except for very upper class women. Cooking, cleaning and other domestic stuff takes very little time with modern appliances and doesn’t warrant a full time person dedicated to it. SAHM has huge power in the US family and her position is much stronger than a position of a working wife. Working wife has much weaker position (more equal to her husband’s) if she wants to extract alimony from the husband during divorce, also the property division becomes more equal. Working mother has a weaker position in custody battles, it’s possible for the husband to be a primary caregiver. So the working mother has less incentive to divorce. Working wife provides financial security for the family – if the husband gets laid off, then the family finances do not disintegrate. So it appears to me that the working wife is a traditional, fair and stable way, in comparison to weird SAHM way
Sandy,
The U.S. government does not give women more power in a marriage than men. That would be a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law. In fact, in my marriage, my husband could walk out and take half the family assets even though I am the one who worked 12-15 hour days generating most of the income that paid for those assets. Not only that, if he were unable to earn his own income, I would have to pay him spousal support. The laws are gender neutral. (Also minor nitpick: the U.S. government does not create divorce laws, which are up to the individual states.)
In terms of social power, you are quite right that women have made great strides in terms of winning social power in this country. We can vote, we can lobby, we are taken seriously as political candidates (for the most part), we can work our way up the professional ladder to places of influence in our field, we are mostly treated with respect. But that’s all recent. I don’t want to lose that. Also, social attitudes haven’t caught up completely, and it is often very difficult for women to achieve equal childcare arrangements with their men. The more time intensive and less fun parts of child rearing are still seen as women’s work. We also still don’t match men in numbers in terms of running most professions, in large part because of these social attitudes.
In terms of power corrupting mothers, well, yeah. That’s a whole new topic, but yes, I do believe that parents (mothers and fathers both) are often corrupted by the enormous degree of power they have over their children. The idea that parents always want what is best for their children at any given moment is a fairy story. Parents do lord it over their children on a regular basis, which is why tales of fairly horrific emotional and physical abuse by parents are very common. Unfortunately, in the case of children, there is not much that can be done to render them less helpless than they are — other than laws to protect them against the very worst in terms of physical and sexual abuse.
The bolded part of this statement leaped out at me because I so seldom see the idea presented that men even might find fulfillment in marriage that goes beyond some sort of sexual satisfaction. The vast majority of seemingly “pro-marriage” propaganda presents the picture for the male purely in terms of duty or obligation – recent examples include Kay Hymowitz’s “Manning Up”, and the many Christian women bloggers popping up all over the Internet. One of them linked from this blog stirred up something of a tempest when she wrote an excellent encyclopedic summary of the Apex fallacy basically outlining all the reasons why a woman would absolutely not want to do anything kind or generous toward a man.
I haven’t followed what DH has said here because I became totally exhausted of trying to deal with women like her more than 20 years ago. I noticed in your replies to her that you used the word “power” repeatedly. That is the essence of the aura that surrounds the vast majority of the women that I encounter. If I go out to eat and happen to sit next to a table full of women, it is next to impossible to totally tune out their conversation unless I put in headphones. At least 80% of it will consist of trashing their husbands or boyfriends. Among one of the social circles I travel in there is one woman who never lets any time we get together pass without one or several “jokes” aimed at her boyfriend about how she denies him sex.
It is a holiday weekend here in the US and I’m getting ready to spend part of it with a male family member and his family. His wife is one of the most negative, morose, people I have ever met in my life and I have been listening to her bitch and complain about everything in her life, and mostly about him, for 30 years. It has always been an ordeal to put up with her, and I try to arrange every possible way to spend time with my family member without her present.
There is more risk to marriage than divorce – although I would like to hear your ideas for how to change those laws that you agree need changing while continuing to give women and the PTB everything they want.
To me, the major risk of marriage is to end up being stuck in a marriage to one of the women I have described above, or to a woman like DH, and have to live with the daily assessment of whether it is worth the devastation of divorce in order to escape. You may have no reason to fault the dozen or so women in your own social circle, but I cannot believe that you would contend that they are representative of the average western woman these days.
I think that – perhaps hopefully – DH belongs to the 2 or 3 generations of women who have been sold a false bill of goods by feminism and had their chances for a real fulfilling life stolen from then, and that perhaps women like Chels, Stephanie, and Butterfly Flower may represent women waking up to what a false bill of goods it was and deciding that they will get a lot more of what they want by treating the men in their lives like a partner and an ally than as an enemy and competitor.
Doomed Harlot wrote:
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Third, you say that traditional provider-men had no social power but instead worked nobly and selflessly in hard jobs to support their families. (You seem to be the one romanticizing the role.) I am the daughter of a traditional provider guy and let me tell you that he indeed had FAR greater social power than my mother, as did ALL the men in our milieu when I was a child.
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What are you talking about? Could you elaborate? You are just repeating things, like if you say “Men have more social power” twenty times more then it will become true. It won’t, sorry.
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Are you asserting that provider-men came home and were not in charge of their families? That they weren’t the heads of the households, outranking their wives in basic decisionmaking? That they didn’t enjoy material and social rewards for their work outside the home?
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Are you saying that wives didn’t enjoy material rewards for their husbands’ work outside the home?
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You know, I was there. I saw it with my own eyes.
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An anecdote is not data. I cannot make generalizations about all women based on behavior of my friends or relatives. And you can’t too, if you want to be taken seriously
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Fourth, you also seem to assume that the average man will no longer have a sense of conscientiousness regarding fidelity or a sense of belonging to a family unit or innate decency if there is equality in the relationship. But it’s the opposite. Any person’s innate decency is likely to be compromised if that person is given too much power. Power corrupts.
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What power are you talking about? A husband in a US family has way less power than the wife does, especially if she stays at home. Right now the power corrupts women, that’s why they are doing the majority of divorcing
Thank You zed. I can only imagine the life made possible by a woman that treats her husband as an ally and partner. That is the best thing a father or any parent can teach their daughter.
“Are you asserting that provider-men came home and were not in charge of their families? That they weren’t the heads of the households, outranking their wives in basic decisionmaking? That they didn’t enjoy material and social rewards for their work outside the home?”
Doomed Harlot, you’re very touchy about less important things. When I think about family and what it means, I think about how precious my children are and about the rewards and challenges of maintaining a close connection with my wife.
You’ve asked two questions. It’s easier for me to answer the second one: no, the average man did not enjoy material or social rewards for his work outside the home. The average man worked anonymously in an office or factory and his pay went to supporting his family. For a minority of men, yes, there was social status in the work they did – but do you really think that’s innately what matters?
Your first question opens up a whole lot of issues. For instance, I think it’s true that my father’s generation of men were assumed to be the head of the household with a certain kind of respect attached to the role. Given that so many women are hypergamous – with a need to be able to respect and admire the man they marry – this may have helped certain borderline men – men who today might be rejected by women for being too ‘beta’ – sustain a healthy marriage.
In most marriages, I expect, there is a masculine/feminine interplay in which the man in an ultimate sense is the head of the household. But that rarely involves something as crude as outranking their wives in important decision making. In my own marriage, I cannot think of a single instance in which I haven’t been able to come to an agreement with my wife.
Even so, I have the sense that it’s ultimately up to me to lead the family unit. I learnt that by experience; my wife doesn’t want to be bossed around, but at the same time it’s clear that the well-being of my family requires me to take charge at times. You find yourself in the situation as a husband and father of having the other members of the family stand there, waiting expectantly for you to act and decide. They want you to do it, they don’t want you to abdicate the role. But you have to represent the family in doing so – you act from the knowledge of what’s likely to make for a successful outcome.
DH, I’ve read what you say and I agree that having an income of their own allows women to leave a bad marriage. However, bad marriages are rare, and most of the divorces happen for small reasons, and it also stops people from really working on their marriages to make them work. I could go on, but my opinion is rather extreme because I went through my parents’ divorce.
As well, you keep talking about power and leverage, but this is nonsense in a relationship. You see men as your enemies and as your competitors, and that you (women) must come on top through any means necessary, and to a certain extent, this can be seen through the current family laws. How about being a team with your man, and working together to accomplish things?
Feminists have done a lot of harm when it comes to gender relationships, and yes, I know that you argue that “the personal is the political”, but I just wish you’d keep all these ideas to yourself, and you’d leave the rest of us who want to have meaningful and fulfilling relationships with men alone. Your ideas don’t produce any happiness, any fulfillment, they just lead to loneliness, resentment and bitterness, I can’t even imagine how exhausting it must be to compete with your man in everything, every single day. Not to mention how exhausting it must be to always be suspicious of him, of basically living with what you see as your oppressor.
I’m also wondering who feminism is really for, it’s certainly not for a lot of women, it’s more for the single women not by choice, and for the lesbians and the dykes.
Doomed Harlot wrote:
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The U.S. government does not give women more power in a marriage than men. That would be a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law.
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That’s pretty ridiculous BS and completely contradicts the reality.
1. Custody: mothers have much stronger chance to get the custody of children, based on their gender alone
2. Alimony: Men rarely awarded alimony and if they get alimony, then the amount is less on average. The statistics shows it pretty strongly
3. Separation of property. Women often get better deal. Frequently they get the house, when the husband gets the mortgage
4. DV laws. In many states if the wife calls 911 about domestic violence, the husband gets arrested, if the husband calls 911, he gets arrested too. Does it look like equal protection to you?
The wife can easily kick the husband out of the house by getting temporary restraining order against him, the husband CANNOT do the same
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In fact, in my marriage, my husband could walk out and take half the family assets even though I am the one who worked 12-15 hour days generating most of the income that paid for those assets.
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It’s not a fact, you cannot know what percentage of assets your husband gets in the event of divorce. It’s up for a judge to decide, and family courts in the US generally favor women.
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The laws are gender neutral.
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No, they are not, and statistics show it
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Also, social attitudes haven’t caught up completely, and it is often very difficult for women to achieve equal childcare arrangements with their men. The more time intensive and less fun parts of child rearing are still seen as women’s work.
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I call BS on this one. Any woman can negotiate with the husband various duties, such as childcare before they have children. They can even put it into a prenup. There is no big bad man who keeps the woman down here. Also women are completely free to hire nannies or babysitters
Doomed Harlot
If men were to think like you, in such selfish terms, there would be no husbands, no fathers and women (and society) would be basically screwed.
Chels wrote:
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Doomed Harlot
If men were to think like you, in such selfish terms, there would be no husbands, no fathers and women (and society) would be basically screwed
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The marriage in the US in going down and out, it’s a statistical fact.
Chels delivers the money shot!!!
And, as men have gradually woken up to the percentage of women who think like her, the marriage rate has declined significantly. Sandy says it is going down and out, but even those with a far more optimistic view than that must admit that it is certainly going down.
WordPress stripped out the image reference intended to illustrate the above comment – from this very blog.
Sandy, When I am talking about social power, I’m talking about the ability to earn an income, be taken seriously in a court of law, to have equal decision-making power in the home, an equal opportunity to pursue goals, an equal opportunity to be heard politically. As I have said, you are right that many women in our society have these things, myself included. This wasn’t always the case within my own lifetime. I think that we would lose a lot of that what women have gained most women became housewives. My mother and my grandmother did not have these opportunities. You know, those ignorant of history are condemned to repeat it.
As for divorce laws, they reflect only the reality that women do most of the childcare and earn less money. If men did more childcare and women earned more money, you would see different results in the divorce courts. Besides, it’s not like it’s all fun and games for divorced women who get child support and custody; you still have to collect, you still have to hope that your source of support holds onto a decent job, you still have to make room for the non-custodial parent’s role in your child’s life (which is only fair).
Chels, Men do think “in such selfish terms” all the time. Imagine the howls of protest and cries of “Emasculation!” if a woman ever argued that she should be the head of the household. There is a reason that men aren’t lining up to take on the homemaker role. Even my husband, who would LOVE to stay at home with any child we might have, wouldn’t want to give up the benefits of his job. But see, it’s only “selfish” when women say that kind of thing.
I am not sure why you would assume I am in some sort of bitter competition with my husband, or with men in general. That’s not my experience at all. The fun part about having similar roles is that my husband and I are in the same boat and we understand first-hand the pressures the person is under.
I made an error there. The RESULTS in divorce cases reflect only the reality that women generally do more childcare and earn less money. The divorce LAWS are gender neutral.
And yes, I do know that my husband would get half of the marital assets. In my state, anything we acquired during the marriage is jointly owned by both of us. It doesn’t matter whose income paid for it.
For conservatives to fret over gay marriage but deliberate ignore the legal structure is like a person with a shotgun wound to the chest fretting over a chipped fingernail.
TFH it is you whom has the blind spot. The great majority of mainstream “conservatives” are anything between libertarians, neoconservatives or classical liberals in the last decades. Most of them don’t give a crap (apologies for my language) about homosexual marriage and even approve of it and support it in name of equality, autonomy and human rights. You seem to have been brainwashed into believing leftist propaganda where “George W. Bush and the conservatives are haaaating the gaaaays and obsssseeeesed with theeem!!!!” when there has been no such thing -> http://www.thinkinghousewife.com/wp/2011/06/the-new-new-york/
Homosexual marriage is but another consequence of sexual liberation, egalitarianism and a natural progression of increasing in abominations. It isn’t the main cause but it doesn’t mean that it is useless. Fans of the LGBT community like Lady Gaga are influencing the culture for more approval of non-reproductive heterosexuality. No-fault divorce matters but if you give it the most importance then you will fail because things like promiscuity, sexual liberal morales and other issues matter as well. Homosexuality is slightly tied to recreative heterosexuality since the outcome is sterile. I agree with you that homosexuality isn’t the most important issue (the most important one is the philosophy of liberalism) and I’m weary of some saying that it is but to say that it doesn’t matter is where I draw the line.
Doomed Harlot
If men were to think like you, in such selfish terms, there would be no husbands, no fathers and women (and society) would be basically screwed.
Irrevocably true.
The marriage in the US in going down and out, it’s a statistical fact.
Pretty much. Marriage has been corrupted and destroyed by the worldview of liberalism. When liberals laugh and say how they have such wonderful low divorce rates they always hide the fact about the low marriage rates. In other words low marriage rates = low divorce rates. And that’s just one aspect they’re hiding or misinterpreting.
Mark, I get that being in charge of a family is a role that is often simply expected of a man. And I think that’s unfortunate. You shouldn’t have to be in that position when you have another competent adult right there with you. One of the many areas in which I think the old ways are lacking is the failure to teach women leadership, to demand of women the moral responsibility to step up when a situation requires someone to take charge. In a family, I imagine it must be somewhat isolating to bear that burden. When women join with men in acting and making the difficult decisions, men win also.
DH,
The difference is that you think in terms of “you”, in terms of doing what’s best for you. However, men think in terms of “us”, in terms in doing what’s best for his family. And how many women seriously want to be the head of the household? Not me; and it’s certainly not because I think I’m inferior or that he thinks I’m inferior; or that because I’m weak and I can’t take decisions. As well, how many women that pretend to want to be the leader of the household would actually be attracted to their husbands after that?
Even though feminists would argue that my relationship is not equal, that I’ve internalized sexism and that I’m oppressed, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Yeah, the relationship is not equal but I don’t care about that, I care about fairness and having a successful relationship, which I have. Other men have talked about this same topic better than I can, so here are the links:
http://hiddenleaves.wordpress.com/2010/06/18/follow-the-leader/
http://www.marriedmansexlife.com/2010/03/dominace-and-submission-in-marriage.html
And yes, it’s obvious from your writings and from your insistence on being the head of the household that you’re in constant competition with your husband. You want to transform men into women and women into men, but when that happens, it’ll be the end of society.
And for the millionth time, no one said that you should give up your job, what’s been said is that you should do what’s best for your family, but instead, you’re putting only yourself first; and such people shouldn’t be parents.
DH,
The difference is that you think in terms of “you”, in terms of doing what’s best for you. However, men think in terms of “us”, in terms in doing what’s best for his family. And how many women seriously want to be the head of the household? Not me; and it’s certainly not because I think I’m inferior or that he thinks I’m inferior; or that because I’m weak and I can’t take decisions. As well, how many women that pretend to want to be the leader of the household would actually be attracted to their husbands after that?
Even though feminists would argue that my relationship is not equal, that I’ve internalized sexism and that I’m oppressed, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Yeah, the relationship is not equal but I don’t care about that, I care about fairness and having a successful relationship, which I have. Other men have talked about this same topic better than I can, so here are the links:
http:// hiddenleaves.wordpress.com/2010/06/18/follow-the-leader/
http:// http://www.marriedmansexlife.com/2010/03/dominace-and-submission-in-marriage.html
And yes, it’s obvious from your writings and from your insistence on being the head of the household that you’re in constant competition with your husband. You want to transform men into women and women into men, but when that happens, it’ll be the end of society.
And for the millionth time, no one said that you should give up your job, what’s been said is that you should do what’s best for your family, but instead, you’re putting only yourself first; and such people shouldn’t be parents.
Chels,
I never said I wanted to be the head of my household. I want to an equal voice with my husband in my own household. This would mean bitterness and competition only in a world in which men have a huge problem with sharing leadership with the person they supposedly love. That’s not the world I live in.
I never suggested that what is best for me is the only valid consideration in a marriage. I advocate for a system in which everyone’s needs and desires are considered legitimate. I also fail to see how supporting my family, modeling for my child a hard work ethic and the pursuit of valuable goals outside the home, is “putting only myself first” to the point that I shouldn’t be a parent. Again, things that are considered oh-so-wonderful when men do it are suddenly monstrous and selfish if you or I do it. I will bet no one accuses my husband of being “selfish.”
Doomed Harlot wrote:
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Sandy, When I am talking about social power, I’m talking about the ability to earn an income,
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Women always had an ability to earn an income
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be taken seriously in a court of law,
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Women get more lenient sentences than men for the same crimes, women have a huge privelege here.
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to have equal decision-making power in the home,
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Women have bigger decision making power in the home, and much higher spending power than men
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an equal opportunity to pursue goals,
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What does it even mean?
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an equal opportunity to be heard politically.
As I have said, you are right that many women in our society have these things, myself included. This wasn’t always the case within my own lifetime. I think that we would lose a lot of that what women have gained most women became housewives. My mother and my grandmother did not have these opportunities. You know, those ignorant of history are condemned to repeat it.
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As I said before a traditional way is women are obligated to work. 50s in the US was a weird moment in history when women could get a leisure lifestyle for life just because they are women
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As for divorce laws, they reflect only the reality that women do most of the childcare and earn less money. If men did more childcare and women earned more money, you would see different results in the divorce courts.
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That’s false. Wives outearn husbands in 33% of marriages, but men receive alimony only in 3.6% of cases
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Besides, it’s not like it’s all fun and games for divorced women who get child support and custody; you still have to collect,
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A state collects for you. A failure to pay child support leads to prison for men, even if they were laid off and have no money
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you still have to make room for the non-custodial parent’s role in your child’s life (which is only fair).
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Visitation rights in the US are very weakly enforced. Many ex-wifes deny visitation to ex-husbands, and ex-husbands can do nothing about it, while they are still obligated to pay alimony and child support
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Chels, Men do think “in such selfish terms” all the time. Imagine the howls of protest and cries of “Emasculation!” if a woman ever argued that she should be the head of the household.
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BS. In many families a wife is a de-facto head of household.
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There is a reason that men aren’t lining up to take on the homemaker role. Even my husband, who would LOVE to stay at home with any child we might have, wouldn’t want to give up the benefits of his job. But see, it’s only “selfish” when women say that kind of thing.
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BS. Women despise guys who sit at home and don’t work.
2 Doomed Harlot
You write a lot about men being “in charge” in the family and stuff like that. What exactly do you mean by that? The concept that a husband can just order the wife around (as a boss can order around employees) is absolutely false in general in the US. Is “in charge” a fuzzy femspeak which has no substance or definition, or do you mean something precise by it?
I advocate for a system in which everyone’s needs and desires are considered legitimate.
I only wish feminists were so ambivalent as you are, and so considerate *rolls eyes* The more I read about feminism, the more I come to the conclusion that it’s about men becoming women and women becoming men; it’s about destroying femininity and adopting masculinity. However, have feminists taken into consideration that most women don’t want to be men, that there’s nothing wrong with being feminine and that a woman that’s masculine isn’t going to be attractive to men? Oh I forgot, that’s the point of feminism, destroy gender relationships.
And another question, how exactly do you measure equality in your household?
Sandy,
Yeah, women have always had the ability to earn an income in crap jobs. I am talking about the ability to earn a competitive income. Talk to your older female relatives and they will tell you that the basic options were secretary, teacher, or nurse. Sure, some women fought their way into the professions but even then, their options were limited. Sandra Day O’Connor, second in her class at Stanford Law School, could only find a job as a legal secretary.
Your point about women earning more income in 33% of households versus men only getting alimony in 3.6% of cases is misleading. Alimony isn’t even an option in the vast majority of cases. The people who get alimony would be women like mother (were she to divorce) who has been married for 40 years, only worked for 10 of those years, and relied on my father for support. She would get alimony based on the length of the marriage, her inability to re-enter the workforce at this point, and her dependence on my father. Very few men are in a comparable position.
I haven’t been following the comments here for the last day or so, so I have some catching up to do. With that said, the following comment caught my eye when scanning the thread:
While I strongly disagree with Doomed Harlot on a number of issues, specifically her effort to make young women comfortable with the idea of casual sex, I don’t like having the debate become so personal. I ask all commenters to avoid personal attacks, especially those which go after one’s family (or lack thereof).
Sandy,
Actually, men just ordering their wives around had considerable social sanction until recently, not to mention that a women often complied based on, not only social sanction, but economic dependence. I grew up in just such a household. Such a think also enjoys a great deal of religious sanction in many communities in the U.S. There is also subtle social power in the sense that women are judged more harshly if the home isn’t immaculate, if the Christmas cards didn’t go out, or if the children didn’t get home-baked cookies to take to snack time at school. Sure, you can push back but the message (invoked on this very thread) that you’re a crappy mother who doesn’t love her kids if you push back is a pretty powerful message.
her effort to make young women comfortable with the idea of casual sex,
Seriously DH? Enlighten me as to what the benefits of that would be and why I should be striving for casual sex.
Doomed Harlot wrote:
==============================
Yeah, women have always had the ability to earn an income in crap jobs. I am talking about the ability to earn a competitive income. Talk to your older female relatives and they will tell you that the basic options were secretary, teacher, or nurse. Sure, some women fought their way into the professions but even then, their options were limited. Sandra Day O’Connor, second in her class at Stanford Law School, could only find a job as a legal secretary.
==============================
This was compensated by wealth transfers from men. Women earned less then men, but spent more. And it’s the case today, women earn less than men, but spend about 4 times more then men do
==============================
Your point about women earning more income in 33% of households versus men only getting alimony in 3.6% of cases is misleading. Alimony isn’t even an option in the vast majority of cases. The people who get alimony would be women like mother (were she to divorce) who has been married for 40 years, only worked for 10 of those years, and relied on my father for support. She would get alimony based on the length of the marriage, her inability to re-enter the workforce at this point, and her dependence on my father. Very few men are in a comparable position.
===============================
That’s complete and utter BS. For example in California, 6 years of marriage means 3 years of alimony and 10+ years of marriage means alimony for life. And you are saying that you are a lawyer? The mind boggles
Chels,
You asked how I “measure equality” in my household. The answer is that I don’t. It’s a given in our household.
You are right that feminists generally reject cultural distinctions between masculine and feminine. It sounds like feminism is definitely not for you.
Doomed Harlot wrote:
=============================
Actually, men just ordering their wives around had considerable social sanction until recently, not to mention that a women often complied based on, not only social sanction, but economic dependence.
=============================
How did this economic dependence work? Did husbands threaten to withhold money from wives so they would starve to death? What did husbands demanded from wives and how did they threaten them with economic sanctions?
============================
There is also subtle social power in the sense that women are judged more harshly if the home isn’t immaculate, if the Christmas cards didn’t go out, or if the children didn’t get home-baked cookies to take to snack time at school. Sure, you can push back but the message (invoked on this very thread) that you’re a crappy mother who doesn’t love her kids if you push back is a pretty powerful message.
============================
That stuff has nothing to do with men being in charge. The men before were required to fight and die in wars, and women were judged if they didn’t send out Christmas cards. Okay, I see now how women were opressed
Chels,
Dalrock is referring back to previous threads. I never said that women should “strive” for casual sex. My view in this area is, “To each her own.” There are obvious benefits to casual sex. (Newsflash — having sex is fun!) There are also obvious risks and hassles. (Much of my discretionary income in college went towards birth control pills.) I respect other women’s right to arrive at her own conclusions regarding the risks of sex versus the benefits. In other words, I support your right to say, “Yes,” and your right to say, “No.” This obviously applies to men too, but that tends to be much more of a given.
It sounds like feminism is definitely not for you.
Well thanks for pointing out the obvious; I just like debating with feminists because they just reinforce the reasons why I’m so proud not to call myself one.
I’ll take my man, my family, and my successful and happy relationship over equality, competing, bitterness and loneliness (and cats) any day. Now I know why I see all these articles of late 30s+ women crying because they’re single or childless, but they have the sisterhood! 😀
Newsflash — having sex is fun!
It’s even more fun in a committed relationship or in marriage; otherwise, you’re just a cum receptacle, I thought feminists fight against that?
“You are positing an ideology where by half the population is waiting on the other half. ”
To me, it is amazing that anyone could claim that the formerly typical husband/wife relationship can be caricatured in such terms. The husband got up early every morning, he fought his way to work in rush hour traffic. He spent the entire day, every day except holidays and weekends, in a loud, clanging factory, frantic, steaming kitchen, dreary office, deadly mine, or out in the cold, rain, heat and snow doing construction work or the like. He had to watch every word he said and every move he made so as not to offend the boss. He was told when, where and how to work. And dress. And talk. And act. And when he could go to the bathroom or eat or drink, even water. After a full day of this, he battle his way home through rush hour traffic again.
Yes, his wife cooked for him and cleaned his clothes and the house. But in return he paid for every morsel of food she ate. For every stitch of clothes she wore. For every pair of shoes on her feet. For the rent or mortgage, and taxes and upkeep of her living space. For the linens she slept in. For the furniture. For the drapes. For every appliance in the house. For every form of entertainment she enjoyed. For the car, and the gas in the car, and its maintenance and upkeep. For the heat she needed and the AC she enjoyed. For the vacations they took together. For the phone she gabbed on. Etc., etc. In addition, he usually took care of the “outdoor work” (routine work on vehicles, lawn, roof, etc), and did at least some of the childraising work too.
Yet, somehow, that is seen as her “waiting on” him! As has been pointed out, it’s a division of labor, not one person waiting on the other. But, even so, the balance was weighted for the woman’s benefit. Women wanted to get married, and they still do, so, basically, they can live off the money that their husbands earn by the sweat of their brows or the highly trained and stressful exertions of their minds, and so on. (Men sought marriage for three reasons…one was that sex was basically unavailable, except from prostitutes, without it, second was to have children, which a man could not do ((and still can’t, really)) without marriage, and third was that society would not take him seriously if he didn’t.) Look at the soft evidence, such as novels written by women. Just like today, they are all about securing the proper husband. Yes, of couse it was unfair that women were not given choices, and there was no equality of opportunity. And that their only path to success was through their husbands. But that hardly means they were simply “waiting” on their husbands, like slaves, and getting nothing in return. And it means that even less so now. And add to that the satisfaction of actually raising your own children. Of watching them grow and learn and advance, and helping them do so. No wonder most women actually WANT to be SAHMs, even today, after a half century of feminist ideology downgrading and demeaning the role.
Wage work sucks! It sucked much worse than housework back in the fifties, and it sucks even worse now, in comparison. Housework has been made easy. Really, machines now do almost all the housework now. The housekeeper basically turns the machines on and off. That is the extent of her “work.” And she controls the tempo, and the climate, and the choice of listening to music or TV while working. And can wear whatever she wants, no matter how “sloppy” or comfortable. And take breaks as she pleases. And make phone calls without worrying about being monitored or seen as shirking. And many of her tasks, such as cooking, can actually be quite creative and fulfilling. Wage workers, by contrast, are in an authoritarian, if not totalitarian (check out the rules for Wal Mart workers) enovironment for most of their waking day. If anyone is a slave, if anyone is “waiting” on others all day long, it is wage workers, not housekeepers.
Highly succesful societies, such as the US and the UK, congratulated themselves, and were envied by other societies, precisely because women no longer had to work outside the home. And this was true all the way down into the working and lower classes. Factory workers could “support a family.” They rejoiced in the fact that women did not have to break their backs as factory workers or demean themselves as servants. And none more so than the women themselves. Again, this does not mean that it was right that women had no other choice, but the paradign of slavery, borrowed from ante bellum race relations in the US, was not the case either.
My view is that their should be choice. That the roles should be worked out by the couple. My own personal belief is that it is better if at least one parent has an active role in raising the couple’s children. Unlike some of the posters here, I really don’t care which parent that is. A SAHD can be just as good as a SAHM. Just as a woman can be as good a lawyer as a man. But don’t give me this BS about society pressuring women to be SAHMs. It’s just the opposite. Every official, semi official and popular source of information has downgraded the value of home making and child raising for women in the last fifty years. Girls and young women are actually pressured NOT to become SAHMs, rather than the opposite. But, you know what, they still prefer it. And you know why? First of all, because it is a great deal! Rather than “waiting” on their husbands, their husbands are “waiting” on them, because, as described above, their husbands are seeing to all their needs and wants in exchange for a little, non onerous, physically easy, psychologically unstressful and potentially fulfilling housework. And, secondly, despite feminst ideology to the contrary, women are biologically more disposed to be nurterers, nest builders, child care providers and home makers than man are. Not because of “social pressure,” but because the genders, while alike or highly similar in many ways, are not totally the same.
Sandy,
Well, yeah, men could and did withhold money. In my family, my father decided how much money she could have each week and he absolutely withheld money if he wasn’t happy with her for some reason. In my grandparents’ case, my grandmother tolerated a situation in which my grandfather regularly beat up the children because she was afraid that she and the children would starve if they left. (My father, despite being kind of a jerk, supports feminism because he realized his mother might have been able to protect him if she had other options.)
I do think men dying in battle is a terrible thing. Which is why avoiding war and avoiding a draft is a good thing. And I think women should do military service too. And I wish we could create a culture in which more privileged people would join the military, rather than just leaving it to the poor. This, of course, is completely irrelevant to women’s role
In terms of California divorce law: (1) I am not a divorce lawyer. I’ve done a couple of pro bono divorce cases but that’s it. (2) Maybe I’m wrong but I bet if you look lower-earning spouses are not automatically entitled to support. Most states have a number of factors you have to look at. It really depends on what this person’s earning capacity and what he or she contributed to the marriage. It’s a pretty individualized determination and more women than men are likely to be in a situation where they have done little-to-no work outside the home.
Chels, I don’t think a woman who has sex outside a committed relationship is just a “cum receptacle.” You could just as easily say that the man is just a “cum dispenser.” If both the cum receptacle and the cum dispenser are giving each other pleasure, then it seems like it’s a mutually beneficial experience.
And it’s not as though having casual sex means you can’t have committed or married sex. Most people I know have had both.
“I think that when women do the bulk of the unpaid and often exhausting labor at home”
Housework is hardly “exhausting,” wage work much more so. And, for housewives at least, it is NOT “unpaid.” Payment in kind is still payment. Be given food to eat, clothes to wear, a house to live in, a bed to sleep in, etc, etc, etc is NOT being “unpaid.” Moreover, in most places, the marital assets, ie the money and other wealth that the huband’s work created (with, to be fair, the advantage of having a wife to do the house and child care work) is the property of both spouses.
“WOMEN ARE BIOLOGICALLY PROGRAMMED TO BE HOUSEWIVES: I am not aware of any evidence of this. I have spent my life watching women flooding into the professions even after being raised to believe that they should be housewives.”
What universe do you live in? How can anyone possibly say that, in the West, women have been “raised to believe that they should be housewives.”!?!?!?! Just the opposite. Women are told, by the government, by the schools, by the media, by pop culture, and by their feminist relatives that they should NOT be housewives.
I direct you to the numerous posts on sluthood–here’s a link.
dalrock.wordpress.com/2011/08/30/defining-sluthood/
I’m sad that people like you have any influence in society, and I feel sorry for the women that actually listen to the nonsense you spur out; you fight for the destruction of society, for the destruction of marriage, for the destruction of men. I just wish people with your mentality would remain childless so they can’t spread more propaganda to the next generation.
Ruddyturnstone,
Sure, I get that my father and other men of his generation worked hard. (I work hard too so I know all about that first hand.) But they were still the king of the castle when they came home. Women were routinely patronized both within their own homes and outside of it. Even going to the doctor meant be treated like a piece of crap. And yes, larger society itself was male-dominated. Even the blue-collar working man could gain some measure of influence and prestige by unionizing (you know, using their “leverage” to try to garner better working conditions).
Being a housewife may not be terribly taxing (though I am sure there are many SAHMs and SAHDs who would disagree with you). But it is still a position of dependence and relative powerlessness.
Ruddyturnstone, Women in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s who flooded into the professions were raised to believe they should be housewives. That’s what I was referring to.
On the other, my grandmother was a SAHM, and she was adored by her husband, to the point of idolization. He slaved away for her, for her happiness, he gave her all of his money to do as she sees fits, he put her wellbeing above his own as she was the light of his eyes.
And this is what happens in most cases where the woman stays at home, she’s not oppressed by her husband, they’re a team and they just decided on a division of labor. As well, there’s nothing wrong with being dependent on a man, and you should really say interdependence, because that’s what it is.
Doomed Harlot wrote:
==============================
Well, yeah, men could and did withhold money. In my family, my father decided how much money she could have each week and he absolutely withheld money if he wasn’t happy with her for some reason. In my grandparents’ case, my grandmother tolerated a situation in which my grandfather regularly beat up the children because she was afraid that she and the children would starve if they left. (My father, despite being kind of a jerk, supports feminism because he realized his mother might have been able to protect him if she had other options.)
==============================
I don’t care about anecdotes. I can find you any number of anecdotes which support any viewpoint. I can say you that in the US culture idea of men withholding money from wives is not popular.
==============================
I do think men dying in battle is a terrible thing. Which is why avoiding war and avoiding a draft is a good thing. And I think women should do military service too. And I wish we could create a culture in which more privileged people would join the military, rather than just leaving it to the poor. This, of course, is completely irrelevant to women’s role
==============================
This is completely relevant. Women had (and have right now) the very priveleged position in society, because they didn’t have to fight and die in wars
==============================
(2) Maybe I’m wrong but I bet if you look lower-earning spouses are not automatically entitled to support.
==============================
You are wrong. I showed you the statistics (not anecdotes) which demonstrated that women have a priveleged position (based on gender discrimination in family courts) with respect to alimony. You tried to argue against it but failed, due to complete lack of arguments.
DH,
Yes, women flooded the workforce, but what positions do women occupy even today? Those leaning towards the feminine, why aren’t there more female engineers, politicians, mathematicians, CEOs, etc…?
Again, there’s nothing wrong with women working.
“Sure, I get that my father and other men of his generation worked hard. (I work hard too so I know all about that first hand.) But they were still the king of the castle when they came home.”
The “castle” that their labor paid for. The castle that was stocked with food, furniture, clothes, linens, etc because their labor earned it. Unlike a “king,” who gets his castle, and the rest of his stuff, simply because of accident of birth. The wife got all that stuff too, but didn’t have to go out and earn it. She was as much a “queen” or “princess” as he was a “king.” In reality, those labels don’t fit the lives of either gender in the nineteenth or early twentieth centuries. They both worked, the both did their share. Yes, men were in charge, I don’t dispute that and, to repeat, don’t think it was fair and am glad that it has changed. But, in today’s society, men are not in charge, and being a SAHM really has nothing to do with that one way or the other.
“Being a housewife may not be terribly taxing (though I am sure there are many SAHMs and SAHDs who would disagree with you).”
There are people who will dispute anything. The reality is that housework is much, much easier than it ever was before and much, much less taxing and stressful than wage work.
“But it is still a position of dependence and relative powerlessness.”
No, it isn’t. In our modern world, to repeat, the non earning spouse has as much control of the household assets as the earning spouse. And will be allocated half of them upon divorce. To some extent, all “positions” are dependent and relatively powerless. Only the very eltie in our society have true economic independence. But there is no power imbalance between a modern husband working a job and his SAH wife.
“Women in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s who flooded into the professions were raised to believe they should be housewives. That’s what I was referring to.”
Um, no they weren’t. Starting in the the sixties, women began to be raised to believe that they should not be housewives. By the seventies, this was the dominant paradign. By the eighties, it was overwhelmingly so, and is to this day. Women flooded into the professions, at least in part, because they were “raised to believe” that they should, and that being a SAHM was a bad choice, and sold out the “sisterhood.”
Your own words here on this thread show this. On the one hand, you talk about choice. But on the other, you consistently put down the choice of being a SAHM. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out which is the preferred choice. And women got the message. They “flooded” into the professions and business. And now many of them realize that they would actually have preferred to be SAHMs. And many younger women are coming to the same realization. After the four years of college, after the graduate education, once they are in the working world (even the relatively priviledged few who are in professions or management) they realize that it stinks, and pine for a man “to take them away from all this,” and to have babies, and to be there to raise those babies. That’s what women really want, but they have been brainwashed into thinking, like you do, that to do is to settle for second best, to make a “choice” that is not as good as the other choice, to sell out women “as a group,” to fail to “advance feminism,” etc, etc.
Sandy,
The laws and their application in the family courts are merely an effort to even out the disparity caused when a woman does not have her own income. Moreover, alimony, in those cases where it is awarded (which is hardly ever in my state) is only temporary. Man ditches wife, she has gotta go out and support herself eventually. And she will have less ability to do so comfortably if she doesn’t have a resume.
Chels, That’s nice that your grandparents had such a happy marriage. But the housewife’s star is hitched 100% to what her husband decides to do with his life and how he decides to treat her. (Perhaps less so now, thanks to feminism.) Maybe you pick a good man, but if you don’t, then things don’t turn out so well.
“I do think men dying in battle is a terrible thing. Which is why avoiding war and avoiding a draft is a good thing. And I think women should do military service too. And I wish we could create a culture in which more privileged people would join the military, rather than just leaving it to the poor. This, of course, is completely irrelevant to women’s role.”
Notice the work here. A bare admission that there is an unequal situation, and even that is buried in the middle of the paragraph. The grotesque inequality that men face viz a viz war and the military, which is actually much worse than anything women faced in the past, never mind the present, is sloughed off with “I think women should do military service too.” And that is embeddied within the unasked for pontificating about the issue of whether war should be avoided in general and the class issue of the privileged who avoid military service. This stupendous inequality, this absolute contradiction of the notion of gender equality, is hardly worth mentioning, and, at that, it is done only once the waters are clouded by other, extraneous, and irrelevant red herring issues. No one cares whether you think we are too warlike a society. Nor whether you think the privileged have too many privileges, and avoiding military service is one of them. The issue was the gross gender inequality relating to registration, the draft and the military. No one asked you for your general take on military issues.
“But the housewife’s star is hitched 100% to what her husband decides to do with his life and how he decides to treat her. (Perhaps less so now, thanks to feminism.) Maybe you pick a good man, but if you don’t, then things don’t turn out so well.”
Nonsense, even way back when, there was considerable social pressure on a man to treat his wife right. Wife beating, contra to the feminist claim about the “rule of thumb,” was forbidden legally and, more importantly, was condemned socially. Women had a right to support, which, again, was legally and socially enforceable. The idea that a married man could just do any damn thing he pleased with his wife, like he did with his shoes, is total bullshit. And, now, with or without feminism, to claim this situation exists, even residually, is to beggar the imagination. If you don’t “pick a good man,” or even if you do, you can divorce him and be done with him just like that. And, despite what you say, you will get the better end of the financial settlement, alimony, child support stick.
Rudy,
Yes, a thousand times, yes, the home was the man’s castle because he paid for it. That’s exactly right. And that is why women rejected the housewife paradigm en masse, notwithstanding how much “easier” it is then hustling in the workplace.
As for the women who flooded into the workforce in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, they were actually raised in the 40s, 50s, and 60s. And no, things did not change overnight in the 60s. Even in the 70s, things were extremely uneven.
As for whether being a housewife is exhausting, I’m of two minds on this. It may depend on the woman’s individual situation. Maybe the better word is “time-consuming.” Because every household has Stuff that Must Get Done. The house has to be cleaned, laundry done, the pantry stocked, the bills paid, the lawn mowed, dinner put on the table, and a plethora of other things and that’s not even counting taking of the kids. Somebody has to do this stuff, and it tends to be the woman. That is time that the woman is not spending on her career. That was my point.
Rudy,
I guess I don’t see what your beef is on the military stuff. I oppose gross gender inequalities, of which the draft is obviously a major example. I agree with you. I think women should be drafted. What more do you want?
In the past, women routinely died in childbirth and men routinely died in war. Now we’ve solved the childbirth thing, but men still face the possibility of dying in war. That is unfair. I agree with you.
DH,
43% of women born between 1965 and 1978 are either single or childless because they prioritized their careers, just as you did. Your generation really rode of the feminism train, and the results have been devastating. I just wish your rationalization hamster wouldn’t be so fast, and you’d just admit that you made a terrible mistake, and you’d stop propagating this mentality to further generations. Hopefully it can stop with my generation, and more women would realize the importance and their need of having a man in their lives, as children; so feminism can die.
Rudy,
Also reading what you have to say, it looks to me like we agree more than we disagree. You agree that in previous eras, men were in charge at home. You agree that women were denied opportunities in the workplace. You agree that that was unfair. I agree that a housewife today is in a much more egalitarian position in most mainstream households than times past. So, I guess I am not sure what we are arguing about — I guess just the details and the nuances.
Honestly, what it comes down to is that I just don’t feel confident that we will never return to the bad old days. I want to hold on to what we have accomplished and working hard professionally is, in my mind, one small way to do that.
Chels, So 43% of women in Gen-X are either single OR childless. And the problem is . . . ????
*sigh* I give up.
The problem is that due to feminism, most of those women are completely miserable, they regret that they prioritized their careers and ignored their family life. The problem is that feminism has convinced women that men are their enemies and their oppressors. The problem is that having a career does not make women happy. The problem is that women have been fed lies that they don’t need men. The problem is that women have been fed that being a mother is not something they should strive for. The problem is that feminism has ruined gender relationships. The problem is that feminism is a huge lie, it’s a societal disease, which hopefully will begin to die.
Should I go on?
You know, for a lawyer, you sure suck at debating *facepalm*
Chels,
I think it’s a GOOD thing that people can choose not to marry or have children. These are serious commitments that should only be entered into on a purely voluntary basis.
As for those women do have families, how do you know they are prioritizing their careers and ignoring their families. That seems like a big claim. I don’t know any women like that.
I have also never thought of men as my enemies or my oppressors. I think old-time gender roles create oppression for both sexes.
No one ever told me not to be a mother. In fact, quite the opposite.
Gender relationships have improved. I’ve had tons of male friends all my life and I value them enormously. I doubt our mothers and grandmothers had the same experience.
Chels,
It is never convincing to declare victory. Let your arguments speak for themselves.
Hey, I’ve got no beef with you whatsoever. I am more just interested in why you think what you think.
Gender relationships have improved.
They’re deteriorating. You seem to see good as evil and evil as good while possibly believing there is no such thing as good and evil.
Get a clue. The extreme blind spot that conservatives have about *why* marriage is in such a poor state today is widely known in this sphere.
Let me guess conservatives “pedestalizing of women” and “seeing women as perfect”? Chilvary huh? You know I’m sick and tired of comments like yours on the blogosphere. Why don’t you get a clue. I was even once insulted as a feminist in disguise when it could be further from the truth. When men’s rights activists assume incorrect things and misinterpret traditional conservatives it will only make more enemies than friends. But maybe that’s for the best.
Doomed Harlot wrote:
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The laws and their application in the family courts are merely an effort to even out the disparity caused when a woman does not have her own income.
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That’s false. In California women get alimony when they have income that is lower than husband’s
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Moreover, alimony, in those cases where it is awarded (which is hardly ever in my state) is only temporary. Man ditches wife, she has gotta go out and support herself eventually. And she will have less ability to do so comfortably if she doesn’t have a resume.
====================================
That’s false. In California women get lifetime alimony (even if they work) in marriages that last more than 10 years
The stuff you write generally here is very often factually incorrect. Could you educate yourself first about the topics you write about?
The stuff you write generally here is very often factually incorrect. Could you educate yourself first about the topics you write about?
I don’t believe Doomed Harlot will do that.
Doomed Harlot wrote:
=========================
In the past, women routinely died in childbirth and men routinely died in war. Now we’ve solved the childbirth thing, but men still face the possibility of dying in war. That is unfair. I agree with you.
=========================
It’s ridiculous comparison between women dying at childbirth and men dying in war.
Men were sent to war by society against their will, like slaves or cattle, and women had enormous privelege in that area. Women’s health problems (such as dying at childbirth) were not caused by society, society always tried to improve women’s health. Also women were not required to have children. It’s ridiculous to compare natural health problems with institutionalized gender discrimination
SANDY, I acknowledged in my speculation about California alimony laws that I could be wrong. But since you are pressing the issue, I went and looked. And guess what? I’m not wrong. See for yourself CA. Family Code 4320 -4326. (I am having trouble linking but go to the Wikipedia entry for “alimony,” find the reference to California and it will take you to a link with the statute.)
Alimony is not mandatory. It is not awarded if the lower earning spouse is able to provide himself or herself the proper support. Moreover the amount and duration of alimony is dependent on a variety of factors, including the length of the marriage, the spouse’s earning capacity, etc. You seem to be referring to a presumption that the duration of support will be half-the-length of the marriage if the marriage is less than ten years and indefinite if the marriage is more than 10 years. I will grant you that this sounds more encouraging of alimony awards than what you see in the part of the country where I live, but it is not automatic and it is geared towards encouraging self-support.
Sandy, You are also wrong when you say women were not required to have children. Birth control was not necessarily well-known, widely available or even legal in the early part of this century. And women had to get married in order to have any decent standard of living. Marriage + no birth control = lots of kids. Do you really think women were voluntarily signing up for 6-16 pregnancies a piece because they just enjoyed being pregnant?
The debate has indeed become very personal, Dalrock. Particularly with this nasty comment that you highlighted.
DH, has been accused of being bitter, in competition with her husband, touchy, putting herself first, using the word housewife in a scornful manner, striving for casual sex, seeing men as enemies and competitors… among many other things… One commenter posits about marriage to a woman like DH, and having to live with the daily assessment of whether it is worth the devastation of divorce in order to escape.
Through all these slings and arrows, DH remains good humored and politely responds to some downright (imo) rude and nasty comments and way off the mark assumptions.
Lets just look at the facts here…. Actions speak louder than words..
DH, is not a slut. She married her husband at age twenty four. A man she admits would be termed a beta. She earns more than he does(she is partner in a law firm) though he is happy in his chosen job.He appears to be happy in the marriage, and DH certainly does not seem to be in competition with him.. While it is not a lifestyle I would choose for myself, it appears to work for DH and her hubby.
DH has never put housewives down(I’m a housewife myself and I don’t ever recall her denigrating women who choose to stay at home) Nor does she come across as bitter or selfish.
She is forty and is in the process of trying to conceive a child. Her husband is infertile. Now, that puts a whole different complexion on the situation. If she was a bitter and selfish woman, might she not have ditched her infertile hubby for one that could provide her with children? Nasty comments aside… DH istead chooses to stay with her husband and to seek other means of becoming pregnant, with adoption as a last resort. (bitch!)
Gee, her poor husband. Fancy being stuck with such a self centred woman for the past fifteen years or so..
Well, He could just divorce her, I suppose. As DH points out, he would rightly be entitled to half of what they own(remember she earning the lions share of the income in the 230k+ range if my memory serves me correctly)
What this all tells me, is that DH obviously loves her husband deeply and it is most certainly reciprocated.. A couple who have no children, do NOT stay together for over fifteen years if they do not love or care for one another.
FYI, I’ve zapped some comments or sections of comments which I felt crossed the line, as well as responses to those comments. Going after someone’s children (or lack thereof) is just too personal*. Feel free to disagree vigorously, but please avoid those kinds of comments moving forward. Thanks!
*Pointing out that statistically career women tend to have fewer children than more traditional women is fair game however.
Kathy, I was not criticizing DH personally, I was criticizing feminism which she supports. As well, I don’t need male or any other form of encouragement to express my opinions, I would have done so anyway.
As well, I will not get into my personal life, but I will say that me and my boyfriend have very good reasons for not getting married right now simply because our situation does not permit us and because there’s more to marriage than love (and both of us are cafeteria Christians or secularists, whichever you prefer).
Doomed Harlot wrote:
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SANDY, I acknowledged in my speculation about California alimony laws that I could be wrong. But since you are pressing the issue, I went and looked. And guess what? I’m not wrong. See for yourself CA. Family Code 4320 -4326. (I am having trouble linking but go to the Wikipedia entry for “alimony,” find the reference to California and it will take you to a link with the statute.)
Alimony is not mandatory. It is not awarded if the lower earning spouse is able to provide himself or herself the proper support. Moreover the amount and duration of alimony is dependent on a variety of factors, including the length of the marriage, the spouse’s earning capacity, etc. You seem to be referring to a presumption that the duration of support will be half-the-length of the marriage if the marriage is less than ten years and indefinite if the marriage is more than 10 years. I will grant you that this sounds more encouraging of alimony awards than what you see in the part of the country where I live, but it is not automatic and it is geared towards encouraging self-support.
==========================
I didn’t say that alimony was mandatory or automatic. I said that alimony awards show extremely strong case of gender discrimination in the family court system. I also cited statistics from a reliable source which fully confirmed my statement. You tried to argue with that, but failed, and you produced several obviously false statements, such as “Moreover, alimony, in those cases where it is awarded (which is hardly ever in my state) is only temporary” and the like.
==========================
Sandy, You are also wrong when you say women were not required to have children.
Birth control was not necessarily well-known, widely available or even legal in the early part of this century. And women had to get married in order to have any decent standard of living. Marriage + no birth control = lots of kids.
==========================
No, I’m not wrong. Women were not required to marry. Men were drafted into military and war by force. Women were not drafted into marriage by force. Women could avoid pregnancies and marriage if they wanted to, they had a choice
Also, when these blog posts and articles bemoan (or gloat over) the supposed misery of older, infertile women, it seems that they have never heard of a little thing called adoption. ~ Doomed Harlot
It is actually really hard to adopt, and largely because of feminism. The legalization and societal embrace of abortion cut the number of children available to adopt to a tiny fraction of what it once was, and feminists also pushed for birthmother/father rights so that essentially all adoptions now are open and the adoption process is more or less selling yourself to young women with dubious judgment and future time orientation (who very often have abused their children in utero with drugs and alcohol). It is also extremely expensive because the supply/demand is so skewed and it’s now so highly regulated by the government (also a result of women pushing for “better outcomes” for relinquished/abandoned/abused/neglected children, the ones they didn’t abort but couldn’t or wouldn’t take care of themselves due to their pursuit of God knows what – drugs, sex, sexual or career power, finding their inner selves.)
Women’s rights have come not only at the expense of men’s rights, but at the expense of the rights of their own (and others’) children: the right to be born, the right to be born into an intact family, and the right to grow up in an intact family and have daily guidance, interaction, and investment from a father, the right to be raised by one’s own mother, the one (and isn’t this right?) who loves that child the most. The ability to choose divorce and/or illegitimacy – rights women fought hard for – also plunge children into poverty, something the mainstream media seems never to mention when they talk about the standard of living nosediving or the middle class dying. Our economic system is quite complex, but a middle class lifestyle was almost never possible without the collaboration and cooperation of a mother and a father in the raising of their young and caretaking of their elderly. Divorce has proved catastrophically expensive for everyone, but somehow no one ever mentions it. (Well, Dalrock does.)
Feminism has destroyed the family and all the security that it affords and, in doing so, eaten her own young.
“Thanks, I’ll make sure to tell him ;)”
You won’t have to because your actions will do all the talking for you. I’ve heard it said that actions speak louder than words, you have already learned that lesson.
“Chels,
You are right.
The moral of the story is : Don’t end up like Doomed Harlot, even though she actually has it better than most women who buy into the feminist set of lies. She is neither divorced nor broke (like most feminists are), yet still is someone who you don’t want to end up like…….
……Think about how few women actually find happiness through feminism.”
THIS….THIS RIGHT HERE!!
While the reality of what women have to deal with is very difficult, what of reality? Does reality gives one rip about one’s opinion of how they feel about a topic or not? Here is the message that I want to deliver to you Chels and anyone in your cohort. Once your hamster starts running, then it has to keep running to avoid the pain of reality. Is that the sort of life you want for yourself? Look at the amount of posts on this thread and others which Dalrock has, understand this right now that D has no ulterior motive, he just wants to see the truth. The sad thing; those who wish to remain in fantasy have a very hard time with Dalrock due to the fact that all he or others have to do once faced with obviously erroneous information is point to the stats and keep right keeping on.
In other words, how hard is it to keep your life on the staight and narrow sort to speak when you have to argue that the sun is blue and not yellow to the naked eye?
BTW, has anyone not noticed that D is an absolute bulldog when it comes to stats? If you really want to protect Hamsterland, then baiting Dalrock by commenting on things which you would like to see, rather than what is actually real isn’t the way to get the job done. If you post crap, the man is going to research it to see if it’s true and post the results….just sayin. If those results make you look like a numpty, then you are in the wrong no matter what you wish to say or do about it.
Thag Jones once said something to me which I will never forget, “I’d rather be told the ugly truth than a pretty lie.” Some in your life would rather try to make others believe the pretty lie than see the ugly truth. You have already pointed out who some of those people are, and any lurker here can recognize who they may be. The danger are those who try to take these people at their word thinking that this is the way to success. I have a few friends and acquaintances who have made that mistake…if they ended up like DH…they would be lucky and that is no lie. For some of them, it’s already too late and children are nothing more than a pipe dream for them…I’m not making that up whatsoever.
I’m simply going to tell you one more thing Chels, that you have no idea just how hard some will work in order to protect their inner hamster. I have nothing to gain by telling you this. I’m already married and happily so, I’m just a NAM who is astounded at the amount of cojones and common sense you possess at such a young age. Yes, for some this isn’t just an argument or debate, but you represent a threat to them and their perspective or an opportunity to persuade you. If they win you over to their way of thinking, they bolster their own hamster and they can feel a little better about themselves and their own life choices. I’m not saying to listen to me or anyone else here on this blog, I’m saying to take a grain of salt with every bit of advice you ever get and try to get to the bottom of what it was that you have been told.
FYI, the peeps who are telling you the truth have no issue telling you do to so as with a little common sense research you will have little issue arriving to the reality of the situation.
“The fact that anyone can argue that current laws are *not* preposterously rigged against the man, is stunning (but shows how most women have little to no capacity for reciprocity or fairness).”
And that is the main failing of feminism. It doesn’t take very much common sense to realize the blatant injustice that feminism has wrought, and it;s very telling that so many gender equalists don’t seem to see the issues at hand. Unfortunately this tells people one thing; not that they don’t see the issues, that one don’t want to see them. So when one is complaining about the issue of one gender running the world, the very ignorance one uses to overlook the issues of the other gender is the very reason why another wasn’t deemed fit to rule, even as a partnership.
By looking at what it is one deems an issue while ignoring the rest, one is proving the old stereotype of listening to women being a fool’s errand correct. Just as a preempt, if equality was really the goal some state that they are after, then putting quotes over men’s issues (i.e.’divorce theft’) or ignoring the very real problems men face undermine your credibility no matter what it is you type or state.
Bluntly, you are doing a better job undermining your own position and eroding the credibility of yourself and your order then an anti-feminist could ever hope for. Keep up the good work, your doing the manosphere’s job for us.
“By looking at what it is one deems an issue while ignoring the rest, one is proving the old stereotype of listening to women being a fool’s errand correct.”
I just wanted to add one more thing, I find it very sad that the amount of women who actually care about the needs of men seem to number in the minority whilst the majority seem very satisfied to allow the current paradigm to continue or to pursue supremacy over men. I’ve had my share of working with able female co-workers, they do indeed exist, but the sad thing is a good portion can’t hang but have little to worry about due to current circumstances.
“FYI, the peeps who are telling you the truth have no issue telling you do to so as with a little common sense research you will have little issue arriving to the reality of the situation. ”
I will say that for Chels (and any young women listening) the advices to avoid are for women that are: unmarried, divorced (again unless she had a good reason like abuse or cheating or infertility on his part or her part), married late (unless she had a good reason and still I will say that any woman that is not married or/and engaged by 30 is probably a red flag of feminism indoctrination most women know that the 30’s are way to old age to start to get to know the future father of their children), childfree by choice, proud slut.
Those are usually signs of feminism indoctrination and bad advices. But I’m pretty sure Chels has the best example of what not to do in her mother that surely will give her a fair warning the moment any other “like my mom” woman enters she is probably will ignore her.
And left-wing feminists vs. ‘traditional’ conservatives both have virtually the same position that the costs of a failed marriage should be exclusively borne by the man.
Another error in your thinking.
Feminism has destroyed the family and all the security that it affords and, in doing so, eaten her own young.
Agreed. Btw nice seeing you here grerp =)
While I strongly disagree with Doomed Harlot on a number of issues, specifically her effort to make young women comfortable with the idea of casual sex
Truly? That’s astounding. I’m fortunate to be nearly 19 years old and not yet fooled nor digested such worldviews into my system from whichever source.
I have to quite this marathon thread soon, though I appreciate everyone’s indulgence. I also appreciate Kathy’s kind words and Dalrock’s efforts to keep this discussion on the straight and narrow. (In defense of those who criticized my personal life, I did make it an issue of discussion by using myself as an example.)
I did want to address Grerp’s comment about the difficulties of adoption. Sure, the “supply” of unwanted infants is down because of not only abortion, but reliable birth control and sex education. (Also, I imagine the reduced stigma of unmarried motherhood has allowed more young, unwed mothers to keep their babies, often with family help they might not have gotten in previous generations.) I simply can’t fathom a mindset that says we should encourage the birth of lots of unwanted babies so that affluent, infertile couples can get their paws on them. I may want a baby but I have no moral right whatsoever to insist that other women be forced to give birth so that I can satisfy my desire for a child. My husband’s infertility (and possibly mine, if I’m too old) is our problem, no one else’s.
You know, this is a great opportunity to address the notion that feminism is about “selfishness.” Feminism says that as a woman I have an equal right with men to self-determination, autonomy and control over my own life. But it only gives me a say over my own life, not that of other women. To demand a supply of babies from poor, troubled, young woman would be an incredibly monstrous form of selfishness.
I also support the notions of open adoption and continued contact between a child and its biological parents. No, on a personal level, I totally dislike like the idea of third parties I don’t know being involved in my family. But, again I think my desires are the least important thing here. I recognize that my child and its biological parents may have an interest in continued contact, and that should be accommodated even if it is not desirable or convenient for me. (My husband and I also feel strongly that a donor-conceived child should have the opportunity for contact with the biological father, so we are going with an open donor who agrees to be contacted when the child is 18, if the child chooses.)
To demand a supply of babies from poor, troubled, young woman would be an incredibly monstrous form of selfishness.
For the record, I don’t believe young, fertile women should be “made to bear” so that I can have a child. What I do believe is that before feminism, the supply of available children was enough for would be adoptive parents because most families had children already. There really weren’t that many children without families because casual, premarital sex wasn’t preached from the housetops, resulting in large numbers of illegitimate births. A small number of women had illegitimate babies and were strongly encouraged to place them for adoption for the benefit of the child who would grow up in a stronger family, with a father and be given all the advantages a family like that could provide. Wow, what a horrible system. So oppressive.
Now, I will agree that it was probably horrible for a woman to be wrenched apart from a child she birthed, and that many women suffered emotionally from this (feminists may disagree; many of them seem to think that women feel free and happy when aborting and that full-term babies are entirely disposable; see: partial-birth abortion). I support a child’s right to know where he came from and a woman’s right to know what happened to her child. Fortunately under the old system, this was relatively rare as women mostly conformed to expectation, an expectation that was actually in their own interest. Instead of living in poverty the rest of their lives and struggling to find a husband who would agree to raising her child, instead of being stressed by the necessity of providing everything two-parent or multi-generational families provide entirely by herself, failing to do so, and taking her anger out on her child for being hard to raise – no, harder – she was free marry, have more children, get an education, work, whatever.
I have two further points in regards to this:
1) Many children might have preferred to have been born and adopted rather than killed in utero. We will never know. Approximately half of those children were female. Do not they have rights?
2) I very likely would not have had infertility problems if I had married earlier and started having children earlier. But, no, I was indoctrinated like all the other girls of my generation. Home Ec was too sexist for a girl like me to take in school. I had to take Physics and Calculus, neither of which I’ve used since I finished those classes in high school/college. I had to have a career, which in my case was code for “a job that paid decent enough wages that I could have supported myself.” I spent 6 years in college for a job that I never made more than $35,000/year. I didn’t mind working, but it didn’t fulfill me. Many of the tasks my job as a children’s librarian required of me were tasks I would have done at home with my own children in a previous age: read to them, do crafts with them, educate them. For the great opportunity to cut figures out of construction paper, catalog picture books, and read to other people’s children, I postponed thinking seriously about marriage until I was in my mid-twenties. A few years later I was married and trying to have a baby, but by then I had endometriosis. Fun times.
So now I have a degree/job experience that I can’t really use because library budgets are getting slashed everywhere. And I don’t even really want to use it because I like being at home working for my family and taking care of the one child I have, the child I had to go through 5 years of infertility and a very stressful adoption process to have.
I am SO grateful to feminism for providing me with everything I ever wanted.
The reason why I pounced on DH is because she reminds me of my mother’s support network during the divorce; her friends were either single (not by choice, though they pretended they were) or unhappily married women, even though they often bragged about how great it is to be in equal marriages (meaning she was in charge), and how bad my mother had it because my father wasn’t a feminist, like their own husbands (their husbands weren’t feminists either, they were just scared shit of them so they did as told).
These women were all like DH, they were all feminists, they were all careerwomen, but they were also bitter, lonely and honestly, pathetic. They all tried to convice my mother how she could be so much more happy if she would just leave my father, that she didn’t need a husband, she didn’t need her kids, how her husband is oppressing her by not doing half the housework, how she could be independent, how she could have an awesome social life, how her life is a drudgery, and how the men would be lining up. What they forgot to mention and what my mother was too blind to see was that all these women were miserable, their lives sucked, they were jealous of her and they would have loved to be in my mother’s position–upper middle class lifestyle, 2 kids and boring, but loyal husband (to quote Dalrock). They also tried to get me to convert, but I have my father’s stubborness and sharp tongue, so they left me alone.
My mother swallowed what they told her, and she left. Is she happier now than when she was married to my father? No way, she’s alone, she’s miserable, she has to work harder and what’s the worst is that her so called friends abandoned her after the divorce because they got what they wanted–they managed to destroy her family.
So when DH says that feminism is about the sisterhood and promoting women’s interests, I jumped and just want to shake her so she’d wake up to reality, which is that feminism is a hate movement. I may be going too far with this but I feel that feminism is either for the single women or the lesbians, no way it’s for the family. And I wish that feminists would realize that their choices have consequences, and most often than not, they’re really bad, that not all choices are equally good and that being a feminist does not lead to happiness.
Grerp,
I see. You are saying that the DEMAND for babies would not be as great but for feminism.
The corollary to freedom and opportunity is that people sometimes make choices they regret. That’s life. Feminists can’t guarantee you (or any other woman) a perfect, happy life with all of your particular wants falling neatly into place; nor can it tell you what you as an individual may want out of life. All feminism can give you is an opportunity to pursue happiness. The rest is up to you. Obviously there is a risk of not figuring out in time what makes you happy or how to get it. I am glad you ultimately were able to work it out, even though the process was difficult for you.
But you know, the life path you would encourage women to follow can just as easily lead to terrible regrets.
You also discuss regret in the context of abortion. And yeah sure, no kidding, some women may regret having an abortion. But plenty of women don’t. Sure, you can argue to outlaw abortion because you believe the fetus’s interests should trump the woman’s. Fine. But to argue that women need to be protected from the possible emotional feelings they MIGHT experience as a result of their own decisions is to essentially treat women like incompetent children.
Chels,,
I am sorry you had to experience a rough divorce in your family.
First off, your mother’s friends sound obnoxious if it is truly the case that they tried to talk her into being discontented with a life she otherwise would have been happy with. In contrast, I think an important feminist principle is to assume women are competent human beings who can manage their own lives. If I have a homemaker friend (and I actually do have a few such friends), I am not going to insult her by dissing her life, even if I think her husband is an overbearing jerk, unless I had reason to think she was being abused. I am going to assume that she went into the situation with her eyes open and that she can deal with it herself. I would never weigh in unless asked to do so, and only then, very carefully.
But I have to confess myself skeptical that these friends were the architects of your parents’ divorce. I can’t imagine that anyone could convince your mother to doing something as drastic as divorcing your father unless she already wanted to do so. It seems more likely that they were merely commiserating with complaints she had herself and that they supported her in a decision she made on her own. That may be upsetting to you too, but I think it’s a bit of a caricature to portray them as viciously insinuating themselves into a good marriage simply out of jealousy. People suck, and I can imagine that “friends” sometimes indulge in a bit of schadenfreude when someone gets divorced, but very few people intentionally go out of their way to wreck someone’s life.
So having an education and working makes one a feminist now? My great grandmother had a bachelor’s degree, and she was a teacher. My grandmother was an accountant. Were they feminists now too? *rolls eyes*
And you’re right, I couldn’t have done the same work 100 years ago because the field that I work in wasn’t yet invented (marketing). Could I have worked in other fields? Most definitely.
As well, you didn’t touch any raw nerve, you’re just being obnoxious and using a strawman. Like I said, we have very good reasons for not getting married now, so stop nitpicking.
Yes, DH, you’re the exception and blablablabla. Give me a break!
Chels and I have had our disagreements, but I have watched her comments and thoughts evolve. On this thread, she makes good points and has good insight about what she wants for her future. As to her present situation, I’d like to remind Kathy of the “Law of Gradualism.” This is a uniquely Catholic philosophy…. moving in the right direction, but not yet at the destination. This is what I strive for in my life so I try to encourage others when I see they are doing the same.
I believe that Chels has a faithful heart and sees the pros and cons regarding sex outside of marriage or a committed relationship. Since her faith belief is not the same as mine, I cannot expect her to adhere to my views. After all, I find this difficult enough for myself.
Women very much do support and encourage other women in emotionally justifying and pursuing a bad course (divorce). Women never say, “Stop this nonsense because your thinking is delustional.” Rather, in these situations, women placate and affirm whatever feelings another woman has.
“As for whether being a housewife is exhausting, I’m of two minds on this. It may depend on the woman’s individual situation. Maybe the better word is “time-consuming.” Because every household has Stuff that Must Get Done. The house has to be cleaned, laundry done, the pantry stocked, the bills paid, the lawn mowed, dinner put on the table, and a plethora of other things and that’s not even counting taking of the kids. Somebody has to do this stuff, and it tends to be the woman. That is time that the woman is not spending on her career. That was my point.”
First of all, almost none of the things you mention has a “hard” deadline. There is no particular day, never mind hour or minute, in which the pantry has to be stocked or the lawn mowed and so on (and, usually, the husband mows the lawn anyway). But, yes, in the traditional paradign, the woman did most of these things, and so what? The husband was out busting his ass in the world of wage work, which more than compensated for what the wife was doing. In the new paradign, with both spouses working, there isn’t enough time to do these things, which is why feminists complain about the so called “second shift.” But notice that even if the house and child care work was shared evenly, there would still be a half shift extra for each spouse. Working one and a half shifts every day is no bargain either. Then when one takes into account the cost of working, when both spouses work, ie the increased child care, clothing, transportation and so on costs, it hardly makes sense for both spouses to work. The old system, with a division of labor, is simply more efficient. Under the new system, yes, women still tend to do more of the house and child care work, but again, so what? That’s the way women want it. Women WANT to be the primary child care giver, the “Mommy” if you will. And, partly for that reason, they tend to take jobs with more flexible hours, easier commutes, less job commitment, less stress, and the like. Study after study has shown that, when ALL work is considered (wage, house, outdoor, child care), husbands and wives tend to work almost exactly the same amount of hours. And that does not even consider the obvious truth that wage work is by far the most stressful and taxing of the different kinds of work, and that husbands almost uniformly do more, and harder, wage work (even when both spouses are supposedly working “full time”) than do wives. Yes, being the “Mommy” hampers one’s career. But, again, so what? Women want to be the Mommy, even if they have a full time job. Well, then, duh, of course their career is going to be hampered by that. No one can be in two places at once, and even though employers have bent over backwards (because legally required to or otherwise) in providing “flex” time and part time, maternity leaves and days off for women to attend to their children’s ailments and so on, the simple truth is that a career that is not impeded by the conflicting duties of being the Mommy is more likely to be successful than a career that is so impeded. Mommies are in the office (or whatever the job site is) less than non Mommies (whether they are childless workers or non Mommy parents). And, over time, that tells when it comes to promotions and salary increases. And why shouldn’t it? If non Mommy X is in the office sixty hours a week person X it is only fair, everything else being equal, that non Mommy X is going to get further ahead at work than Mommy Y, who is in the office for thirty five hours.
Your claim is that, somehow, notions that were supposedly taught to young girls decades and decades ago unduly influence the “negotiations” that take place when a couple decides which parent is going to be the Mommy. I think that is BS. No matter how you cut it, no matter how much you keep harkening back, irrelevantly, to what conditions were supposedly like in the fifties, the fact is that, at least since the late sixties, girls have been taught, by every conceivable source of information and education, that they have unlimited opportunities. That biology is not destiny. That they don’t have to have children at all, much less be the “Mommy.” That, in reality, being the Mommy is a BAD choice. But the fact remains that women stil want to be the Mommies. They actually “block” fathers who would “encroach” on their territory, when it comes to child rearing. They refuse, en masse, to marry or even tolerate would be “Mr Moms,” who would happily take on the role of Mommy and let their wives pursue their careers full bore.
No, what feminists want is, as usual, for women to “have it all.” For their choices to have no consequences, or, at least, no negative consequences. A woman should, under your paradign, be able to marry and have kids, and be the Mommy, and yet still be a hard charging hot shot at work. Even though that is not really possible. No one can do two shifts, day after day, year after year, and do either of them well. So, what you and other feminists propose is that, somehow, employers be made to treat Mommies as if they were hard charging hot shots. They must be promoted and given pay raises the same as employees who are actually dedicated to their jobs. Their sporadic, part time and generally ineffective and inefficient contributions at work must be rewarded the same as those of the show up everyday, work long hours when necessary, devote yourself to your job efforts of non Mommy workers. Or that the actual negotiated outcome between couples be overriden (a la Simone de Beauvoir and some Scandanavian countries) and the husband and wife FORCED to share the Mommy role. Or, better yet, that the taxpayers subsidize parents even more than they do already and provide a govenment paid worker to play the role of Mommy so that both parents can be not only “equal” with each other in the workplace but with childless workers as well.
And, notice, these last two “solutions” are not even remotely what women want. Women want to be with their kids. Survey after survey has shown this. That women place this aspect of their existence over success at work. But folks like you just can’t stand that. Like S de B, you feel that such desires, despite or perhaps because of their ultimately biological origins, jeopardize your precious feminist movement. So, you denigrate that choice (even as you pretend to honor it) and you look for excuses, including decades old gender role training that is not even remotely relevant today. And you bemoan the logical, necessary outcome (ie that, even if both spouses work, the focus of the mother is still more on the house and kids and that of the father is still more on wage work) of women’s choices, and seek to make those choices cost free (at least for women).
“I guess I don’t see what your beef is on the military stuff. I oppose gross gender inequalities, of which the draft is obviously a major example. I agree with you. I think women should be drafted. What more do you want?”
For iy to be more than a footnote to your endless diatribes about the supposed inequalities that women face. For it to be more than a grudging admission, only made when prompted, and, at that, embeddied in subject changing and water clouding unsolicited pontifications about militarism or class structure. For it to be more than a gritted teeth, debate ending example “TPHMT” For some sing that you consider it to be at least as real and as important as your made up examples of inequalities that women face.
I”n the past, women routinely died in childbirth and men routinely died in war. Now we’ve solved the childbirth thing, but men still face the possibility of dying in war. That is unfair. I agree with you.”
See what I mean? You can’t even mention a currently existing, grossly unfair example of inequality that hurts men without raising something to balance it out on the female side, even if it has to be in the past tense. What does childbirth have to do with it? And how are the two comparable at all? Society has decided that men, and only men, should face the horrors of war. Biology makes childbirth a female only experience. The two are not only not the same now, but they never were. And, of course, besides being simply a “part of life” that literally cannot be made gender neutral (unlike exposure to war), childbirth is also (from what I’ve been told by countless women) mostly a postitive, even transcendent, experience. So that makes the comparison even more flawed.
“Also reading what you have to say, it looks to me like we agree more than we disagree. You agree that in previous eras, men were in charge at home. You agree that women were denied opportunities in the workplace. You agree that that was unfair. I agree that a housewife today is in a much more egalitarian position in most mainstream households than times past. So, I guess I am not sure what we are arguing about — I guess just the details and the nuances. Honestly, what it comes down to is that I just don’t feel confident that we will never return to the bad old days. I want to hold on to what we have accomplished and working hard professionally is, in my mind, one small way to do that.”
I have no problem with you working as a professional. I just wish you would grant other women the same agency as you grant yourself. Women who choose to be the Mommies do just that. They choose it. Just like you chose to be a professional. They aren’t brainwashed. They aren’t unduly influenced by long ago diktats re gender roles. And that choice comes with natural and justified consequences, some of which are negative. And you should not be in the business of either questioning or overriding that choice, or trying to make it consequence-free.
Personal attacks are never a good thing. Neither are appeals to the audience. But this:
“DH has never put housewives down”
is simply not true. Over and over again, she states that being a housewife is a choice, and one which she would not deny to women, but which is clearly of a lower order than choosing to be a working women. Being a housewife, according to DH, not only is selling one’s own self short, and putting one is a postion of “dependency,” but, worse yet, does nothing to advance the cause of feminsim, which to DH is of the utmost importance.
Feminism, at one time, was explicitly and uncompromisingly anti housewife. Originally, the notion was that beng a housewife was “too easy,” and that women could do “more.” Then the dogma became that being a housewife was being “oppressed.” When the feminists realizedboth that they were insulting and alienating a good deal of their potential consistency, they backed off these stances. Now, being a housewife is a “choice.” Still, it is a distinctly disfavored choice.
Nor is this kind of comment:
“There would be many a happy beta who would be proud as punch be married to a woman like DH.”
useful.
Just as personal attacks add nothing to the conversation, so do expressions of personal approbation.
[D: This thread is out of control. I’ve put Kathy back in comment moderation. I have also deleted some of her comments on this thread. Please don’t respond further to any of her points which were personal/off topic. Thanks.]
Wait, you are only 19? You have a lot to learn, kid.
Certainly I won’t learn anything from you. Don’t call me kid btw. I’m a teenager or a young woman at least.
Kay Hymowitz
Isn’t she that Jewish career woman? Yep I’ve heard of her and have read criticisms about her on the blogosphere.
Sure, the “supply” of unwanted infants is down because of not only abortion, but reliable birth control and sex education. I did want to address Grerp’s comment about the difficulties of adoption.
DH possibly due to “reliable birth control and education” (codeword for sterility, unreliable to harmful birth control and hedonism) the only individuals having easier access to adoption sure aren’t intact nuclear families (biological father, mother and children) since they have been so attacked for their alleged hatred, regression and repression. It’s mostly single women and rich humanitarian celebrities (international interracial adoption in particular) and sometimes homosexuals. It’s like an endless down-spiral cycle. Children are born in broken homes and then continue living in more nightmarish households and digesting “education” which continually tells them that this is a good thing. They are brought believing in boogus environmental dogma, feminism (egalitarianism, rights and autonomy) and multiculturalism.
She is a Tea Party conservative, from her own description. There are also a lot of articles about how Sarah Palin’s brand of feminism is just plain old identity politics (playing the woman card to get special treatment and solicit whiteknighting).
Tea Partiers are libertarians. In other words classical liberals (e.g. right-liberal). Also please I beg of you don’t mention the narcissitic, twit Sarah Palin. She’s not only a fool but an embarassment. I dislike severely the obsession that individuals have for her. She is devoid of substance -> http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/018373.html
Go to The Spearhead and search for two articles
I’ve gone to Spearhead before. Btw while I consider IMF a nihilistic and libertine website which I mostly avoid I was linked to this article from another website and found the article interesting -> http://www.inmalafide.com/blog/2011/09/01/cord-ivanyi-worlds-biggest-mangina-sics-his-students-on-me/
If I could say anything to men at how to treat women today it would be like this:
Treat female strangers neutrally and with indifference
Treat with love and kindness women worthy of these affections
Treat with disdain and dislike women whom deserve it
They all bring their narrow perspectives on board, expecting everyone to adhere to them and criticizing anyone who doesn’t. I would add Jennifer to the list.
Out of touch, the whole bunch.
Former student sues LSE over its ‘gender bias’ against men: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23983895-former-student-sues-lse-over-its-gender-bias-against-men.do
Met ‘caution culture’ lets 16,000 violent criminals avoid courts: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23983892-met-caution-culture-lets-16000-violent-criminals-avoid-courts.do
@TFH. I have explained once and again.
Feminism and so-con women are two branches of the same movement: the pedestalization movement that started during XII century with the troubadours. Its goal: to transfer resources from men into women.
After the pill, the movement split up. The women who tried to stick to traditional transfer from one man to one woman were the so-cons. The women who wanted the transfer to be collective from all men to all women through taxes were the feminists. Women disagree about the means but they agree about the end.
This is why MRA and MGTOW are the only revolutionary movements.
Feminism and so-con women are two branches of the same movement: the pedestalization movement that started during XII century with the troubadours. Its goal: to transfer resources from men into women.
Another misunderstanding. You know I’m starting to think that women’s rights activists (feminists) and men’s rights activists (masculinists) deserve one another. Both of you tend to be liberal in essence and are always blaming traditional conservatives. Both of you also continually mistake traditional conservatives and feminists as one (from men’s rights activists) and traditional conservatives and men’s rights activists as one (from women’s rights activists).
Doomed Harlot is a lefty feminist type. Kathy is a conservative Christian woman with children.
I don’t think Kathy is a misandrist. She doesn’t advocate for cuckolry, adultery, promiscuity and other positions. Yes I know that Hestia and Thag Jones have talked and discussed about liberal infistration of conservatism.
In fact, the conservative Christian woman with a husband and children is the one who managed to behave such as to get herself moderated and her comments deleted.
And? She was probably moderated because she was hostile to Doomed Harlot. I don’t know the exact circumstances of what occured.
Nah. A man should learn Game from Roissy, Roosh, Eric Disco, and others.
Game isn’t the solution in the long-run on a civilizational scale. Game has been adopted to deal with today’s feral, liberated women without changing them. It’s better for men to avoid these women at all in their personal lives or better yet find a good woman.
This is why MRA and MGTOW are the only revolutionary movements.
Men’s rights activists I’m slightly in doubt because they follow the line of thinking about civil rights, autonomy and human rights. I think MGTOW is far more revolutionary.
liberal infistration of conservatism
Apologies I meant infiltration.
Another misunderstanding. You know I’m starting to think that women’s rights activists (feminists) and men’s rights activists (masculinists) deserve one another. Both of you tend to be liberal in essence and are always blaming traditional conservatives.
.
Alce, how about making an argument next time? Do you think we are in the times when telling “you are a liberal” meant the end of the discussion?
.
By the way, I am not a liberal at all. And conservatives are too left- wing for me. I don’t believe in labels but in arguments. But if you have this need of putting people in little boxes, call me a reactionary. But next time, instead of using labels, try to discuss the topic.
About conservatives, I think they are a bunch of delusional fools. They want that people go back to the 50s sexual morality, but while keeping all the things that made 50s sexual morality to disappear: for example, women’s working, voting, alimony, child support, etc.
Even more, their representatives support laws that destroy traditional family (like all the laws favoring women all these years in sexual harassment, affirmative quotas, divorce courts) and then claim that traditional family is lost and talk about “family values”. Give me a break.
It’s not that they are hypocritical, it’s that they are fools. In the eyes of conservatives, women are good and men must be civilized by them. See: http://www.amazon.com/Men-Marriage-George-Gilder/dp/0882894447 Men are always responsible. It’s always about blaming men and defending women. So yes, I agree with all TFH had said about misandry.
How many times have you seen a conservative say that modern women are sluts? I will give a dollar every time you heard this. How many times have you see a conservative say that modern men are commitment-phobic? Give me a dollar every time you heard this. I will end up millionaire.
I ran off to play yesterday and didn’t see the rest of the common thread until now (over my breakfast on my way to work). Just wanted to acknowledge that I read everything even if I don’t have a chance to respond. I do feel (mildly?) guilty for wreaking havoc on poor Dalrock’s thread when he probably just wanted to relax with his family over the long weekend.
[D: No need to feel guilty. You weren’t the source of the problem.]
Oh, DH…. We love you, dear. Without your arguments, we would have nothing but fish to shoot. It makes me, for one, happy to listen to thoughtful – well usually – commentary like yours. It makes discussion with others a little sharper…
DH
I second Dan’s comments. This site would be so boring without you, and I, for one, love arguing (especially with feminists) so don’t leave 🙂
Alcest, stop trying to put people in boxes. I tend toward liberalism, but I have conservative views towards family, so in your narrow world, I don’t fit in your categories. As well, I dislike traditionalists and feminists because they’re both arrogant, they both think they have the answers and that if people would just do as they say, the world would be perfect.
In my opinion, everyone is free to do whatever they want, they can be homemakers, they can be careerwomen, they can be bachelors for life, they can be traditionalists, whatever, I really don’t care. All I want is accountability, and people to take responsibility for their own actions; to accept that their choices don’t always have good consequences, instead of blaming it on various other people and spreading propaganda.
A good friend of mine hates his sister with a passion, because he’s had to bust his ass his whole life and she’s gotten by with a wink and a smile.
On the other hand, men can play this expectation for fun and profit. I’ve noticed that a very effective pickup neg is to jokingly tell an intelligent woman “you’re too pretty to be a [scientist/lawyer/PhD/anything intellectual]. It will create emotional energy, and cause her to qualify herself to prove she is intelligent.
Heh heh.
“Nowadays, any woman who wants to be pretty instead of useful should feel free to be.”
I love this phrase. It really describes the basic life choice women have. I choose to spend my time with useful women, many of which are pretty in a practical way. I tease or ignore the non-useful.
Note: I’m AlcestisEshtemoa. My Internet isn’t opening for my WordPress account so I’m using this one.
First TFH dodging what main points? That commenters such as yourself continually denigrate good bloggers like Laura Wood? I don’t need to learn anything from you. Alude to my age one more time and I will shut my mind completely to your arguments.
Second imnobody where exactly did I wanted to shut you up? That says more about yourself than anything I’ve ever written.
Third Chels I’m not ”putting anybody in boxes”. There’s a taxonomy and a range on the Right. Left, moderate and right is first decided and analysed on the core and then on the range. If you’re conservative on family and liberal on other things than who knows maybe you’re a fiscal liberal/social conservative range. I don’t know.
@ imnobody
“How many times have you seen a conservative say that modern women are sluts? I will give a dollar every time you heard this.”
Actually some do, but they just blame men for it. Since they think women are all sweet, pure angels who never have sexual thoughts or desires, and only use sex to get what they really want from men, which is true love.
(Funny though how all the girls just happen to want “true love” from the quarterback or expert guitar player who all the other girls want too. Must be some amazing coincidence I guess.)
At the risk of joining a nearly dead thread, I must point out that Doomed Harlot (Poseur) is simply wrong about affirmative action / “diversity”. It is a fact of life in every Fortune 500 corporation, in every level of government right down to the smallest town, and in virtually all companies with any number of employees above the cutoff (50 or so, if I remember right, but I could be wrong). So most law practices are exempt from AA, how convenient.
And it’s hardly new. A relative of mine was a mid level manager for a Fortune 500 corporation for many years. Once, in the 90’s, he recalled the day that he was informed of two new requirements for hiring, effective immediately: henceforth, 10% of all new hires would be black, and henceforth no mention of race would be allowed on job applications. He still regarded it with anger, because in his opinion the two goals were mutually exclusive. And when did this occur? Well, it was one of Nixon’s actions – circa 1971.
Yes, that’s right, 1971. The year Doomed Harlot (Poseur) was born. So Affirmative Action, first for black people, and soon after expanded to include women, has been in existence for all of her life. To claim, as she does, that 40 years of history didn’t happen, is rather interesting.
Now, this ties right back up to the top. Because AA, however it was intended, has become a mixed blessing to a curse. I know competent women in technical fields who are forever re-proving themselves, because some of the other women in those fields were promoted not on competence, but the basis of chromosomes. Everyone likes to pretend there are no quotas for AA, and yet many, many people at the line management level or higher know perfectly well that is simply not true. Standards for women to be promoted are often much lower than standards for men, in order to make the numbers that higher management needs to satisfy top management and the legal department. Because numbers are all that matter, ultimately, to the Feds. And yes, DH(P), the Feds do indeed take an active interest in nose-counting at companies, from multinational to the local convenience store chain.
AA means that some number of women, who are not competent for their jobs, have their “homework” done by someone else, and it’s usually a man. Thus I return to the top of the thread.
How many times have you seen a conservative say that modern women are sluts? I will give a dollar every time you heard this.
I say this all the time. You owe whoever you were talking to $1.
Actually some do, but they just blame men for it. Since they think women are all sweet, pure angels who never have sexual thoughts or desires, and only use sex to get what they really want from men, which is true love.
Nope, not me. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, women are the gate keepers. Although men bear some responsibility too, if women are going to keep giving it away to thugs for free, what’s a nice guy to do but learn to play the game or be celibate forever? And whose fault is that? The vast number of sluts who ruin it for the rest of us. Again, thanks a lot ugly feminists.
-Thag, conservative female, not an ugly feminist.
Also, LOL at thinking women are pure sexual creatures, etc.. L.O.L. What a ridiculous stereotype you posit.
Oh, and with regard to the increasingly lopsided ratio of women to men in higher education, DH(P), it’s an ongoing discussion. The problem is, Title IX as enforced since the Clinton administration pretty much makes any affirmative efforts to recruit men via overt “male preference” illegal – a violation of the Civil Rights Act. Attempting to make universities more attractive to men by increasing opportunities for NCAA sports? Also illegal under Title IX as currently enforced. The “Chronicle of Higher Education” has run a number of articles on the issue off and on for a while now. But the Reviving Ophelia crowd, feminists all, does not see any problem with fewer and fewer men in higher education – ditto, so far as I know, the AAUW (American Association of University Women).
This is merely another in a long line of examples demonstrating that feminism is not, and never has been, about equality, but rather female supremacy.
Anonymous Reader,
Title VII prohibits discrimination based on race or sex, as well as other categories. Any affirmative action plan that imposes a quota is likely to run afoul of Title VII.
That said, you’re right that there are instances when the EEOC can come sniffing around workforce does not reflect the general demographics of the population. I have represented private companies that have been investigated by the EEOC (usually in response to an employee complaint) as well as federal contractors who have been audited for their compliance with affirmative action laws. (As I mentioned above, federal contractors are the one category of employer in the U.S. that is subject to affirmative action laws). Generally, it was just a matter of showing that the demographics were skewed because the pool of qualified applicants was all white, or all male, or under 40 or whatever. In the case of federal contractors, it is often just a matter of showing that you will do more to reach out to possible pools of minority or female applicants. Granted, this can be a pain in the ass to show, but it is a helluva a lot easier than intentionally promoting hiring or promoting unqualified minority workers, or dealing with Title VII claims from whites or men who feel they’ve been discriminated against. I have never come across a company that has any sort of quota system or systems for favoring minority and female applicants.
I am not sure what you are referring to Richard Nixon having done in 1971. Google tells me that was the year he established a federal office for assisting minority-owned businesses, so maybe that’s what you mean.
no companies favouring minorities or females. phew. thanks for clearing that up.
about 50% of the small number of companies I’ve worked for have actively discriminated in favour of females, and female minorities. minority male workers don’t seem to be so fashionable. I wouldn’t say the remainder didn’t, but would say that I never noticed any explicit proof of it occuring.
Title VII prohibits discrimination based on race or sex, as well as other categories. Any affirmative action plan that imposes a quota is likely to run afoul of Title VII.
Uh huh. I’m certain that every AA / diversity plan in the country on paper does not impose quotas. On the other hand, I know what people who actually work in real companies, with real HR departments, have told me. And it’s not the same world as in a law practice.
That said, you’re right that there are instances when the EEOC can come sniffing around workforce does not reflect the general demographics of the population.
Thank you for admitting that your previous claim was false.
I have represented private companies that have been investigated by the EEOC (usually in response to an employee complaint) as well as federal contractors who have been audited for their compliance with affirmative action laws. (As I mentioned above, federal contractors are the one category of employer in the U.S. that is subject to affirmative action laws).
What you mentioned above was this:
Affirmative action is irrelevant. First, at least in the U.S., it exists only in two narrow categories (government contracts and college admissions)
That statement is not the same as what you just said. You are admitting that your previous statement was simply wrong. Minority 8-A set asides, as in “government contracts” are vastly different from the machinery of AA that permeates all levels of government, including State and local governments. The reality is not what you see from your tiny legal ivory tower.
Generally, it was just a matter of showing that the demographics were skewed because the pool of qualified applicants was all white, or all male, or under 40 or whatever. In the case of federal contractors, it is often just a matter of showing that you will do more to reach out to possible pools of minority or female applicants. Granted, this can be a pain in the ass to show, but it is a helluva a lot easier than intentionally promoting hiring or promoting unqualified minority workers, or dealing with Title VII claims from whites or men who feel they’ve been discriminated against.
Oh, really? Then I guess that there was no need for Bakke or Grutter at all? Because such things could never, ever happen? Please note that so far as I can tell, U Mich has not substantially changed its policies despite the USSC opinion issued in Grutter. Yes, this is in regard to college admissions, but if you think the same thing does not go on in employment, you are either naive or ideologically blinkered.
I have never come across a company that has any sort of quota system or systems for favoring minority and female applicants.
I’m sure that you have never come across such a company with a formal, written system. If you did, would you admit it?, I am skeptical. In any event, surely you are aware that there can be a pretty big gulf between the official, written policy, and the unofficial, actual policy.
I have known line and mid level managers who have been told, obviously with no paper trail, to either hire a certain number of minorities to the next N vacancies, or start looking for another job. Period. It’s that simple, in some places, and some situations. You surely won’t believe it, because it doesn’t fit in with your ideology. Doesn’t matter, reality is what it is: I know what I have seen and heard.
I am not sure what you are referring to Richard Nixon having done in 1971. Google tells me that was the year he established a federal office for assisting minority-owned businesses, so maybe that’s what you mean.
If memory serves, that’s the year when he first imposed AA on a Federal agency. However I could be wrong on that. But you should be aware that not everything is searchable via the likes of Google.
Anonymous Reader, You can’t just say I made a false claim when I didn’t make a false claim. I never said anything to contrary to the idea that the EEOC looks at the demographics of hires. But the issue is whether there is discrimination, not whether you have met a magic quota of a certain number of women or minorities.
Now, that said, you did catch me in an erroneous statement. I should have said that the two categories where affirmative action applies is government employment across the board (not just private government contractors) and college admissions. I was thinking only in terms of private employers, so my bad.
Of course, I have a sense that you don’t really understand the concept of “arguing in good faith,” which means acknowledging and correcting inaccuracies in one’s own claims. Instead, you will use my good faith as an opportunity to scream, “You are wrongity, wrongity WRONG about everything!!!!” You would be wiser to say, “Thanks for your good faith acknowledgment that the government uses affirmative action — a category that affects a huge number of employees in the U.S. Given that that’s the case, that supports my point that blah blah blah.”
On the university stuff, I am not responding to you at the moment because I think it’s a complicated issue that requires a lot of thought. I think diversity is a valuable end in itself in an educational environment, so I wouldn’t want numbers skewed 60-40 female-male, or too few minorities, etc. I don’t necessarily have a problem with trying to keep the gender ratios even. But I think we also need to figure out why there is a gender disparity in the first place. I don’t think it’s just a matter of “Misandry in the public schools!!!”
But I think we also need to figure out why there is a gender disparity in the first place. I don’t think it’s just a matter of “Misandry in the public schools!!!”
This is hilarious, coming from a feminist who’s first reaction is to blame misogyny for everything–why aren’t there more female professors? sexism! why aren’t there more female politicians? sexism! why aren’t there more girls in science? sexism! why do girls play with pink toys? sexism! why do a lot of women prefer to be housewives? sexism! And so on, you get my point.
Considering that our education system has been changed to accommodate various groups, and that masculinity is frowned upon and tried to be medicated away in schools (active boy? must have ADHD; boys that like to play with swords/guns/etc? serial killer in the making)
Boys have a disadvantage in schools (including lack of male role models), and feminists ought to really pay attention to this. But instead, they live in lala land and try to look for other things, even when the truth is staring them right in the face.
@Elizabeth Smith
Second imnobody where exactly did I wanted to shut you up? That says more about yourself than anything I’ve ever written
Haha, nice try, Elizabeth. I never said that you wanted to shut me up (everybody can read it). So you are criticizing what you are doing. And yes, this speaks volumes about you (projection, projection).
But don’t think it’s so easy to dodge an argument with an “ad hominem”. I still repeat what I have said: you have no argument and talking about me is not an argument.
Next time, try harder. Try to bring an argument to the table.
Doomed Harlot, I was thinking about this education thing a few months back and looked up the top performing schools in the UK. Even amongst the traditional public (or I guess you’d say private Stateside) and independent schools, on the whole, girls seem to be outperforming boys in exam results.
These schools can teach how they like. Yes, they have to do the same exams, GCSEs at 16, and A Levels at 18 (though some of them also do International Baccalaureate as they think standards for A levels have fallen) but they are allowed to teach how they like.
Schools like Harrow are not likely to be hotbeds of misandry. And very much mainly staffed by masters. Other schools like Westminster do take in girls at sixth form (post GCSE) but from speaking to some recent sixthformers there (they’ve just finished A levels), there weren’t that many girls and they found it very male geared.
I read an article recently that the gender disparity in the UK could possibly be partly explained by boys maturing 2 years later, as by the time A levels come around, boys have caught up as they take it more seriously etc.
That’s across the board though across public and state schools of all levels so I think there may be some selection bias. In the less academic state schools, a lot of boys seem to drop out at 16. I think there are plans afoot to bring compulsory education up to 18 or 19 but that will include vocational.
Anecdotally, a neighbour with a 16 year old son who goes to a very good state school but it’s a mixed one (again most of top state schools tend to be single sex and again the girls ones outperform the boys at exam results) and she made the point that she tries to get him to be friends with girls as ‘as he’s a boy none of his friends revise’.
Chels, I can easily turn this around on you and say that exclamations of “misandry” are hilarious coming from people who deny that sexism has any impact on the lives of women.
That said, yeah, I think a culture that insists on a dichotomy between the sexes (and our culture still harbors these attitudes even today) will have a negative impact on boys and men, as well as girls and women. You give a great example of that in terms of the “lack of male role models” in school. Teaching is viewed as “a women’s profession” and its poor pay and lack of prestige in our culture is unlikely to attract a lot of men any time soon. It would be nice to find a solution to that issue. I think Teach for America managed to draw a healthy number of male participants.
I am not convinced that the diagnosis and medication of ADHD means that educators frown on “masculinity.” 200 years ago a kid who wouldn’t still and mindlessly copy endless lines would have been beaten by his teacher, and I don’t think you could say schoolmasters hated masculinity during that era. I suspect any overprescription of medications is a symptom of the common desire of adults to seek easy fixes to discipline problems. It used to be corporal punishment, now it’s medication. (Actually, we are still using both CP and medications, given that CP is still legal in public schools in a number of U.S. states.)
There are some other potential culprits too in the current gender disparity in higher education: (1) In the U.S., anti-intellectualism pervades much of our culture and reading is still seen in many quarters as a “girly” or unmasculine activity, and therefore undesirable for boys; (2) the opportunities for lucrative employment without a college degree (such as skilled construction work or plumbing) tend to be seen as more appropriate for men and boys; and (3)many families still see educating their sons in terms of their sons potential role as a provider, whereas girls are more encouraged to explore things like the liberal arts, which are often (erroneously) viewed as unlikely to lead to profitable work.
Before anyone jumps on me, I’m just interested in what the reasons are (and there may be several and they may vary), I have no irons in the fire.
I definitely agree that intentional misandry is not the only reason for boys lagging behind, but I do believe that it does play a role. I know that in England, working class White boys have the lowest performance among all other groups.
A study from Statistics Canada found that boys do indeed have lower performance and they drop out more frequently (15% male vs 9% female). What this study found is specific gender differences:
Higher proportions of young women than young men judged their skills to be very good/excellent in reading and writing and to a somewhat lesser extent, in communication skills. In contrast, larger proportions of young men rated their problem-solving, math and computer skills as being stronger than young women did.
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/81-004-x/200410/7423-eng.htm
__________________
Here’s another study, this time from the UK, that found:
Although poor attainment is concentrated in the lower income groups, the gender gap persists to the detriment of boys across all social classes and ethnic groups. And as this week’s dismal primary school test results reveal, boys are sinking farther and farther behind.
A depressing 40 per cent of boys will begin secondary school unable to write fluently and correctly, compared with 25 per cent of girls.
The reasons for the gender gap, according to the study, are numerous, one being the method of evaluation:
Boys’ educational achievement began to lag behind girls from the late Eighties – around the time GCSEs replaced O-levels. There were warnings that the new qualification, with its emphasis on course work rather than final exams, would favour girls – and so it has proved.
Teenage girls tend to be more conscientious and dedicated to long-term projects, while boys are better at cramming and thrive in the adrenaline-fuelled arena of the exam.
Another reason is the lack of male teachers
One in four primaries in England has not a single man on the staff, although there is little disagreement among educationists that male primary teachers can have a powerful and positive impact on children, particularly boys.
Experienced teachers will privately admit that the predominance of women is influencing teaching styles to the detriment of boys. Take English, where teachers will quite naturally opt for texts they themselves have enjoyed. The fact is that boys are not captivated by stories about relationships and emotions.
Another reason is that masculinity is frowned upon in schools:
Boys also suffer in today’s results-driven classrooms because of their sheer physical energy. Many have to burn off great natural reserves of energy before they can settle down to anything quiet – be it study or sleep.
As well, boys don’t always catch up, even though it is assumed they would
But where in the past it was recognised that boys completely catch up by the final years of primary school, and put on an intellectual spurt in late adolescence that places them on a par with girls, too often these days the initial disadvantage becomes permanent.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1205106/The-REAL-gender-gap-scandal-Why-boys-true-victims-discrimination.html
I definitely agree that intentional misandry is not the only reason for boys lagging behind, but I do believe that it does play a role. I know that in England, working class White boys have the lowest performance among all other groups.
A study from Statistics Canada found that boys do indeed have lower performance and they drop out more frequently (15% male vs 9% female). What this study found is specific gender differences:
Higher proportions of young women than young men judged their skills to be very good/excellent in reading and writing and to a somewhat lesser extent, in communication skills. In contrast, larger proportions of young men rated their problem-solving, math and computer skills as being stronger than young women did.
http:// www. statcan.gc.ca/pub/81-004-x/200410/7423-eng.htm
__________________
Here’s another study, this time from the UK, that found:
Although poor attainment is concentrated in the lower income groups, the gender gap persists to the detriment of boys across all social classes and ethnic groups. And as this week’s dismal primary school test results reveal, boys are sinking farther and farther behind.
A depressing 40 per cent of boys will begin secondary school unable to write fluently and correctly, compared with 25 per cent of girls.
The reasons for the gender gap, according to the study, are numerous, one being the method of evaluation:
Boys’ educational achievement began to lag behind girls from the late Eighties – around the time GCSEs replaced O-levels. There were warnings that the new qualification, with its emphasis on course work rather than final exams, would favour girls – and so it has proved.
Teenage girls tend to be more conscientious and dedicated to long-term projects, while boys are better at cramming and thrive in the adrenaline-fuelled arena of the exam.
Another reason is the lack of male teachers
One in four primaries in England has not a single man on the staff, although there is little disagreement among educationists that male primary teachers can have a powerful and positive impact on children, particularly boys.
Experienced teachers will privately admit that the predominance of women is influencing teaching styles to the detriment of boys. Take English, where teachers will quite naturally opt for texts they themselves have enjoyed. The fact is that boys are not captivated by stories about relationships and emotions.
Another reason is that masculinity is frowned upon in schools:
Boys also suffer in today’s results-driven classrooms because of their sheer physical energy. Many have to burn off great natural reserves of energy before they can settle down to anything quiet – be it study or sleep.
As well, boys don’t always catch up, even though it is assumed they would
But where in the past it was recognised that boys completely catch up by the final years of primary school, and put on an intellectual spurt in late adolescence that places them on a par with girls, too often these days the initial disadvantage becomes permanent.
http:// www. dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1205106/The-REAL-gender-gap-scandal-Why-boys-true-victims-discrimination.html
* Remove the spaces in the links so they can work
I definitely agree that intentional misandry is not the only reason for boys lagging behind, but I do believe that it does play a role. I know that in England, working class White boys have the lowest performance among all other groups.
A study from Statistics Canada found that boys do indeed have lower performance and they drop out more frequently (15% male vs 9% female). What this study found is specific gender differences:
Higher proportions of young women than young men judged their skills to be very good/excellent in reading and writing and to a somewhat lesser extent, in communication skills. In contrast, larger proportions of young men rated their problem-solving, math and computer skills as being stronger than young women did.
http:// www. statcan.gc.ca/pub/81-004-x/200410/7423-eng.htm
__________________
Here’s another study, this time from the UK, that found:
Although poor attainment is concentrated in the lower income groups, the gender gap persists to the detriment of boys across all social classes and ethnic groups. And as this week’s dismal primary school test results reveal, boys are sinking farther and farther behind.
A depressing 40 per cent of boys will begin secondary school unable to write fluently and correctly, compared with 25 per cent of girls.
The reasons for the gender gap, according to the study, are numerous, one being the method of evaluation:
Boys’ educational achievement began to lag behind girls from the late Eighties – around the time GCSEs replaced O-levels. There were warnings that the new qualification, with its emphasis on course work rather than final exams, would favour girls – and so it has proved.
Teenage girls tend to be more conscientious and dedicated to long-term projects, while boys are better at cramming and thrive in the adrenaline-fuelled arena of the exam.
Another reason is the lack of male teachers
One in four primaries in England has not a single man on the staff, although there is little disagreement among educationists that male primary teachers can have a powerful and positive impact on children, particularly boys.
Experienced teachers will privately admit that the predominance of women is influencing teaching styles to the detriment of boys. Take English, where teachers will quite naturally opt for texts they themselves have enjoyed. The fact is that boys are not captivated by stories about relationships and emotions.
Another reason is that masculinity is frowned upon in schools:
Boys also suffer in today’s results-driven classrooms because of their sheer physical energy. Many have to burn off great natural reserves of energy before they can settle down to anything quiet – be it study or sleep.
As well, boys don’t always catch up, even though it is assumed they would
But where in the past it was recognised that boys completely catch up by the final years of primary school, and put on an intellectual spurt in late adolescence that places them on a par with girls, too often these days the initial disadvantage becomes permanent.
http:// www. dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1205106/The-REAL-gender-gap-scandal-Why-boys-true-victims-discrimination.html
**Remove the spaces in the links so they work
Lily,
Thank you for the international perspective! I tend to be a typical U.S.-centric American. But yes, come to think of it, those elite British schools are still mostly all male. And I have the sense that they have much more of an impact on national life than their counterparts in the U.S., perhaps because our population is so much larger. (Apropos of nothing, I feel compelled to mention that I once spent a day at the Westminster School many years ago, after befriending a faculty member who graciously invited me to sit in on classes, a fabulous experience for an easily-awed American. Imagine living and going to school basically IN Westminster Abbey! I did wonder how the girls coming into an all-male institution in the last year of secondary school managed to integrate into the life of the school.)
chels, the coursework aspect of GCSEs could explain part of it as A levels are more exam based.
No lack of male teachers at the schools I was looking at. (as they said ‘primary schools’ rather than primary stage which would include pre preps and preps, I’m assuming they were looking at state schools only) though the way they describe it in that article is a touch mind boggling and not doing boys many favours (as in eg. what sorts of employees would a lot of employers want).
I think in the old days, ie. 1930s-40s they used to split state school kids into streams earlier, at age 11, with the less academic into technical-orientated schools and girls into secretarial training type schools.
DoomedHarlot – hey don’t be sexist, girls schools like St Paul’s would be considered elite too!
Thanks for sharing that memory. The girls I know who went to Westminster were day girls not boarders, come to think of it that may have had an impact on their experience too. They went to academic girls schools in other parts of London beforehand.
You’re right, the UK is so tiny that the top schools do have much more influence on national life probably than they would in the US.
I was thinking something similar a few months ago about the size difference in on how accessible and easy to meet our politicians are comparitively.
Great info. Chels!
Although I don’t see it as a 100% gender issue, it wouldn’t surprise me if certain learning styles and interests predominated in one sex versus the other. Schools should do their best to try to accommodate the different types of learners, as well as different interests of the student body. And yes, plenty of recess and physical activity is important too.
I do have a problem with educational reformers like Leonard Sax who see a child’s sex as a proxy for determining what teaching style is best suited for that child.
Rather, I think a good educational program will include a mix of tests, long-term projects, competitive drills, final exams, seminar-like discussion sessions, etc. People who are good at meticulously completing long-term projects in a disciplined way also need the experience of having to perform under pressure, and vice-versa.
I also think that a good literature program will expose children to literature involving their own sex as well as literature involving the opposte sex, as well as situations typical of both sexes. You know, I didn’t love having to read “The Old Man and the Sea,” or “All Quiet on the Western Front,” or super-boring John Steinbeck, but eventually (through my boredom) I came to appreciate what these boy-stories were getting at and what these male characters experienced, and it made me a more well-rounded person. I appreciate the need to have a mix that will appeal to everyone, but that will mean boys sometimes having to read “girl stories” and vice-versa.
Ha ha Lily, you caught me. I didn’t mean to “diss” British girls’ schools!
Here, our old-time girls’ schools are (perhaps wrongly) perceived not to have had quite the academic excellence of the prestigious boys’ schools, and that’s even more true now that our elite boys’ schools have pretty much all gone co-ed.
Also, at least back when I had my Westminster experience, they didn’t take girl boarders, which would explain why all the girl students you knew there were day students.
I completely agree DH, with everything you said. As well, I think Dalrock is getting lazy with the posts, it’s been almost a week! lol
I think we should see how long we can make this thread. What are you getting your masters in (or did you already get it)? You might have said above but I can’t remember. Also are you better at long-term projects or adrenaline-fueled test prep?
LOL I did in marketing, not MBA though, a MSc about a year ago; I’m thinking of doing an MBA, but that’s further down the road.
I’m a talker and outgoing, so I like seminars, projects, any sort of group activity and I really dislike adrenaline fueled tests or memorization–regurgitating info is so not for me, which probably explains why I didn’t go into law, although I was considering it at one point.
My prediction: You will get your MBA, marry your boyfriend, have babies, take a few years at home with your children, and then use your business acumen to start and market a home-based business. It will become extremely successful, you will have to hire some employees, and eventually it won’t be home-based anymore. Your children will be older so you will spend more time on your business. Pretty soon, you will realize that you are head-bitch of an extremely successful endeavor, running it with a ruthless efficiency and bringing great value to your customers. Your children will treasure the memory of the time you spent with them when they were young and they will also admire your later achievements. Envious observers will grumble, “Ugh that Chels. Such a feminist.”
“I’m a talker and outgoing, so I like seminars, projects, any sort of group activity and I really dislike adrenaline fueled tests or memorization–regurgitating info is so not for me, which probably explains why I didn’t go into law, although I was considering it at one point.”
I usually got my better grades from explaining or doing a long essay about what I learned in general terms. Memorizing dates and names and events was a bit..boring. But telling the precursors, repercussions and current influence of the renaissance or any time period or doing a summary of the history of aesthetics was very good. I think my brain works well with gathering info and getting a result. I also got the high grades in creating projects with the material given. One of the reasons I always loved science and arts. Funny enough I did liked to memorize formulas in algebra and physics. I did great in every subject but logarithms, I could never get where the hell all the numbers came from. I really think education should strive to discover the style of learning of each student and see how to guide them and help them.
Standardization has a price to pay and currently boys are the ones paying for it, sad but true.
LOLOLOL that’s hilarious! You’re right that I do want to continue working—I really like working, I think I’d get so bored at home, and we only want 2 kids, so it only makes sense to stay at home for a few years; plus extra money is always nice. I also do admire the women in my family for having jobs, while being great mothers.
My bf already has a business, so I would either help him or start a consulting business, depends.
And it’s funny you said that last part, about being a feminist, because whenever I talk to traditionalists, I’m branded as a hard core feminist, but when I talk to feminists, they think I’m a brainwashed, hard core supporter of the patriarchy lol
Steph, I work the same way, my grade skyrocketed in my seminar classes, where it was just about projects, class participation and just talking all the time.
I’m glad you enjoyed my story, Chels. Sounds like I’m not too far off!
In terms of physicality, competitiveness, and adrenaline, one of my best teachers was my first-year Latin teacher. You’d sit down and he would be like, “OK drill. Doomed Harlot, Decline such-and-such noun, GO.” And then as soon as you made one mistake, he would say, “WRONG. Chels pick up where Doomed left off. GO.” Then after doing that a few minutes, he would say, “OK everyone get up and go to the blackboard and divide into two lines. Here is a paragraph. Each person on the team has to translate a sentence from this paragraph onto the blackboard. I will declare a winning team based on speed and accuracy. GO” That would last a few minutes, then it would be, “Back to your desks everyone. Pop quiz!” Finally, after going through 4 or 5 different high-speed, high-stress exercises, he would declare a “winner” for the class period, and we would all leave feeling completely shell-shocked. But we really knew the stuff cold by the end of the year, and it was quite the motivator for studying.
@Chels
Guilty. I have been swamped from all sides. I am working on a new post and should have it up tomorrow.
Sort of related to the conversation we’ve had earlier about careerwomen:
http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/survey_reveals_profile_of_unhappy_worker_shes_unmarried_42_and_a_lawyer_or_
And Feministing’s reply:
http://community.feministing.com/2011/09/09/why-are-men-happier-than-women/
“http:// community. feministing.com/2011/09/09/why-are-men-happier-than-women/”
Oh boy!
Do every woman in the work place has access to the payroll break down so she knows for sure her male peers are payed more than her?
@ Doomed Harlot
I admire the way you’ve handled the discussion. You offer a very different perspective than the ones I usually see on here. I appreciate that.
I’m glad feminism exists to provide women with more choices; working from home (a category in which I include SAHMs), serving in the military, etc.
Few social movements, including feminism, are perfect. However, I’d rather work on the weaker aspects of them, than to eliminate their benefits in a rash manner. It is unacceptable to have large segments of a population be dependent on those who often have unearned privilege.
@ Kathy says: September 4, 2011 at 4:24 pm
I think that this has been one of the better discussions I’ve seen on this site.
I agree with your assessment of how Doomed Harlot has managed herself, despite the ways in which some have chosen to personally critique her. It’s very fair-minded of you to see the value of what she’s doing, even though you have made different choices for yourself.
@ Doomed Harlot says: September 5, 2011 at 9:14 am
“The corollary to freedom and opportunity is that people sometimes make choices they regret. That’s life. Feminists can’t guarantee you (or any other woman) a perfect, happy life with all of your particular wants falling neatly into place; nor can it tell you what you as an individual may want out of life. All feminism can give you is an opportunity to pursue happiness. The rest is up to you.”
I completely agree with this. At the end of the day, I determine how well I use the benefits I have. There’s a difference between pointing out the weaknesses of a movement and blaming it for one’s missteps in life. Pitfalls are always going to exist. That is life. How someone handles those challenging circumstances is a reflection of that person’s character.
There’s a difference between pointing out the weaknesses of a movement and blaming it for one’s missteps in life.
According to feminism, I did not misstep. I did what I was told and in order, except that I married perhaps earlier than what Ms. magazine would have recommended (actually Ms. would have recommended I try lesbianism first, so as to establish my womyn cred, but whatever). My point is, if women put off marrying and having children into their late twenties, many of them will may find that those goals are harder to realize than they thought. And they may find that infertility and/or childlessness is far more painful than what they were told by all all the feminist “Child free”-life advocates like Amanda Marcotte. That’s what I want to tell women. There is not a day that goes by that I don’t wish in some way that I could have had at least one more child. I have a good life. I am not wallowing in misery, but Doomed Harlot and Marcotte are not representative of most women. Most women want children and will not sing “Que sera, sera” like Doris Day if it doesn’t happen for them.
What aspects of feminism are you happy about? Personally, I’ve done a cost/benefit analysis, and the disadvantages far exceed the benefits. Is it really that much of a benefit to be able to sleep around? Is it a benefit to have to work 8-7 job to be able to support your family?
As well, it isn’t really a benefit to serve in the military or in the police force, not only because women are physically weaker than men, but it’s just damaging all around. For example, I called 911 one time because my grandfather wasn’t feeling well. You know who came? 2 tiny women (one was 5’2 and the other was 5’7), and they couldn’t carry my grandfather down the stairs.
Luckily, he managed to get to the ambulance with the help of my father and my brother. Dalrock has numerous examples of this. Standards have also been lowered as to allow more women to take part, and quotas have been implemented.
This is another example of feminists not taking responsibility for the messages that they’re sending. Again, there is a feminist choice and a non feminist choice—a feminist choice such as having a job, sleeping around, divorcing for small reasons, etc…
It’s so easy to say that no movement is perfect, effectively shifting the blame to someone else, instead of owning what you said.
Also, some feminists frame their message in such a way that no one will disagree with them—few disagree with equality between the sexes, with women’s ability to work, etc…It’s also easy to dismiss the effects that feminism has had on gender relationships, and how unfair it made laws against men. I guess that’s also a side effect of feminism, that can be swept away, right?
So I ask you again, what aspects of feminism are you thankful for?
@ grerp says: September 10, 2011 at 12:26 pm
I am accountable for my actions. No other person is. No movement is. There has always been and will always be an ideology out there. You choose what you want to accept. You don’t even have to embrace all of the concepts in an ideology. That’s the beauty of a human brain that’s put to good use. You get to parse the options and determine what methods will help you achieve your goals. The responsibility of the repercussions of any choices you make, regardless of the external factors, is ultimately on you. If you fail or if you succeed, it is on you.
@ Chels says: September 10, 2011 at 12:41 pm
I take a balanced approach. I look at the merits and the detriments of a concept. I see feminism as a series of choices, just as with any other ideology. How someone handles the options says more about that person’s character than it does about any movement.
You’ve chosen some examples to attempt to put feminism in a strictly negative light. Let’s do a bit of exploring.
– Unfairness of laws towards men.
Which laws? Have you read the laws? Do you know the particulars of the cases that make up the body of the laws? Are you aware of the history behind the laws you find to be problematic? Some legal systems are primarily adversarial. You don’t get something because you think you should. Start with that understanding and work from there.
– Relationships.
When two people are together, who is determining how they interact? Did a movement force them to date, marry, live together unmarried, cheat, etc?
– Standards being lowered.
I’d have to review the circumstances of each situation. Someone’s idea of a standard being lowered, might not be mine. I ask what is the standard, who determined it and should it exist in the first place? There are some who frown on those who are having sex outside of marriage, who are living together unmarried, etc. Is the standard being lowered for creating a quality relationship when society doesn’t criminalize “shacking up”? Or should that standard be there in the first place?
– “What aspects of feminism are you happy about?”
I was born in a country where there were and still are few options for women. Living in the U.S., I have better access to education, employment opportunities, the quality of birth control and a series of other benefits. Some of that is due to the groundwork feminism has created.
– “Personally, I’ve done a cost/benefit analysis, and the disadvantages far exceed the benefits.”
That’s what you’re supposed to do with anything in life. If you don’t find something to be a benefit, don’t do it. There are others who clearly made a different analysis than you have.
Perhaps some of those who are against feminism need to spend 5-10 years in a country where people have little to no rights/options. For some individuals, it takes experiences like those to understand the level of privilege someone has. Just the fact that either of us have time and resources to engage in this exchange is an expression of privilege.
I take a balanced approach. I look at the merits and the detriments of a concept.
It seems that your balanced approach only applies to women, as long as women win, than anything else is just a side effect, regardless of its costs and how men are hurt in the process—those can be swept under the rug and men can just suck it up, right?
Unfairness of laws towards men.
Octavia, I’ve spend some time in the manosphere in order to understand their perspective and to learn more about (some) men are so resentful. Maybe you’re just clueless and not trying to be malicious, but here are some examples as to why feminism caused the laws to be in favor on women:
–No fault divorce (which actually means that it’s the man’s fault)
–Child custody awarded automatically to women
–Alimony/Child support fees that basically leaving a lot of men bankrupt or thrown in jail if they’re not able to make the payments (even if they’re currently unemployed)
–Domestic violence (basically anything can be construed as abuse, even raising one’s voice)
–Gender quotas in universities and corporations
Relationships.
Some men believe that feminism led women to suffer from the “princess syndrome” and to feel like they’re entitled to everything without actually working for it. They’re basically arguing that some women believe that they have no responsibilities and only rights; and they’re not doing their fair share of the work.
Not only that, but women are basically ditching the good men (the betas) to go out with the bad boys (the alphas). However, when they’re finally ready to settle down, they settle for the betas. As you can probably understand, a lot of men don’t want the town slut, and they don’t want the woman to “settle” for him out of desperation and out of fear of being alone.
As well, in our current legal climate, it’s pretty risky getting married considering how easy it is to get divorced, and there are lots of incentives to divorce. Here’s a link that discusses this at length:
http:// dalrock.wordpress.com/2011/08/28/the-economics-of-divorce-theft-and-exploitation-and-why-we-should-repeal-unilateral-no-fault-divorce/
As well, some men argue to go on a marriage strike until women get their act together and until the legal system becomes more balanced. Again, here’s a link that discusses this:
http:// dalrock.wordpress.com/2011/08/25/women-today-assume-they-can-have-marriage-merely-for-the-taking/
Standards being lowered. There are some who frown on those who are having sex outside of marriage, who are living together unmarried, etc. Is the standard being lowered for creating a quality relationship when society doesn’t criminalize “shacking up”?
Seriously? You’re comparing apples to oranges, no one said anything about sex outside the marriage or cohabiting before marriage being wrong—the only people you’re going to hear argue against those are the stricter/more traditional Christians (personally, I have no problem with either).
The standards I was talking about are those in the army, police force, fire department, etc… It’s common knowledge that women are not as strong as men, and thanks to feminism, the standards for physical strength have been lowered so that more women can meet them; all in the name of equity.
Personally, I have no problem with letting the best person win (male or female), but in these cases, it’s obvious that the best people would be men since they’re stronger. As well, I’m not bothered at all by not being more women in these occupations because if I’m in a fire, a man can save me, a firewoman can’t.
It’s all about women wanting to be men, but no matter how you cut it, it’s simply not possible.
I was born in a country where there were and still are few options for women. Living in the U.S., I have better access to education, employment opportunities, the quality of birth control and a series of other benefits. Some of that is due to the groundwork feminism has created.
If feminism was about access to education, employment, sexual health, then I’d be all for it. However, feminism has far passed this stage and in the Western world, there’s absolutely no need for feminism. As a Western woman, what more rights could I want that I don’t have? I can’t think of a single one.
As well, feminism is destructive to society, and has been for a long time. You should read more about feminism to understand why it’s completely unnecessary, and why it could be considered a hate movement.
Perhaps some of those who are against feminism need to spend 5-10 years in a country where people have little to no rights/options.
What country are you from?
Because I come from the third world and I’m anti-feminism too. The only privileges here that are better is more safety in the sense that there is less crime and more police that are not utterly corrupt and more food available. The gender dynamics here are awful and women are happier in general terms in the third world if you eliminate the quality of men they have access to, if they want to stay at home and find a man that actually supports them (fat chance but it does happen), and have a big family no one calls them breeders or brainwashed by patriarchy and if you want to work as long as you are willing to be the first to arrive, the last to leave, and learn from the ones on top of you while showing hard working traits you can get as far as you want to.
Also women are allowed to be feminine and pleasant there is no “empowerment scam” with being a bitch and sleep around (although is growing among the new generations thanks to transculturization) and men can open a door for you without anyone lashing to them. The problems come from the privileged men outnumbering good men by too many numbers, but guess what feminism did improved that in here a lot, men here in general terms are marriage material, but feminism decided to treat this men like crap, so what is the point of doing something right just to pay them with disdain and resentment? You went from looking for equality to looking for privileges for women and scraps for men, if that.
So please let me know what land of oppression you come from, unless you are from Afghanistan (and I had Muslim female friends from Lybia and Morocco so I know their position) I doubt there is any place in the world where a woman that wants everything a privileged man has can’t achieve it as long as she works hard for it, no with cushy laws to allow mediocre women to get to places they could never achieve in personal merits only.
@ Chels says: September 11, 2011 at 4:21 pm
Approach/Laws:
While I do not practice law, I do have a legal background. I’m well-aware of the many biases in the legal system and continue to learn about them. I have also directed men and women to resources to assist them.
Manosphere:
Some participants in it are well-informed and some definitely are not. Even the views of the well-informed individuals shouldn’t automatically be accepted because the parsing of facts tends to be affected by one’s biases.
Relationships:
There have always been women with the “princess syndrome.” There have also always been men who did not accept it. That situation didn’t start because of feminism. Each person chooses what he/she accepts in a relationship. If an individual can’t find a mate, then he/she can a) keep looking b) re-evaluate his/her standards c) stop looking or d) get online and blame an entire gender. Only some of those choices illustrate taking personal accountability. The world doesn’t owe anyone a relationship. The sooner some people learn that, the more they can function with a backbone.
For the record, I’m not worried about men going on a “marriage strike.” So, that little scare tactic flowing through the manosphere doesn’t work on me. The kind of man I respect understands that he determines the course of his relationship, not the manosphere and not a movement.
Standards:
Oh I understood you were talking about the military, firefighting, etc when you mentioned standards. I just pointed out that there needs to be an examination of them. I don’t accept a standard without questioning how it came to exist.
Your view of feminism:
Okay. It’s just one of many perspectives. I don’t see it as a hate movement. I think it covers a series of issues. Furthermore, not everyone who identifies as a feminist has the same ideas on how to achieve equality. Views on ethnicity, race and socio-economic class, among other issues, all affect how feminism is filtered. Those against it don’t usually seem to get around to addressing that reality. That’s why I find it interesting how quickly some stereotype feminism. Yet, it doesn’t surprise me. That happens with all movements.
@ Stephenie Rowling says: September 11, 2011 at 4:34 pm
– “What country are you from?”
I’m not divulging where I was born. And my point still stands. Some individuals can only realize what rights/privileges do exist, once they’re in a situation that begins to remove those rights/privileges. That is because most people don’t notice a default, unless it’s highlighted for them.
– “So please let me know what land of oppression you come from, unless you are from Afghanistan (and I had Muslim female friends from Lybia and Morocco so I know their position) I doubt there is any place in the world where a woman that wants everything a privileged man has can’t achieve it as long as she works hard for it, no with cushy laws to allow mediocre women to get to places they could never achieve in personal merits only.”
I have friends from various parts of the world. I don’t presume to tell someone that they’re not oppressed strictly based upon where they live. Where someone is born is not the only determining factor of what rights/privileges that person enjoys. Race, gender, ethnicity, socio-economic class, being able-bodied and a host of other aspects influence rights/privileges. With that said, each individual still has to take personal accountability.
– “…no with cushy laws to allow mediocre women to get to places they could never achieve in personal merits only.”
I don’t support mediocre people getting to places they haven’t earned, period.
– “as long as she works hard for it, no with cushy laws to allow mediocre women to get to places they could never achieve in personal merits only.”
Now, based upon what you wrote about getting to places on personal merits only, we don’t need to work on any issues in society, including the negative aspects of feminism. Right? Men who aren’t benefiting from feminism just need to “work hard” for what they want. Problem solved…Or do you want to rethink what you’ve written?
While I do not practice law, I do have a legal background. I’m well-aware of the many biases in the legal system and continue to learn about them. I have also directed men and women to resources to assist them.
*sigh* I actually thought that you’re clueless, but you’re just malicious. You know what the negative consequences are of feminism, but you simply choose not to care because they work in your favor. Ask any man going through the divorce if he has the money to fork out in an expensive divorce just to get to see his kid, or if he has a choice in going bankrupt, of getting his possessions taken away from him, if he likes being kicked out of his own home. Or ask a man if he has a say when he gets falsely accused of rape and he gets a permanent record, thus completely ruining his whole life.
But no, you simply ignore it, because the sisterhood is more important to you, because winning is more important than being right and because getting more than your share is of upmost importance; regardless of the cost. This is exactly why some men fear getting married, because they’re basically screwed if they marry someone who has your opinions.
Men are people too, and from what you said, you clearly couldn’t care less, let them fend for themselves *rolls eyes*
Manosphere:
Some participants in it are well-informed and some definitely are not. Even the views of the well-informed individuals shouldn’t automatically be accepted because the parsing of facts tends to be affected by one’s biases.
Yes, some men in the manosphere exaggerate or are not right, but if you look beyond that, they still have a point, considering that no matter how you cut it, the laws are definitely on the women’s side. There are some blogs that can be simply ignored, but then there’s Dalrock’s, and he is informed, he has the stats on his side to prove his points. Or can this blog also just be ignored?
Relationships
That’s funny, but you completely rely of feminist principles to define your opinions and your relationships. To be honest, I don’t care if women are entitled; however, I do care that the laws are skewed in the favor of the entitled princess; that instead of divorce being discouraged, there are lots of incentives to get divorced, and the man (and the kids) are basically screwed.
Standards:
Oh I understood you were talking about the military, firefighting, etc when you mentioned standards. I just pointed out that there needs to be an examination of them. I don’t accept a standard without questioning how it came to exist.
What examination are you talking about? It’s stupid to imply that the standards have been blindly implemented, and no one has inspected them. However, I’ll play along, and let’s do examine this—let’s have a physical strength competition between men and women (which is the foundation of these jobs), and we’ll see who wins, without quotas . I’m willing to bet that men will be 98% of the winners, and women 2%. However, feminism cannot accept that, and it must be 50/50, and preferably, more in favor of women.
Your view of feminism:
Okay. It’s just one of many perspectives. I don’t see it as a hate movement. I think it covers a series of issues. Furthermore, not everyone who identifies as a feminist has the same ideas on how to achieve equality. Views on ethnicity, race and socio-economic class, among other issues, all affect how feminism is filtered. Those against it don’t usually seem to get around to addressing that reality. That’s why I find it interesting how quickly some stereotype feminism. Yet, it doesn’t surprise me. That happens with all movements
My view of feminism is based on reality, what I’ve read and what I’ve seen. It’s obvious that you haven’t read too much about feminism because you’re seriously lacking in knowledge. It’s a copout to say that feminism doesn’t have a leader, there are different schools of feminism and blablabla—feminist talk for “get out of the way, and let me do my stuff”.
I would inspect the works of some prominent feminist leaders, who encourage the hatred of men, that call heterosexual sex rape, that consider that men should be reduced to 10% of the population, that consider that women need a man like a fish needs a bicycle, that the personal is the political (at any cost, again, for the sisterhood), who fights to eliminate gender differences (destroy masculinity/femininity–which is a lost battle from the start), that encourage women to compete with men, and who want to convince women that men are their oppressors/enemies, that believe that a woman’s career is most important, who basically tries to make a woman into a man (which signifies jealousy of men—what’s so wrong with being a woman that they want to be men so much?)
As well, and I’m getting tired of saying this–fix the problems of feminism by yourself, don’t push it on others, you’re its supporter, you fix it, and I really don’t think you’d like what I’d do to feminism to fix it.
I really hope you’re just not informed well, because I don’t know how anyone with a conscience support feminism.
@Octavia (such a waste of a good Roman name)
I’m from Dominican Republic and everyone knows that about me in the manosphere. My guess is that you are from the first world and decided to make up the “I come from an oppressive country” to look “smarter and right”, try again you are not fooling anyone. I even doubt your “legal background”, your legal background is that you watched Law and Order or something like it?
“Now, based upon what you wrote about getting to places on personal merits only, we don’t need to work on any issues in society, including the negative aspects of feminism. Right? Men who aren’t benefiting from feminism just need to “work hard” for what they want. Problem solved…Or do you want to rethink what you’ve written?”
I say NO cushy laws. The laws currently benefit women, of course working hard means nothing when there is not spots for you to climb to because they are occupied by law with women that didn’t work as hard to you but their vagina ensures them a place. So you might want to read carefully this time.
“However, I’d rather work on the weaker aspects of them, than to eliminate their benefits in a rash manner. It is unacceptable to have large segments of a population be dependent on those who often have unearned privilege.”
Why work on something that ought to be decapitated and have its head spat on a pike? All 20th century ideologies, feminism (especially) included, have sought to turn us against the best of our natures and the good sense of our ancestors. Why would I want women serving in my military? Or perfectly able-bodied men wasted at home washing the dishes? Why would I want a situation where the majority of my men are left without wives (and a stake in the future) while those that do get all the women all choose to live like nihilists? Such a civilization will only run on the fumes of its previous, more sensible generations. “Unearned privilege”… hogwash. Upon where will you build but upon those who you decry as having “unearned privilege”? I think that being the backbone of a civilization that has lasted this long and advanced this far would constitute an earned privilege or two, don’t you?
Men build civilizations; but modern ideologies decry the very notion of civilization itself.