I didn’t notice until recently that grerp had written her own take on Kate Bolick’s Atlantic piece titled Piece of Advice #97: Look farther into the future:
The problem with this whole thesis is that while being permanently single may be a fulfilling and rich way for women like Bolick to lead their lives, it doesn’t work as well for women who are 1) dumber, 2) poorer, 3) less intrepid/independent or 4) not possessed of generous friends of significant means. And it works really badly for women who want to raise healthy, well adjusted, non-poverty stricken children. The fact is, most women aren’t very much like Bolick at all – which is why most women want to get married, because subconsciously they know, despite all the feminist propaganda that portrays marriage as a one-way trap to stifling, abused servitude, that marriage is a good deal for women. Women are smaller, weaker, more risk averse, more comfort seeking, and are rarely the kind of trail-blazing, money-making geniuses who can sit alone atop a heap of money and adulation.
This is just a teaser. Check out her entire post for her usual outstanding work.
I also noticed a bit late that our very own Anacaona has written a guest post at Hooking Up Smart titled Eve’s Illness, or alternatively How to Alleviate Suffering From Female Hypergamy.
The old saying “I can do better” is practically taught since birth to women as a way to empower them: you can have a better job, a better car, a better home and better, better, better… The problem is that modern society doesn’t say to women that they could also “do a lot worse” and more often than not they have no idea how to change a pattern that keeps taking them to the same failed place. Sadly, many do not realize their self-destructive choices until it is too late.
Eve is whispering in your ear, telling you to look for the “better” man. But what is better in terms of mating? The tallest one, the handsomest one, the one that seems confident and strong? This is where Eve is still eating the forbidden fruit.
You think you know everything you need to know but you don’t understand your own desires, and so cannot guard against them.
Whispers? You don’t say! Again, this is just a teaser. See the full post for more excellent insight from Anacaona.
Our latest installment of what is wrong with teh men touched on the topic of men falling behind in college degrees. This is of course not a new theme, and Captain Capitalism was curious about this several years ago (2006). He did his own research and not surprisingly found that while women outnumber men in the total number of degrees earned, if you look at the most difficult (and valuable) majors men still have the lead. Check out his full post for the charty goodness. Feminists have packed universities with additional women who are largely getting low (or no) value degrees. I would suggest watching out for those student loans men when looking for a wife.
A note on who is invited to read and comment on this blog: There has been a surprising amount of discussion in the comments lately about whether given bloggers or commenters are sufficiently orthodox to participate in the discussion. This is just a reminder that there is in fact no Team Dalrock, and no orthodoxy is involved with this blog. This is a conversation on the internet. With this being said, if you choose to tangle with another commenter don’t expect me to bail you out. My basic expectation is that everyone knows how to handle themselves in an appropriate manner. I very much dislike moderating the comments, so I’m more inclined to set a problem commenter to “always hold for moderation” and if needed ultimately ban a troublemaker than edit comments and/or provide warnings.
One more critical rule: Always honor the rules of copyright when posting comments.
Carry on!
Oh God I though I was safe already:(…. Thank you for the link anyway. I know you mean it as a compliment.
Read Grerp’s article some time back. Problem is, the people who need future time orientation the most are the least likely to have been taught that.
Don’t think that what Captain Capitalism is pointing out about college hasn’t been noticed. Point the search engine of your choice at this: “Title IX STEM” and behold the results. it’s already being proposed that because Science, Technology, Engineering and Medicine are not at least 50% female that clearly discrimination is occurring. The “solution”, of course, is to mandate quotas – cough, excuse me, introduce “goals” and “timetables” that must be met in order to retain Federal funding of every single program, contract, etc. on a given campus. If that is achieved then you would have to revise your list of desirable qualities in a prospective bride to include things like “can recognize edible plants”, “can cook over an open fire”, “knows how to remain quiet and still for over an hour” and so forth. The things that hunter-gatherers who live in grass huts require.
Or maybe just fluency in Mandarin…
Concerning Grerp’s piece, I wonder how many men are inadvertently fulfilling some kind of de facto husband role to an unmarried female relative.
Looking at my unmarried cousin (35 years old) it seems like it takes her whole family’s efforts (brother mother and father) just so she can sustain her ‘independent’ lifestyle. Blimey, she even has me on the hook for emergency situations.
Speaking as a woman with one of those “crap degrees”…it certainly doesn’t make me millions, but it helps make the car and mortgage payment, and keeps my husband from needing to work extra shifts (which in turn lets him be available to participate in our kids’ lives) – helps me feel like I’m contributing instead of just counting on him as my meal ticket. And I really enjoy university teaching because it gives me flexibility to have an income but still be home with my children all but about 17 hours a week (this includes driving time)…I’d much rather that than working at Walmart in the middle of the night to come up with what extra money we need. And I graduated with not a penny of debt (unless you count my husband’s!).
I mean, I get what you’re saying….an unmarketable terminal undergraduate degree that lands a young woman with $35,000 in student debt is a Bad Idea ™. But women in college, even in those “soft” degrees, doesn’t necessarily mean the end of families….I’m convinced that it’s what has saved mine from financial ruin and me from postpartum depression.
Grerp’s piece was very interesting and is the kind of thing I would like to see done on purpose. The whole MGTOW and the “grass eater’ thing in Japan is something done as a responds to the misandry of feminism. This is happening with out and intellectual understanding of why. The Article Grerp has written is drivien by the bad choices women make with feminist lead hypergamy. As an MRA type i would like to see more misandry openly known about by men to help motivate men to take action as a responsible soldier and make the sitiations described in Grerps article involuntary and childless. With large numbers of women living alone and childless voluntarily and involuntarily win poverty and poor health dying and suffering alone maybe we can direct this childish self interest of hypergamy to a less misandrious direction.
Women will always be driven by hypergamy but the wicked and selfish choices made in the pursuit of hypergamy can be made into choices that benefit society. Women with the majority vote will see to it to avoid their greatest fear. Impoverished childless spinsterhood.
I interview tons of computer science and electrical engineering students that have just graduated from universities. By tons, I mean hundreds.
The interviews my staff and I give are very technical. (e.g., “write a C function to reverse a linked list.”) The implementation is either correct or it’s not.
It’s clear that most of the few women that exist are being shoehorned in with affirmative action. I haven’t made a single offer to a female candidate in all the years I’ve been interviewing. It’s true that women make up about 10-20% of the candidates, but all things being equal 10-20% of my job offers would have gone to women… which they haven’t.
EM,
If it were not for the huge government-as-father-husband-replacement program which is socialism, there would not be the need for 2 incomes just to make ends meet. The diploma mills could shut down and the few who are destined for college (doctors, engineers, scientists) would go, the others, destined for trade school, would go there. I know plenty of women who only work because have to…almost all would quit in a heartbeat if their family could make it on the husband’s salary alone.
The root of this problem, like almost all the others our society has is rooted in government meddling.
I read Grerps and your article at the same time… along with Susan Walsh’s and the original. I missed Anaconda’s… and thanks for pointing that out, because it is excellent.
I think the commenting policy has been driven over at Alte’s place by a feeling of some regulars that they are attracting trolls. However, I agree with you that letting most people talk is better… provided the lawyer scum ™ allow us to quote and refer to what others have read.
@Johnycomelately
I know people are bored by (me) bringing it again but this reminds me another similarity with Mosuo. Male relatives are obliged to support thier maternal clan™ – their sisters cousins etc. to enable them fucking Mosuo cads under cover of night. Not surprisingly, It does not work well. But another parallel showing why and how those patterns emerged.
@greenlander
And when they are at least average (compared to their male peers) they are pampered by the company for various reasons.
“Don’t think that what Captain Capitalism is pointing out about college hasn’t been noticed. Point the search engine of your choice at this: “Title IX STEM” and behold the results. it’s already being proposed that because Science, Technology, Engineering and Medicine are not at least 50% female that clearly discrimination is occurring. The “solution”, of course, is to mandate quotas – cough, excuse me, introduce “goals” and “timetables” that must be met in order to retain Federal funding of every single program, contract, etc. on a given campus. If that is achieved then you would have to revise your list of desirable qualities in a prospective bride to include things like “can recognize edible plants”, “can cook over an open fire”, “knows how to remain quiet and still for over an hour” and so forth. The things that hunter-gatherers who live in grass huts require. ”
Why is Title IX only applied when men outnumber women? If Title IX was applied to ANYTHING besides college athletics – music, art, drama, even general admissions – it would hurt women. Applying Title IX only to things men are more interested in doesn’t make institutions more equal, it just reduces the number of men to the number of women. If we Title IX STEM we will doom our nation (even more than it is already).
Guy, because feminists envy men.
Em, it’s good that it is working out for you and your family. Unhappily, the supply of some degrees far exceeds the demand for them. The notion that “everyone should go to college” has only exacerbated that. I don’t see any improvement in sight. And may I suggest that you consider acquiring some other skill(s) to back up that teaching position, unless you are tenured it could go away in a budget crunch. Sorry to bear bad news to you.
College is in a bubble, just like housing was. Tuition and fees have increased faster than the rate of inflation for years and years. No on worried, because third-parties loaned the money.
In econ-speak, many college degrees are “non-performing assets”, that is they cost money to get but they don’t return any money, because of supply/demand issues. Borrowing money to buy a non-performing asset did not work out in the housing bubble, either. US student loan debt is now as big or bigger than US credit card debt. That can’t go on.
We’re going to have to figure out what really is needed in college, and what is not, and fewer people are going to go to college – because frankly, it’s insane for someone aged 25 to be carrying around $50,000 in debt, working at a job that pays maybe $35,000 to $40,000.
guy, Title IX only applies to some areas because men are “oppressors” and women are “oppressed”. Not in so many words, of course, but IMO that is the gist of it. This can be seen in college recruitment. A while back there was an article in the “Chronicle of Higher Education” that I don’t have a URL handy for – basically on the one hand, colleges would like to push the male/female ratio back more towards 50/50 but in doing so they have to recruit in a way that displays a preference for men, which makes them vulnerable to lawsuits under Title IX among other things. Lose-lose proposition.
Feminist actions often do not connect with words. One of the fundamental principles of Game is when women’s words don’t match their actions, ignore the words and focus on the actions. Feminist actions are compatible with female supremacy, not with equality. Never mind what they say about Title IX, watch how they use it.
I don’t think Dalrock was criticizing all women with humanities/social science degrees–merely warning men against women who incurred debt for those degrees. Many of those women are going to expect their husbands to pay off their student loans while they kick back and live the SAHM lifestyle.
Awhile back I overheard a slightly overweight, 40 something waitress boasting to a rather sheepish looking line-cook in the restaurant they work in, that she was going to “find a rich older man and wait it out ’til he passed on, so she could inherit the money”.
Of course I had to comment, “Better hope he’s blind”.
The cook desperately tried to stifle laughter for about 10 minutes after that.
I didnt realise my posts on Susan Walsh’s & this site were making so many waves, it actually required a warning on comments & troublemakers …
My own sites coming up anyway, i’m all for a more combative approach to men’s rights, i understand you & susan walsh dont want to upset the feminist movement, & the manginas who obviously make up a large portion of visitors
Cheers dalrock & obviously thnx for not moderating my comments bar one lol …
I don’t agree with the “everyone should go to college” idea, either (I have a NUMBER of students every semester who have neither the preparation nor the capability to truly “belong” in college). I just think that, given the way things currently are and the likelihood that they will not change soon enough to make a difference to me and my kids, it was better for me (since I enjoy langauges and teaching) to get the training to be a teacher, rather than languish in a job I hate that takes too much of my time from my kids. It seems to me that no matter which choice I make, there will be folks on blogs like this who will condemn me….I’m either a feminist bent on destroying the earning capacity of men (if I work in an academic job), or a money-grubbing leech who depends on her husband for support (if I choose to be a SAHM). Really I think it’s quite possible for women to fall somewhere in between on the spectrum – working just because you enjoy what you do, and have a desire to offer a financial contribution to your family’s well-being.
But granted, it’s not nearly as much fun to talk about that!
As to this: ” And may I suggest that you consider acquiring some other skill(s) to back up that teaching position, unless you are tenured it could go away in a budget crunch. Sorry to bear bad news to you.” After a decade of university teaching, I know how it works – interesting that you feel the need to explain it to me….and have tenure. But I don’t consider that as a concrete guarantee that I’ll have a job in a decade; universities have been known to eliminate entire departments of tenured professors, I could easily be one of them. I’d rather enjoy the time and situation I have, and (while being aware of it, of course) worry about a hypothetical when we get there.
Em
I don’t agree with the “everyone should go to college” idea, either (I have a NUMBER of students every semester who have neither the preparation nor the capability to truly “belong” in college).
Everyone in higher education, from community college on up, can say the same thing. The problem is not those people per se, it’s the advice they get. It’s wasteful and wrong to take some man or woman who would do just fine with a 2 year technical degree and stick them into a 4 year institution for a few semesters only to have the flunk out. It’s doubly wrong to saddle them with debt in the process. It’s also wasteful and wrong to let 18 year old people decide they want to hang out with new friends for 5 years on someone else’s dime, leaving them with a degree in “mumble studies” or some other degree that has zero demand, and tens of thousands of dollars in debt. Not too long ago, any BA would get someone in the door with state or Federal government jobs, but that’s going away too.
I just think that, given the way things currently are and the likelihood that they will not change soon enough to make a difference to me and my kids, it was better for me (since I enjoy langauges and teaching) to get the training to be a teacher, rather than languish in a job I hate that takes too much of my time from my kids.
Education is a good career fit with family, and higher ed actually fits better than K-12 because on the one hand typical uni employees aren’t paid very well but on the other hand there generally is more flexibility in work hours. I’m just saying that higher ed is in a bubble similar to housing. I know some contractors who 2 years ago told me that they were confident that they’d be back in full business by now. But they aren’t, they are scrambling to get by, because they didn’t grasp how big the housing bubble was. I’m saying the higher ed bubble is big, too, and I won’t be surprised to see state funded uni’s / community colleges /branches /etc. begin to lay people off, and even consolidate departments, in the next 5 years.
It seems to me that no matter which choice I make, there will be folks on blogs like this who will condemn me….I’m either a feminist bent on destroying the earning capacity of men (if I work in an academic job), or a money-grubbing leech who depends on her husband for support (if I choose to be a SAHM). Really I think it’s quite possible for women to fall somewhere in between on the spectrum – working just because you enjoy what you do, and have a desire to offer a financial contribution to your family’s well-being.
I don’t see anyone saying either thing. At least not yet. Can you point to examples?
As to this: ” And may I suggest that you consider acquiring some other skill(s) to back up that teaching position, unless you are tenured it could go away in a budget crunch. Sorry to bear bad news to you.” After a decade of university teaching, I know how it works – interesting that you feel the need to explain it to me….and have tenure.
Since I know nothing about you, I decided to proceed from the worse possible case: that you were working as an adjunct of some sort on non-tenure track (or something like it) and thus at the head of any RIFF line. Good that you have tenure.
Consider that the text linked to is therefore not about you, but rather about the prototype of “24 year old woman with a BA in English Lit whose work experience consists of coffee shop jobs, who has no plan to go to grad school, no desire to teach, no clear career path, and $50K in student loans”. A cautionary tale to both men and women (and not to pick on English Lit as a degree in and of itself).
But I don’t consider that as a concrete guarantee that I’ll have a job in a decade; universities have been known to eliminate entire departments of tenured professors, I could easily be one of them. I’d rather enjoy the time and situation I have, and (while being aware of it, of course) worry about a hypothetical when we get there.
I always like to have a backup plan, myself. Sometimes more than one backup plan.
Chacon a son gout.
Thank you very kindly, Dalrock for your linkage and support. I suppose, in reply to several posters above, I broke tradition here and wrote not only to my target audience (which is obviously not terribly populous), but also to Bolick herself – who is yet one more feminist Pied Piper leading young, and not so young women, on the road to Nowhere.
Sometimes I wonder, idly, if perhaps I am the one who is wrongheaded because there are so many voices out there saying one thing, and to me it seems so plain that 1) there is only so much money and general tolerance for bad behavior out there and 2) what goes around comes around.
@grerp:
It’s about introspection. Introspection is a very, very hard skill to come by, it takes a lot of work and a willingness to be honest with yourself. That last bit is why it doesn’t sell well. There’s nothing “easy” about being honest.
For someone with a skill set that makes their life fairly easy, like Bolick, she is left in the very hard position of attempting to work out that what “works for her” and what “works for 85% of the population” are not the same. Being she’s from the generally Liberal side of thinking, she will lack the ability to come to terms with being an outlier while still talking to a normal audience. It’s this cognitive dissonance that causes so many problems for a lot of writers. They’re searching for the problem that is their own inability to realize they’re incredibly blessed.
Still, I think Bolick’s article can be read in two ways: 1) she’s still trying to figure out why she broke it off with the really good guy (and had his wife absolutely grind this fact into her) and 2) that she really doesn’t know what the future holds for her and a set of women roughly like her.
I have sympathy for her, but 30 minutes with Dalrock or Athol Kay and she’d have not had a very long article, lol.
@grerp
The interesting bit is their voices are loud but most women don’t make the same choices, at least that Bolick did. Only 10% of her demographic didn’t marry. Even with divorce, less than half of all 50-59 year old women who have ever married have ever divorced (I shared specific stats 3/4 of the way down this post).
“Can you point to examples?” You’re right, they didn’t direct the remarks at me, but the comments below represent the characterizations of women that seem to me most common come up in this sort of discussion.
I was thinking of Buck who said “If it were not for the huge government-as-father-husband-replacement program which is socialism, there would not be the need for 2 incomes just to make ends meet.” (Women working has decreased earning power)
And then vitabenedicta with the characterization of a woman who doesn’t work outside the home as “they kick back and live the SAHM lifestyle.” (SAHMs have it oh-so-easy)
EM,
There is no question that the mass employment of women has driven down wages. This is not an editorial on women, just a statement of fact. Further, just about every poll of women finds that given a choice their desire is to remain home if the finances allowed. My comment about the welfare state is again, a fact. A huge bloated government is a voracious consumer of the labors of working people. Most people lose 1/2 their income to taxes, federal, state, local, if not more. It is logical for a family to attempt to compensate for this theft by having both spouses employed. My point was that if Government was cut in both size and scope, women would find themselves in the position of employment being an “option” not a “necessity”…gee…empowering women…go figure!
I guess since I already look at my employment as an option (we could SURVIVE on one income, but not do a lot of the enriching things we’d like – travel to historical sites w/ kids, zoo memberships…you know, non-necessities but help kids develop a more rounded worldview) I read your comment in that light. I like working, I’m glad it’s not frowned on for women the way it was when my grandmother started her first job. That’s all I’m getting at.
Im getting a humanities degree. Its in international affairs. I have also studied both korean (currently) and mandarin (in the past, and hopefully near future) because these are where my skills lie. I absolutely respect people in the STEM field. That beings said, Im not going to go into the STEM field just because I want to compete with men. I have no interest in those things. I could drag myself through them to prove a point but ultimately I wouldn’t have the motivation to keep up with learning them. If more men than women excel in those fields than so be it. They aren’t the end all be all fields. Every man can’t be an engineer or doctor. Someone has to be a desk clerk, mail man or janitor. If everyone all of a sudden started majoring in only these things the fields would become saturated.
I would agree though that my degree in international affairs isnt really necessary. However, in todays world you can’t really get anywhere without a degree. I absolutely acknowledge that my degree is just a piece of paper. Its worthless. I didn’t learn that much. I wish I could have gone into my field without but its a requirement now. Period. Most places would hire a uninformed recent grad with that degree over a person who is better educated in the area without one. If I could do it over again would I? Yep. I like my degree. My degree is more of an insurance policy. I want to go into a different field, but if that didn’t work out I have something to fall back on. Plus I don’t care to put all my eggs in one basket.
Though, I will say with the state of affairs internationally and the rise of power in the East, somehow my current choices might actually benefit me more than they hurt me. Ive never followed what was popular and its panned out this far.