Single or Divorced: Either way, Pass the Lo Mein
Joanne Jacob's position on the marriage strike:
Some of her commenters take her to task for this view; my favorite comes from commenter F451:
I don’t think it’s really that tough to be a man or that marriage is such a bad deal compared to living on take-out in your parents’ basement. Men, feel free to comment. And women, of course.
Some of her commenters take her to task for this view; my favorite comes from commenter F451:
‘…[not] such a bad deal compared to living on take-out in your parents’ basement.’
You mean like my divorced friends?
posted by Helen at 4:29 PM
47 Comments:
Huh.
So the only two choices are being married or living in your parent's basement.
I don't know which one to pick.
I don't live in my parents' basement. I live in a condominium. It happens to be the one next door to my mother's, but I'm not complaining. I promised my father on his deathbed that I would look after her, and I intend to keep my word.
I also don't eat take-out. I'm rather an accomplished chef, since I've been cooking for myself and my family since I was eight. Tonight I'll be having USDA Grade A Prime t-bone steak grilled over an open mesquite wood fire, with baked potatoes au gratin and fresh steamed broccoli and carrots. Mmmmm.
Now, I can think of a lot of things I'd rather be doing and a lot of places I'd rather be living rather than selling real estate and looking after my mother. But, hey, we own the corporation, together we'll list and sell over 100 homes this year alone and clear, oh I don't know, $200,000. The condos are paid for, the cars are paid for, and we have minimal expenses.
The only outstanding debt I have is one consolidated student loan I took out to get my master's degree, which amounts to a $175/mo payment. I don't carry credit card debt.
When my mother is ready to retire, and realistically that might not be for another 10 or 20 years since she's a workaholic, I'll either take over the company and run it, or I'll sell it for, oh I don't know, $10-20 million.
One would think I'd be ideal marriage material. I'm intelligent, educated, successful, and I have money, real money. I'm also devoted to my family.
I didn't have to walk away from the teaching career I spent 20 years building to go into real estate, just to look after my mother. I was going to inherit the company anyway. But when my father was sick and dying, I didn't question my responsibilities.
Not that the girl I was dating at the time could understand that. She had plans. She wanted to get married, and she didn't want to wait. I told her, look, I don't know how long this is going to take, but marriage is out of the question until this crisis is over. She didn't like it one bit when I resigned my positions teaching high school and college, and moved back home.
So she married someone else. Funny thing is, she divorced him before my father died, and now they're both broke. Oh, well. If she had stood by and supported me in my decision to do what I had to do, she'd be married to a millionaire today, and her children would have absolutely nothing to worry about.
This really, I think, cuts to the heart of the matter. And it can be seen in Joanne Jacob's approach to her subject matter, the marriage strike. It's her pretense to superiority, her tendency to condescend, her incredible sense of entitlement, and her complete inability to understand, much less appreciate or respect, what it means to be a man. That's the problem.
And it's her problem, not mine.
she should try to live as a man in todays world. but that would be too hard.
if i didnt adore rowan and found someone who is my best friend, then i would avoid all entanglements, because its not worth it, and so what if we live in our parents basement so long as we give them housekeeping. and look after them.
if it was such a good thing marrying a modern woman, then why arent men doing it? they arent. of course a lot of people will say its the mans fault for being a manchild. if thats the worst that can be said of me then call me manchild all you want.
gawainsghost,
Asking her to hang around as your girlfriend for years on end is quite a lot to ask of someone. Did you suggest getting engaged with an unspecified date, at least?
If I may make one suggestion to those young men who are choosing not to marry. Taking up permanent residence in mom's basement may not be the best idea. Sure, society has no problem with a single guy, but when you tell your employer that mom does your laundry and still buys your underwear, well that may not work in your favor. The price of real estate is depressed so I suggest you think about buying a home and squirreling away a nest egg. Take-out food is loaded with sugars, saturated fat and excessive calories. It won't be long before your waist line starts to expand on that type of diet. Learn something about food prep, it will serve you well in the future.
so, the thing is DONT tell your employer that.. thats easier than buying a house because tomorrow you will have negative equity in the house and have to pay over the odds. IF a woman is so shallow as to not want to be with a larger sized man, who may be perfect mental match for them.. then they are dumb women.
Of course all men who live with their mums eat take out food, they all become fat slobs. let me count the prejudices there.
I'm not married and I don't live in the basement of my parent's house either. (And I don't play video games either.) Gee, maybe there are other alternatives.
Joanne, if you're going to try to manipulate men into getting married, you'll have to do a lot better than that.
The old false dichotomy. I'm not as comfortable as Mr. Ghost but I'm quite happpy with my little house on a creek with an acre of land in rural Ohio which I bought after being divorced. Moved out of my parents at age 19 and never looked back.
I'm a pretty good cook too, better than my ex who is the one eating carry out mostly.
Like Kay Hymowitz, Joanne Jacob gives a good example, herself, of why men are more reluctant to marry. I certainly avoid condescending b****s.
I did not ask her to hang around for years on end. But then I didn't propose to her either. I don't believe in putting myself in a situation over which I have no control. I also don't believe in stringing some girl along just so I can have a warm place to park it.
I explained the situation to her. I told her that marriage was out of the question until this crisis was over. (There's no way I'm going to take on all the responsibilities of a marriage while my family is in crisis.) And I left the final decision up to her. That's what men do.
It could have been a matter of only a few weeks or months. As it turned out, it was a little over two years. Over that time she decided to marry and divorce someone else.
She could have demonstrated to me how serious she was about our relationship. She could have made the decision to stand with me through thick and thin. If she had, she'd be sitting pretty right now.
But, looking back, I'm glad she didn't. She probably would have divorced me too, as soon as the emotion wore off and the sex got borring. And I'd be out a whole hell of a lot of money.
So it all worked out for the best. For me, anyway, not for her. Howbeit, that's the way she wanted it.
Mrs. Jacobs's comment is a fine example of the logical fallacy called the "undistributed middle." Many a bachelor lives an entirely satisfactory life in every way but progeny and continuity of romantic partner. Granted, some are unhappy...but isn't that true of a significant fraction of married persons as well?
Men are marriage-shy in greater numbers than ever before in Western history. The phenomenon deserves analysis and hard thought, not a flip, logically insubstantial dismisal.
Asking her to hang around as your girlfriend for years on end is quite a lot to ask of someone. Did you suggest getting engaged with an unspecified date, at least?
How would the relationship change for the better if he asked her to marry? What could he get out of marriage that he couldn't get out of just dating? Save for an increase in annual salary (which he wouldn't need if he weren't married or living with someone), the answer is nothing. If she is unsatisfied with the relationship as it is simply because she isn't married, then that's simply a reflection of her own built up fantasies - fantasies which she may never be able to realize, thus leaving her in a perpetual state of unhappiness.
Many a bachelor lives an entirely satisfactory life in every way but progeny and continuity of romantic partner.
On the contrary, many a bachelor really like the (lack of) continuity of partner. And many a married man are envious of them. (I, myself, am not one of them, though -- just stating a fact about most men.)
'Sure, society has no problem with a single guy, but when you tell your employer that mom does your laundry and still buys your underwear, well that may not work in your favor.'
How many men live like that?
The problem lies with the women they don't want the men around all the time, they want what they can get from them and claim the rest from the State, and they don't need to get married these days, what used to be called living in sin is commonplace now.
There is now no stigma attached to children of unmarried women as there was in the past either.
Why look after a male as well, that is if they look after their children properly in the first place.
Pokosmom:
'Sure, society has no problem with a single guy, but when you tell your employer that mom does your laundry and still buys your underwear, well that may not work in your favor.'
How many men live like that?
Not many, but I know a few that do. I'm no psychological expert but there has to be some sort of phenomenon that entices a mother to continue to parent a grown son through adulthood. A mother receives some control over her son and continued love and adoration. The son never has to do his laundry or pay a bill in return.
To Adrian
"'Many a bachelor lives an entirely satisfactory life in every way but progeny and continuity of romantic partner.'
"On the contrary, many a bachelor really like the (lack of) continuity of partner. And many a married man are envious of them. (I, myself, am not one of them, though -- just stating a fact about most men.)"
It's even better/worse than you say. Google on the phrase "Coolidge Effect" Wikipedia has a pretty good description.
I thought the only 30 year old men living in their mom's basement were potheads.
So now all men who don't marry are potheads?
Trey
I'm divorced, and a man, and I sure as hell do not live on take out in my parents' basement. What kind of indolent loser does that?
I'm sorry, but I have very little patience or respect for divorced men who suddenly regress to living with their parents.
If the problem is your ex-wife's alimony payments, either get a different lawyer, or a higher paying job, or move to a place with cheaper living expenses. But deal. The world owes you no favors.
When the movie, "Failure to Launch" came out in 2006 a book entitled Boys Adrift written by Leonard Sax described the phenomenon of some growns sons setting up permanent residence in their parent's house. Here is radio show that interviews Mr. Sax and some others including Katherine Newman about the phenomenon. Some of the people calling in to the show seem to think it is perfectly fine that young men don't move out of their parent's home, maybe it is just a giant fluke that young ladies tend to grow up and fly away.
Cham, price of real estate is depressed? You are either mis informed or a realtor. Each market has it's own characteristics, and certain deep pocketed investors will do well in foreclosed properties, but nobody can claim the price of real estate is depressed. It is not so, buyer beware.
" ... maybe it is just a giant fluke that young ladies tend to grow up and fly away."
-------
Don't forget that the "young ladies" can simply move in with an older man who already has a house. It's socially acceptable for a woman to leech off a man, but not the other way around. The men have to build it up on their own; that may take time.
I remember in my first real job out of college, in my mid-20s, that most of the guys my age were living in 1-bedroom apartments and trying to claw their way up in the world. Some of the women in the office our age, including secretaries and the like, were already living in nice big houses. Even unemployed women can be living in a nice house, they're called "housewives".
then these women can get pregnant and get given far more than any single male. see thats the disconnect, men who do live at home as considered scroungers, yet single mothers, who scroung off the state, are "heroes".
once again women are better than men, because they can move away, it doesnt occur to people who say this that, the woman can find a man, move in get pregnant with or without marrying, then divorce man, woman get house for the the kids, most of the mans money, so he has nowhere else to live but go back home.
Not all people can move elsewhere, especially in a high housing market (the UK for example). but thats the answer to everything man must move to get more money to support women who just want men for the money they make.
No wonder men are avoiding women, there is no incentive, and its people like cham and ideas like theirs that create the idea of why bother finding a woman when she is only gonna steal everything i make or own.
I personally know 4 of these women, out for what they can get..
Dr. Helen
don't you find the wiki entry on the "marriage strike" biased on its face?
Under "divorce penalty" is this line:
"Typically, a woman will receive 50% ownership of the couple's assets on initiation of divorce."
A couples' assets - ie joint property aquired after marriage - IS community property wherein each spouse has a 50% interest. So why was that sentence structured that way? Maybe to reinforce the 'golddigger' stereoptype? Maybe to reinforce the 'lazy, bonbon eating' SAHM stereotype?
My my, I'm so shocked at the shoddy way wiki is written!
Darleen:
1. Most states are not community property states. Among the community property states, not all property acquired after marriage is considered to be community property.
2. There is a difference between a legal entitlement to something and EARNING it. No, housewives already earned their keep (WAY above what professional cleaners earn) by the husband paying for their room, board, cars, vacations and all the rest. On a merit basis, housewives should pay back their husbands for the deficit upon divorce (the surplus she got above a professional cleaner & hooker, remembering that professionals have to perform and have to have quality - housewives don't). But we know it doesn't work that way.
I'd frankly say the housewives should take their ill-gotten booty and just shut up. Someone may otherwise really notice what they're getting away with.
jg
housewives should take their ill-gotten booty and just shut up
ooo...no bigotry there!
Tell me, would you say the same thing about SAH dads? Are they parasites who should shut-up too?
see someone about teh hate, eh?
"Tell me, would you say the same thing about SAH dads? Are they parasites who should shut-up too?"
---------
Why is there always an assumption that housewives are mothers? Or that househusbands are fathers? There are plenty of women (I don't know about men) who don't have kids but who live off a man.
I don't have any respect for those types of women, sorry (and that type of parasite is usually a woman).
I can see a man or woman taking a few years off to care for small children, but once kids are off to school, it gets iffier and iffier as the kids get older as to whether the sit-at-home parent is simply being a leech.
But I wonder why people always take the default position that a housewife or househusband is also a father. It's certainly not always the case.
Women will always try to induce men to marry and label those that don't chose to as "adolescent", "immature", "irresponsible" etc -- plagued with all kind of emotional problems.
Why ?-- marriage is in women's self -interest and they are merely seeking to manipulate men to act in women's self-interest-- when marriage is often not in a man's self interest.
Women have created the present circumstances where marriage is a hard choice for many men -- and now wonder why men opt out or opt for another arrangemnt that they feel is more friendly to them..
When you want someone to do something thats in your self-interest, ethics and integrity really require you to-
-- be clear why you want them to do something, what you want from them and why
-- show them its in their self-interest to do agree, show them that they will benefit also.
Actully all the efforts at manipulation just confirm the problem-- women have a great need for men to marry/support them and work very hard at shaming men into doing it.
If there are good/strong reasons for men to marry-- point them out.
The problem is marriage is problematic for men now---- and this manipulative abusing of men who are quite reasonably reluctant to enter a totally one-sided contract just confirms their hesistancy.
Remember " A Woman Needs A Man Like A Fish needs a Bicycle "--
It's certainly not always the case
Not always, but it is the vast majority. Really, jg, I don't know what strange universe you live in but the ONLY non-employed "housewives/husbands" I know of are over 70 years of age... aka retired couples.
and if a couple decides together that one will "stay home" and the other will work outside the house, then that agreement cannot beheld against the SAH person later on.
Good god, if two people opened a business where one (A) is out doing sales, there other(B) "in house" running the day to day operations, if the business disolves you don't award the whole business to A and tell B to "shut up" or "pay back" something to A. The assets of the business are either liquidated and split or, if the business is is continue, the leaving partner is bought out.
"Five non-religious reasons for marriage over living together"
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/DennisPrager/2006/10/03/five_non-religious_arguments_for_marriage_over_living_together?page=full&comments=true
personally don’t buy the “divorce laws are bad so We’re on Strike” meme. It’s the equivalent to the radical feminists “I won’t get married because it’s nothing but a Patriarchal institution that exploits womyn” meme.
Both are excuses that have at their core some rebellion at responsibility and maturity.
YES, maturity.
Loving someone else and committing to them is hard, it is work and it means choosing to live life as a “we” not as a “me”.
It means "growing up".
And a lot of males and females just want to sing their own song in one note: “me, me, me, me”
A spouse means having to coordinate for harmony. Having children even more so.
To Darleen:
You are complaining about both men and women being immature on a blog where a very large number of men routinely complain about women. The choice of venue is important. Do you routinely go to a website like Feminsting, where women complain about men, and write something like that? If the answer is yes, please provide evidence
bobh
last I looked the blog was Dr. Helen's, not yours.
If the good Dr. has a problem with my comments, I'm sure she'll let me know.
I've commented before at Feministe and Pandagon ... St. Mandy and Jill have little use for me... according to Mandy men own MY vagina because I believe in marriage and personal responsibility.
I've taken on the Vagina Warriors on more than one occassion (and have had my comments deleted and been banned from further comments)
http://www.darleenclick.com/weblog/archives/2006/02/vulva_diary_a_m_1.html
IMO, some of the women bashing I've seen on these threads is the equivalent of the men bashing on the radical feminist sites. Action/reaction ... misandrists and misogynists deserve each other.
But for the rest of rational people, its about seeing the whole picture. It's about rejecting dehumanizing stereotypes.
When someone labels housewives as nothing more than housecleaning whores then one is not dealing with rationality.
I must give credit to Darleen for trying to find reasons why men should want to get married. Unfortunately, the reasons listed are reasons that convince women and daunt men.
I'm really really really tired of women who define everything that men do or like that doesn't serve women's interests as "immature."
The divorce laws really are, in themselves, a good enough reason why no man should marry any woman who either has less net worth than he does or who doesn't make at least 70% of what he does. Divorce laws are not really all that anti-male: they're pro-slacker, which is what most women are compared to most men.
Darleen is mostly right about something: men are not on strike against marriage. Especially if they've never been divorced.
After their first divorce, some men wise up, but not the majority.
It doesn't take a majority to change the direction of the majority.
Ladies, wag more, bark less. You're as close to losing your traditional social power as the media companies, and for many of the same reasons.
Michael Lee
Men and women both have reasons for/against marriage.
The ultimate reason for either is that it is the most important relationship one CHOOSES. We don't get to choose our parents -- which is why the Commandment is to "honor" them rather than love them. To choose another person to care about, to live for, to live with is the first step out of narcisism. A good successful marriage is fulfilling for both partners.
and BTW
they're pro-slacker, which is what most women are compared to most men.
care to substantiate that risible bigotry?
Darleen wrote: " I personally don’t buy the “divorce laws are bad so We’re on Strike” meme."
Darleen, I am a happily married man, so I am out of the loop on this one too. But I am not sure it matters what you or I buy or accept, the answer is in the little grey cells of those men who are deciding not to marry. Their motivations may make no sense to you or I, but I think that the self-identified fellas here who espouse that viewpoint should be given due consideration.
We may not agree with their thoughts, but that is different from dismissing them out of hand or telling them that we know and understand their motivation better than they do.
Trey
Trey
The marriage strike meme is, on surface, selfserving ... as is the contention that males are filling their free time as Dr. Helen asserts:It’s a sensible choice for some and the video games, magazines, and humor websites that Hymowitz disses are a way to fill one’s time with fun activities that don’t tell you that you suck, are an “unfinished person,” emotionally detached or on your way to jail for fake domestic violence charges. People used to treat men better than this.
which I'll let Cassandra answer:
I question this assumption. A lifestyle that consists of filling their free time with video games, serial bouts of promiscuous sex and porn somehow:
(a) doesn't remind me of how society "used to treat" my husband, father or grandfather, who all settled down and got married, and
(b) doesn't impress me as particularly convincing argument for "how grown-up, adult and rational single young men really are".
I don't contest their right to spend their time as they please, and if they choose to spend their free time in that manner they are probably not particularly good candidates for marriage and fatherhood anyway. But don't expect me to call their choices rational or mature. I wouldn't condone the same choices in young women, and my father's and grandfather's generation would have been far quicker to condemn such behavior than I. In fact, they would have been downright scathing in their condemnation.
"... and my father's and grandfather's generation would have been far quicker to condemn such behavior than I. In fact, they would have been downright scathing in their condemnation."
>>>>>>>>>
No, I think you mean your father and your grandfather themselves.
My father and grandfather were intelligent and less judgmental, so don't pin it on a generation. Aside from that, it's always an interesting argument when you say what someone *would have* thought. Maybe paps or grandpaps would have been secretly happy to not have to support the sit-at-home deadweight that seems to run in the family.
You are extremely judgmental about a role that you are never going to have to fill yourself, darleen. You are never going to have to take a man's role in society, but that doesn't stop you from running your mouth about it.
Marriage has changed ("no fault"). Women have changed. You already have a sap to pay for you, so I'm wondering why you have such motivation to try to shame men into fitting into your little picture of the world.
Part of the problem that men and women have is the evolution of the institution of marriage.
I'm not talking about the last 50 or hundred years, but the millennial long social practice that resulted in today's wedding vows. At one time, people "married/mated" to survive. Marriage was the union of two widely disparate endeavors: the hunters and the gatherers, the protectors and the defenseless. Women provided a relative stability for the offspring to be raised. Men provided by killing/harvesting, defending the family against wild creatures and barbarians. Men have evolved to substitute a paycheck for their spear/bow/gun. Women however, have had a truly revolutionary advancement in their job description. Once they were the managers of the household, maintainers of the social harmony, advancers of social civilization. They often died early of disease and illness. Work was from sun up to sun set. Men and families couldn't survive without the wife or the husband. Today however, meals are "frozen and microwavable", managing the home a snap (vacuums/washing machines), and medical advances have made childbirth related deaths a distant horror. Leisure time is the precious commodity. Men are now disposable. Governments have removed the role of men. Women can immaculately conceive, receive housing, food, and protection against the hordes-all without a man. Women's equality has disrupted old, ingrained, and evolved patterns. Divorce lawyers have taken it one step further, removing yet more reasons for men to be part of a family. Men are now the remote suppliers of sustenance, extracted by legal mechanisms. We are denigrated by society-look at the generalized portrayal of men by mainstream media as bumbling boob and incompetents, managed by their aloof superior women-or as rapacious molesters/killers/barbarians. The emasculated "metrosexual" man is now the holy grail by MSM: caring, sensitive, and in touch with their inner child. All others are flawed cast offs and those that don't fit the mold are "adolescent", "immature", "irresponsible" when they don't buy into the feminist meme. Look at the latest male models in fashion.....old fashioned masculine is out, androgynous near women are in.
Yeah, it's a rant. I don't see it getting any better. Look at the population growth of unwed mothers as a barometer for the usefulness of men.
I'm a married man of 20+ years and no plans for divorce. Just depressed about where the institution of marriage is headed. (and yes, my wife works and makes 4x what I do).
tether
what makes you think I've never taken on the sole breadwinner, single parent role? What makes you think Cassandra is "deadweight"?
My parents mark their 56th wedding anniversary this April. Mom was a SAHM and execellent corporate wife that allowed my father to be very successful. She went back to work after the kids were out of the house, and when my dad went through a catestrophic medical emergency (6 mos in the hospital after an abdominal aneurysm, then months of recovery at home) she nursed him, cared for him and continued to run the household.
Dead weight? My oh my..no hate there, nothing to see.
heh.
Uh, Tether? from your last comment:
"sit-at-home deadweight" (parasitic housewife, you mean?)
"fitting into your little picture of the world."
And your picture of the world is any bigger? But, at least you're more insulting!
I don�t think it�s really that tough to be a man or that marriage is such a bad deal compared to living on take-out in your parents� basement.
I won't pretend I know whether it's more difficult to be a man or a woman, but it would be nice once in awhile if women would at least recognize some of the ways in which it is difficult to be a man (And if you don't know already, I'm certainly not going to tell you!). But, in an era where women can take college courses and even obtain degrees in, well, essentially complaining about how hard women have it, I shouldn't expect much empathy.
Second, while marriage has its benefits, I do have to say, that I had more freedom, more free time, less stress, and more money before I got married. I haven't been married long, so hopefully things will change within the next few years, but I can certainly understand why men might prefer to stay single, even if it means eating take-out in your parents' basement.
Or, as a friend of mine, who recently got married for the first time at the age of 40, repeatedly says, "Marriage isn't better than being single, just different."
Darleen, thanks for the link. I agreed with most of Cassandra's points and found the essay thoughtful and interesting.
And I do not expect you (or me) to condone foolish behavior. I just have a bias for going to the source and asking rather than trying to think up an answer!
Thanks also for the good conversation!
Trey
bobh, I just checked the wiki article on the Coolidge Effect and it has a funny story about how the term originated.
Darleen, I enjoyed Prager's article on marriage and I especially liked his last line.
I am currently reading a book on the history of the helicopter and I found two passages that I felt were relevant to the marriage topic:
"John Randolph Hopkin's paternal grandfather, a prominent Atlanta loan broker, had gotten into a huge and ugly divorce proceeding in 1914 after his wife, a woman of high society, took a trip to New York. Hopkin's grandfather told a court later that his wife had been completely spoiled by the city life, refused to come back to Atlanta, spent cash like a mad-woman, and had put private detectives on his trail. His wife replied hotly that he was not one to cast stones because he kept their house in Atlanta blazing with lights throughout each night and entertained lewd women there, including one named in the papers as Martha "Bungalow" Harrison. She said the checks that her loan-broker husband sent to pay expenses were so meager that she was a virtual prisoner in her luxury apartment in New York's St. Regis Hotel because her jewelry was under lien for unpaid bills."
This next passage is about civilian helicopters: "It was apparently assumed that husbands were fully committed but their wives' allegiance was in question, even though the great majority of articles suggested that flying a helicopter would be as easy as operating an elevator or driving a car. Therefore a number of articles referred to the housewife who would push a button or raise a lever and rise to cruising altitude, then would push or pull something else and zoom horizontally to a destination as if steering a car along an electronic highway. There was blithe talk of landing such machines in backyards, perhaps ones as small as twenty feet across. Charles H. Kaman addressed any doubters by arranging a demonstration for Life magazine in 1948, in which he loosed Ann Griffin, 'young housewife of Simsbury, Conn.,' on a solo flight in his K-190 intermeshing-rotor helicopter, after thirty-six minutes of instruction. Photographs and captions made the point: Anybody could do this thing. Still, poet Phyllis McGinley of the New Yorker expressed some doubt in a stanza from her 1943 work "All God's Chillun Got Helicopters": "Still will the Sunday pilots soar / Reckless of holiday disaster, / To meet it as they did before / But somewhat faster."
Darleen, accusing everyone who disagrees with or offends you of "hate" and "bigotry" is, of course, standard feminista practice, but a little hysterical, don't you think?
Women are relative slackers, compared to men. Men do most of the really hard work in the world(manning oil rigs and fishing boats, for example, no pun intended). Men do the great majority of all of the most important work in the world (science, inventing things, defending our free society).
Women focus too much on the 78 cent issue, and ignore the fact that more men work hard, work more hours, work with greater long range focus and produce way more than half of the GDP.
In family court, the more a woman has been a slacker, the better off she is in terms of alimony and property settlement. Compare the number of alimony awards that go to women compared to those that go to men, and tell me which sex is slacking.
From my experience I do not think things are so simple there. I work for www.firstwivesworld.com, it is an online community for women navigating through the various stages of divorce. We have so many members and experts that share their stories and each one is so very different and touching. It seems as though sometimes the men get the better end of the deal. I don't know, it just seems very much more complicated than that. Especially with our countries image of divorce changing more in the last 5 years than in the past 20.
Just my two cents
Ann Marie
check out www.firstwivesworld.com.
Ann Marie,
Interesting site but I was wondering, why do so many women over there use the term "the Dick"-to refer to men? Imagine if women were called, "the Vagina"--it is not really very nice. Or maybe I'm missing something that you can clear up?
http://www.firstwivesworld.com/search/node/the+dick
the 78 cent is i beleive a matter of choice, there are intangible benefits for these women.
in the press recently they are talking about heather mills and paul mccartney she may be getting £55-£60 million for 4 years marriage. there was a story months ago how a woman was trying to get money from her ex husband (they had been divorced 30 years). the money he earner AFTER the divorce.
i dont see many men benefiting from divorce as ann marie says, some divorce lawyers and womans rights say make up abuse allegations to get more.
Post a Comment
<< Home