Men are a women's 'issue'
So states Marybeth Hicks in the Washington Times (via Ed Driscoll):
At first, I thought this was a positive piece on men, but no, just a hit piece on how men are pigs and should support women. If Ms. Hicks wonders why men have no interest in a "stable marriage," or commitment, she need only look as far as her own dripping disdain for men and her lack of insight into a culture that holds men responsible, portrays women as victims, and then sets up a "council" to correct a problem that women spend over 30 years in the making. A council on women is about expanding their opportunities. A council on men is about controlling them.
If Mr. Obama wanted to actually do something significant for American's women and girls, he would have created instead a White House Council on Men and Boys.
Just imagine the estrogen-induced response to something so sexist as a council chartered to address the concerns of one gender over another. Oh, wait. That's what this is.
But anyway, his is a council to address the issues of women and girls, so of course it is entirely fair.
Actually, I'm the mother of three girls, and I happen to think Mr. Obama's new council won't win the battle of the sexes. That's because the best thing anyone can do for American women and girls is to encourage men and boys to “man up.”
A council on men and boys would promote stable marriage as the best avenue to improve the lives and living conditions of America's women and families. A council on men and boys would address the crisis in American manhood that results in the scourge of infidelity, divorce, lack of commitment and fatherhood with multiple partners.
At first, I thought this was a positive piece on men, but no, just a hit piece on how men are pigs and should support women. If Ms. Hicks wonders why men have no interest in a "stable marriage," or commitment, she need only look as far as her own dripping disdain for men and her lack of insight into a culture that holds men responsible, portrays women as victims, and then sets up a "council" to correct a problem that women spend over 30 years in the making. A council on women is about expanding their opportunities. A council on men is about controlling them.
posted by Helen at 7:10 AM
188 Comments:
I don't want to hear the words "man up" anymore. Those are very manipulative words.
Putting President's councils aside, and letting the peanut gallery decide what is right for American, I was very encouraged last week. I was listening to the radio and was delighted to hear a radio program for black men. They were discussing the heightened violence in the black community, the negative aspects of single motherhood and trying to find some ideas on how to better raise children so they don't fall into the abyss of drugs, death and prison.
While listening I decided that the only way men are going to change some things in this world is to devise their own solutions and make the positive changes themselves.
"That's because the best thing anyone can do for American women and girls is to encourage men and boys to “man up.” "
----
Today, when I hear "man up", I instinctively reach for my wallet to make sure it's still there. In the second step, I wonder what a woman wants from me now.
That kind of manipulation used to be very effective as a shaming tactic. Now it's only partially effective against the ever-dwindling supply of chivalrous men. All it makes me do now is shut down and start opposing whoever is saying it.
There's also a bit of hypocrisy in (feminist) women simultaneously talking about "equality" (i.e. men should assume modern roles when it is to the advantage of the woman) in one breath and "manning up" (i.e. men should assumed traditional roles when it is to the advantage of women) in another breath.
I think that if a man told the authoress of this article that she should "woman up" and not worry her pretty little head about politics - and then make him a sandwich - she'd have a big vein standing out in her forehead.
Just one more angle that always suggests the same solution.
When a person or group always advocates the same solution for every problem, regardless of whether it helps or even when the solution makes the problem worse, you know their goal isn't solving the problem. It's implementing the solution.
The current problems with masculinity, crime, men who never grow up, infidelity, and the like are the consequence of single motherhood. There are no differences between black, white, and Latino incarceration rates for men once single parent houselholds are figured out of the statistics. Single parent households (no husband/father households more accurately) are the best predictior of poverty as well. Feminists, in their hubris, declared men unnecessary. They refuse, again in their hubris, to acknowledge or accept the error.
They have yet to meet the enemy, but it is them.
The Feminist's chickens have left home to roost.
Trey
As a man with six boys (and two girls), I really don't care what Obama or Congress collude to do to improve the life of anyone. They're mostly irrelevant, and usually only harmful when they attempt to improve anything.
Part of the problem, as I see it, is that all of them work to parade the "problems" in front of the rest of us. Instead, they could easily find great examples and hold those examples forth for the rest of the nation. But that would mean finding what's right in America - an exercise that shows all of us where they're not needed (no solution for them to apply), and therefore they will never highlight it.
While I agree that the promotion of stable marriage is right (of course), I don't see a "crisis in American manhood." What I do see is a bunch of people fighting to prove they have value in solving cultural problems that mostly don't exist.
As a man who grew up in the feminist 70s and was surrounded by liberal college professors who all but publicly apologized for being male, I am at a complete loss to understand what women expect from men on the societal stage.
We men are very simple creatures. Think paper clip simple. If you want John Wayne, we'll be John Wayne. If you want Alan Alda, no probs. If you want Russell Crowe from "Master and Commander," that's what you'll get.
I had a psychologist friend once tell me that it is women who truly dictate the behaviors of men. She said that if women found men who could stand on their heads to be attractive, half the planet would be upside-down in 24 hours.
I am beginning to get the feeling that women don't want men at all. Not for nothing. They just want an orbital support unit so they can do the "Barbie Gets Married, Has Terrific, Prize-Winning Children and the Dishes Get Done By Themselves" routine so they can brag to their friends on how fabulous their lives are.
But a husband? What the hell is that?
"We men are very simple creatures. Think paper clip simple. If you want John Wayne, we'll be John Wayne. If you want Alan Alda, no probs. If you want Russell Crowe from "Master and Commander," that's what you'll get."
---
I'd kinda say "speak for yourself" on that one. I'm quite happy about living my own life and not following the (direct or indirect) commands of a woman.
I don't know, Brett. Concerning the government, I see them as wanting to solve the very problems they have contributed so greatly to.
You know, just like the the bailout.
@JG: I take your point. Mine was not in reference to what a specific woman wants, but the publicly held and discussed notions of what women in general expect from men in general.
Seriously, if my wife told me that she wanted me to play Russell Crowe, I'd check her into rehab.
Kevin M:
I admit I sometimes play "Escaped Prisoner and the Warden's Wife" with my girlfriend, but that's voluntary on my part.
JG: It only counts if you use costumes.
Is it wrong of me to tell a woman that she needs to bitch up?
The Council on Women is a crass political ploy to keep a segment of women "happy" (I know, that's an oxymoron when used with respect to that group). It will address the usual women's health issues and will spend most of it's ill-conceived existence pretending to be studying the "wage gap," because that's the only "gap" left that doesn't favor women.
As for "manning up," well, dear writer, Daniel Patrick Moynihan tried to keep inner city fathers in the family back in the mid-60's but his Democratic brethren wouldn't hear of it. If they had listened to him, chances are that cackling hens like this wouldn't write disparaging pieces about men abandoning their families because it wouldn't be nearly the problem it is. The Dem's social policies encouraged women to force Dad out of the house, creating a culture of dependence on the government and of fatherless families. The resulting social pathologies may be impossible to correct.
So don't blame men; please thank the Dems for creating a culture where Big Brother replaced Dad, and thank your sisters who seem just fine with that.
"Man up,' eh?
How about this Marybeth Hicks:
Go F--k yourself.
This April 14th, I'm witholding ALL tax money that goes to support women's programs. Women can pay for themselves now. My days of 'manning up' are over.
I guess women will have to 'Grow up' now, won't they? Maybe then they'll learn how to keep their legs closed and cut down on the prison population.
I'm with Cham on the "man up" bit.
Hicks' point is the oft repeated "Men should do whatever women want." And, if you get upset about it, it's OK if we kill you in your sleep.
If women want a stable marriage, they can begin by appreciating and loving their husbands and letting go of the incredible sense of entitlement so many women have nowadays.
I tell my sons to be damn careful about whom they marry.
"I tell my sons to be damn careful about whom they marry."
Wise words. Tell your daughters too! I know I do.
Trey
Nothing here that can't be solved with a six pak of beer and a package of frozen corn dogs. Urrp!
Let the femmes eat cake!
Warning: Dissent follows.
If the general point is that whatever we can do to restore traditional manhood is a good thing, not only for men but for women as well, I'm good with that.
Admittedly, the author does an inartful job of communicating that point, but if you can get past the outrageous use of the "Man Up" slur the point should be well taken.
Maybe its Jeff Goldstein's intentionalism training, but look at what her intentions are and not how you interpret her signs. Go to her site and read the blog, she is all about traditional values as the way to personal and social happiness.
Sinner, I checked her blog, and the only thing I could find was a possible tendency for her to use more negative adjectives when describing boys than when describing boys. And I was looking.
But it is quite difficult to get past the language of bigotry, and the "man up" quote qualifies as far as I am concerned.
And the text quoted talks more about girls and women but blames men more as I read it.
But thanks for the dissent and the link. My mind is at least partially open on the matter, and the opening is thanks to you!
Trey
Sinner: I very much disagree with your take. I followed the link and read the whole article, and it's very clear that she blames all of society's problems on male sexuality. She decries the "objectification" of women, by which she means sexy women. She repeats the old gender-feminist lie that equates visual erotica to violence against women. And she regards men's role in society of being absolute provider, who gives and expects nothing in return. She's very clear in her belief that men are responsible for 100% of infidelity and family breakups.
In fact, except for her stance on abortion, Hicks is very much a gender feminist along the lines of Jessica Valenti. So it's rather amusing to hear her decrying a "feminist" agenda, most of which she backs. She's one of that new gender-feminist species, the feminist Miss Grundy.
There is no such thing as the 'objectification of women.' That is cultural marxist jargon. It's just as easy for me to say that such things don't exist as it is for someone to say they do.
Saying somene 'objectifies women' is like saying 'I saw a purple unicorn.' It's a nonsense statement, and it's a lazy use of words.
I deny the language of radical feminism and it's postmodern, Marxist, Andrea Dworkin, Baudrillard imbibing hordes. You are all weak, and will perish at the feet of people who actually do things for a living.
JG --
"We men are very simple creatures. ... that's what you'll get."
I'd kinda say "speak for yourself" on that one. I'm quite happy about living my own life and not following the (direct or indirect) commands of a woman.
I agree with JG. There have been several women in my life with the change him attitute. One very sweet one whom I loved dearly. We ended mostly because a gal friend of ours told her He'll only be who he is, and she meant that non-derisively - we're still friends. She was a nice gal, ended nicely.
I R A Darth Aggie --
Is it wrong of me to tell a woman that she needs to bitch up?
Depending on whom you address, it could very well be redundant.
Very few women are capable of empathizing with men. There are about as many women who have the ability to empathize with men as there are children capable of empathizing with adults.
This is what most men fail to grasp, and why they go round and round in circles trying to "explain things" to women.
Women just don't care. We are here for their purposes, not ours.
"Women have no sympathy... And my experience of women is almost as large as Europe. And it is so intimate too. Women crave for being loved, not for loving. They scream at you for sympathy all day long, they are incapable of giving you any in return for they cannot remember your affairs long enough to do so." -- Florence Nightingale
Esther Villar says about the same thing, over and over again, in her book "The Manipulated Man."
What men don't "get" is that we (men) are a "business" to women. The attention women can get from men is their survival tactic. It does not mesh with the male survival drive, which is "go get" or "go create." Sadly, we men have a hard time understanding that women rarely have the same desires as we do.
Women are designed by nature to look "yummy" to us so that we will give of ourselves to women. This is nature. It is not nature for it to occur the other way around.
It works the same way as with women and children. Children will rarely care for the mother the way that the mother will care for the child. Children are not designed to empathize with mothers in the same way that mothers are designed to empathize with their children.
Women will never "care" about men in the same way that men "care" about the wellbeing of women.
We are both designed this way by nature. It has always been women who have walked out on men more than the other way around... it has always been women that have been more opposed to adultery laws than men... the 10% of children are the result of cuckolding is supposedly a fairly consistent stat over time/history/populations.
We are designed like this by nature, and men who are sitting around and waiting for women to smarten up and show men the proper amount of empathy/sympathy are being no more intelligent than a mother sitting down and crossing her arms until her children show a reciprocal amount of empathy for her... both will be sitting there for a looooong time.
You can even see how this works with the way that men and women buy family vehicles. The wife and kids are always put in the best vehicle/mini-van/SUV as possible to "protect them" etc. etc. while the husband drives the run-down piece of crap to work... when the time comes that the husband gets a second vehicle you can usually hear the wife chirping in, "We had to get Joe a new truck... because the last one wasn't safe and we don't know what we would do if something happened to him.
That's the way it has always been and the way it will likely always be. Men are a tool to women... a "business." And to successfully work that business, they must always appear in the needy/attention category. Babies who don't cry don't get milk... and women who don't get attention don't get taken care of by men. It is an innate feature of humans.
Women do control society's values and mores... they lead with what they think is fashionable, and men follow, because by nature we are designed to give women what they want.
Women "are" society. What women's wants are is what society's want's are. This is where women are lying when they talk about the dreaded "patriarchy." The patriarchy only existed because women explicitly approved of it, and endorsed it morally - causing the men to follow suit.
This is what is happening today too. Most of the anti-feminist battle is not going to be between men and women... it is going to be between women who want a "traditional man" and those who want a collective "government husband." In both cases, the women are advocating for men to take care of women - with little concern for the man's wants and needs - one wants a personal slave to serve her & her offspring, while the other wants a slave class to serve women and their offspring in general.
It's the way human beings are designed. Who cares whether women rule, or they rule the rulers? The result is the same.
It's not going to change.
These are the types of factors that have to be taken into account every time someone starts advocating for "change" or even worse, "equality." (GAK!)
"In both cases, the women are advocating for men to take care of women - with little concern for the man's wants and needs - one wants a personal slave to serve her & her offspring, while the other wants a slave class to serve women and their offspring in general."
---
The trade-off: If an individual husband takes care of you, you can get more specific about the stuff you get and you can get a lot more (if you bag a man with money). The drawback is that the creep may actually have independent ideas - instead of working for you 24/7 - so he may be harder to control and manipulate.
The government as husband, on the other hand, is always steady and reliable, but it's harder to manipulate for specific things beyond general requirements and you don't get as much stuff.
Decisions, decisions!
And I agree with your entire post, Rob - many, most women in reality don't have a whole lot of empathy for men. Men are like robots who are supposed to provide and protect and not have any independent desires.
The bottome line to me is that men and women need each other, we are differently matched pairs. Any philosophy or ideology which ignores this aspect of humanity fails.
It is not "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle" but that a man needs a woman and vice versa. Now I do not need a woman in my life to be happy or live, but I DO need a woman in my life to be the best father I can be. And vice versa.
The problem is finding partners who are wise enough to know this and healthy enough to be able to live it. And that is tough.
Trey
The bizarre thing is that I have met many men (married and out in real life, out of college, for instance) who seem to WANT to simply have their plow-horse collar put on and trudge to work, be told what to do by the boss, and then trudge back home and be told what to do by the wife. Over and over for years and decades, until the heart attack puts you away for good.
I don't understand it, but many men ARE like that. Just doing what Nature wants them to do, I guess.
In my entire life, I have had numerous women (married and single) assure me that I can achieve no greater happiness than to be married.
I have never, ever, not even once, had a married man tell me such a thing. And I honestly don't know what to make of that.
To be honest, with all the issues going on in the country right now, I do not understand why anyone would want to waste money on a council for anyone. Creating jobs and reforming the school systems would do far more to help both boys and girls than any special interest council.
That said, I think if a council for men and boys were created, it would need to focus on undoing the vilification of males that has occurred in the last thirty years. I grew up hearing that boys and men were evil and dangerous, nothing but murderers and rapists. There were and remain very few positive male role models, and the few that do exist get lambasted for trying to help boys or not reaching out to girls enough.
I agree JG, many men are like that. My ex was like that. I was in charge of everything and he watched football. And in that type of relationship, no, I do not need a man. I've dated guys that just wait for me to make plans, dinner, whatever.
And frankly, young boys need more help now than ever before. We need a council for the encouragement of young boys to men.
Jacob, I agree, but your excellent plan would involve demanding that people be responsible for themselves. Ask Bill Cosby how well that goes over!
Trey
And frankly, young boys need more help now than ever before.
No doubt! We need to buy every 18 year old male a ticket out of this country and help them find a good culture to live in with decent women to marry. Among other things, such a culture would at least put women behind bars for life who cuckold their husbands. As long as we live under this culture, we need to make sure our sons never get married, learn all the essential skills to manipulate women for sex and to be able to deftly maneuver the legal system in case she tries to pull something. It's the modern day version of battle and survival skills -- skills every man should not be without but that woefully few men actually have.
Sounds like Vicki and I are right on the same page!
Sinner - if you read carefully the 4th and 5th paragraphs from the end of Hicks' column, you will see she is squarely blaming men for all these problems. Trey is right in his assesment.
Kevin M - I'll tell you what to make of it, it's a trap to trick you into getting married. That said, there are good marriages, just be damn careful.
Hicks does indeed blame men for the current sorry state of affairs between the sexes.
However, as I've blogged quite a bit, the reality is that both sexes helped create (as Asian Times columnist "Spengler" observed) the character of the opposite sex.
Women are deeply affected by technological (cheap, effective contraception) and social-economic (anonymous urban living and highly improved earnings). This has led to radical changes in behavior and in particular ... SEXUAL SELECTION.
Yes humans are subject to Darwin's theories just like every other living organism.
Women are single for far longer, with far more partners, and marry far later. This is all backed up by solid social science data, compared to say before 1965. This has led to a pattern of seeking various "Alpha" (socially dominant, not always economically dominant) men, and often "settling" late in the fertility window for the "Beta Provider" who does not offer endless sexual excitement.
In some ways this is a complaint of abundance, like the Gout in the 19th Century, or the obesity plague today.
Women are profoundly unhappy mostly because they men they would prefer for husbands are in very short supply. The few "Alpha" men who have high testosterone and levels of social dominance and excitement/attraction.
Meanwhile those men without those attributes engage in frankly childish, extended adolescent behaviors because their is little incentive to adopt adult modes of living. Video game amusements and "bromance" in obvious substitution for marriage and family. Some female commenters have even noted how male friends who they viewed as suitable for marriage in their twenties "spoiled" and became immature man-boys in their thirties with too much substitution.
If men have powerful incentives, that is easy ability to attract a same level attractive/status woman, then they will indeed exhibit behaviors and responsibility that is part and parcel of forming a family. If men don't, mostly, they won't, mostly.
Most women would not want to give up their freedom and plethora of choices particularly sexually in their twenties and early thirties. But EVERYTHING has a cost, there is no free lunch, and the complaints women have about men which are IMHO legitimate are the absolutely predictable outcome of this nearly unlimited and unbounded choice.
One need only look at the White British Underclass chronicled by Theodore Dalrymple or the Black Ghetto to see sexual selection on the basis of hyper-masucline thuggery (social dominance at it's ultimate) to see where that leads. Or Google the phrase "Lauren London thugs" or examine Rhianna to see powerful preferences in unbounded choice at play.
Obama can appoint all the commissions he wants, nothing will change until the widespread female sexual selection changes, and that is likely to never happen in our current technological and social state.
"I guess women will have to 'Grow up' now, won't they? Maybe then they'll learn how to keep their legs closed and cut down on the prison population."
---
It is so absolutely ridiculous to blame one party in something that takes two people to achieve.
Father's rights (or lack thereof) piss me off, but this "women should close their legs" argument is so very, very logically flawed.
And at least as far as casual/uncommitted sex is concerned, "well she told me she was on birth control" is almost as paper thin here, too. You're playing around with creating a CHILD, the risks are huge and life altering. You guys probably think it's stupid to sign on the dotted line when you haven't read what's inside? Why put your junk, your future income and sanity, on the line when your reassurances are even fewer?
I'd take my chances in court over contract law quicker than I would for child support payments.
I guess I'm tired of men blaming this stuff on women when the men in question think casual sex is OK. Take responsibility.
Tmink, you kinds lost me on your 1:11 post there. The vice versa part. Are you saying you need a father to be the best woman you can be?
By the way, I ain't laughing, I'm scared.
You think women are getting hammered with the "keep your legs closed" message today, Chris, while these irresponsible men are having casual sex (... without ... paying ... her ...LOL)?
Here's something to think about:
40 years ago, getting an abortion was a felony in a lot of states and there had been a long-standing tradition of no debtor's prisons.
Today, abortion is guaranteed as a fundamental constitutional right (thanks to smoke and mirrors on the part of the Supreme Court) and getting behind on your child support is not only subject to jail time for contempt of court, it is now a FELONY under certain circumstances (like crossing state lines owing a substantial sum).
Quite a change. But it's good that you're stickin' up for the wimmen. They need some more help.
TMink, what do I need a woman for? I'm serious, as the years go by I see less and less reason to have anything to do with them. The vast majority of women around my age (~36) have very little of interest to talk about, can't cook, and really seem to just look at men as walking wallets. So what do they have that I need? Sex? Lol, it aint worth the hassle. Outside of having kids, the social and legal system we have today makes them far more trouble then they are worth.
This comment has been removed by the author.
This comment has been removed by the author.
@vivictius: "So what do they have that I need? Sex?"
________
If sex is what a man wants most, he'll get more of it if he stays single.
@Orginal Article: "A council on men and boys would promote stable marriage as the best avenue to improve the lives and living conditions of America's women and families. A council on men and boys would address the crisis in American manhood that results in the scourge of infidelity, divorce, lack of commitment and fatherhood with multiple partners."
______________
I think this mindset is one of the big problems. She acts like women play no part in making a stable marriage (or instable one).
As if the important thing is the quality of life for women and families. Shouldn't the quality of life for famlies, including men and women both, be important?
"scourge of infidelity" -- Wives cheat as often as husbands, and doesn't infidelity take two? All infidelity involves at least one married person and most single partners generally knows their partner is married.
Divorce? 70% are initiated by women, often for petty reasons. Did she not know this?
"Lack of commitment." Does it not take two to be committed? Groups of women talk worse about their husbands than groups of men do about their wives. Michelle Langley wrote two books on Infidelity and concluded that women aren't the more committed gender, men are.
"Fatherhood with multiple sex partners." She acts like women never have children with multiple men. Then again, such women are not as demeaned as such men, they are victims.
The multiple sex partner thing is pure propganda too. Fact is, it is mathematically impossible for men to average more sex partners than women, and vice versa. No matter how many virgins there are, no matter who has the most numerically at the top end, every time a man has a new sex partner there is a woman that has a new one too. You divide all the sex by roughly the same number of people. The reason women like her believe this is because the majority of women sleep with the same minority of men, resulting in them thinking men average more. The average is, was, and always will be equal. If she finds that every guy she sleeps with has 10 times the amount of partners as her, that is due to her choice in partners, not men in general.
Commissions on women should have the primary goal of improving the lives of women. Comissions on men should have the primary goal of improving the lives of women. Puhlease.
This woman needs to get a clue. Men and women both have faults, virtues, improvements to be made, and it takes both to "step it up" to "make it work." I guarantee she wouldn't enjoy being a man--a man couldn't get away with being like her.
*end rant*
:)
I guess I'm tired of men blaming this stuff on women when the men in question think casual sex is OK. Take responsibility.
This is a simple question of justice: equal treatment of both parties involved. The woman gets to choose whether to have the baby or not. The woman gets to choose whether to keep the baby or not. But, the men don't get any choices at all. Saying "take responsibility", here, is just a way to aid women in perpetuating an obvious injustice. Clearly, men should be able to give up their parental rights and walk away, in this case.
And, by "clearly", I mean it is unequivocally obvious that the outcome of a baby is directly and solely attributable to the woman's actions which makes her solely responsible for it. The only way we manage to bullshit society and the legal system into doing anything different is through elaborate arguments about virtue (e.g. being responsible is a good trait that everyone should exhibit) and emotional pleas (e.g. but what about the poor innocent children???). Outside of that bullshit, just looking at it purely from a standpoint of equal treatment under the law, it is ridiculously obvious that men should be able to walk away and give up parental rights because as much as one tries to say "the child couldn't have happened without him," it is obvious that if it were up to him, the child would not have happened at all. Since he is not allowed to make that choice, he can have no obligation if someone else chooses to make the baby a reality.
However, as I've blogged quite a bit, the reality is that both sexes helped create (as Asian Times columnist "Spengler" observed) the character of the opposite sex.
Yeah, but one of those sexes has ruthlessly wielded the law and the government in the persuit of its aims while the other has largely fell victim to that and a few shitbag males that benefited from it. That puts culpability squarely on one of the two party's shoulders and not the other's.
Meanwhile those men without those attributes engage in frankly childish, extended adolescent behaviors because their is little incentive to adopt adult modes of living.
More accurately, what would otherwise have been adolescent behavior is the correct adult choice. In other words, that is adult behavior under the circumstances and doing otherwise is actually unhealthy, ill-informed, or even, itself, adolescent.
But EVERYTHING has a cost, there is no free lunch, and the complaints women have about men which are IMHO legitimate are the absolutely predictable outcome of this nearly unlimited and unbounded choice.
Their complaints cannot possibly be legitimate when the behavior they are complaining about is the correct, selected for choice give the options men really have been given, especially since men have largely been literally physically forced into that situation by elaborate attempts by the government to pander to women and engineer this outcome using the force of law. Look, it might be legitimate for McDonalds to complain that no one wants to buy 99 cent hamburgers all of a sudden since they always have before. "What happened?? No body's buying our burgers??" Makes some sense, all other things being equal. But, if they raise the price of their burgers from $1 to $10, then it is absurd for them to then turn around and say "Why isn't anyone buying our burgers anymore??" And, yes, the correct adult choice, here, is to not spend $10 on a $1 hamburger! Spend that $1 on candy, instead, even if it would have been seen as kind of like the choice children would have made back when burgers were $1. That choice is no longer childish or childlike under the circumstances.
I have a traditional family. I am the sole breadwinner. We homeschool our kids. Very traditional. So, I have walked a mile in these shoes. I know just what the path is, now. And, I will even warrant that it would be childish of me to decide to ditch my kids or decide that I just don't love my wife anymore or something like that, all just because now that I have walked a mile in these shoes, I have come to some very painful realizations about the reality of it all. But, I can safely say, without a shred of doubt, that my getting here was as childish if not more so than if I decided to dump and run and not see it through. It is not unlike a young single woman deciding to have the baby. It took a real childlike, superficial view of what married life would be like, how the sexes relate and the significance of having children. I even have lots of great excuses for that, too -- my parents got divorced when I was four, I was inundated with lots of liberal outlooks on family life, and plenty, plenty more where those came from (including, and certainly not limited to, listening to all this "man up" bullshit). It still doesn't detract one little bit from the thoughtlessly irresponsible and childish -- adolescent, even -- nature of my walking right into this role. It would have been completely different if this was 200 years ago. But, frankly, it is largely born out of a poorly thought out adolescent expression of masculinity that anyone does it now.
Maybe you are in a similar situation, yourself, and correctly recognize that it would be irresponsible for you to just walk away from it. But, just because that is true, that doesn't mean that your walking into it, in the first place, was somehow really mature and responsible. But, more importantly, it would be both irresponsible as well as a real sad tragedy for me to try to teach my kids that the mature thing to do is to "man up" and be responsible for a whole bunch of stuff they really, really don't have to be responsible for and when it's just all going to be taken for granted, anyway. And, that's just the half of it. What you really need to walk a mile in these shoes to appreciate is just what men used to get out of doing all this and what it really takes to make it all worth it and just how impossible that is in modern western society.
"She acts like women play no part in making a stable marriage (or instable one)."
---
If you notice carefully, a lot of feminists - and a lot of women - use the technique of one-foot-in-and-one-foot-out with everything. Maximize control, minimize responsibility. Men just kind of do it and take their lumps.
(Feminist or manipulative) women always try to guide things in a plausibly deniable way. If something goes wrong, the man (they were controlling and guiding) is at fault. If society goes astray, those evil men legislators took over all the legislating duties, so we had no power at all. We're just innocent victims.
Men always screw everything up, women always know the answer but men didn't recognize it back when they suggested it. Kinda sorta.
It's getting less and less plausible when you have so many female politicians, a woman who made a serious run for president (Hilary) and a female German chancellor. But the game-playing type of women is always going to use this passive-aggressive tactic.
I mean, even Shakespeare wrote about Lady Macbeth controlling things behind the scenes. Men can really be blind to the tactics of women.
@JG
Sort of reminds me of when my mom would threaten "just wait until your father gets home." She's give the impression that he was in charge, when it in fact was her who was judge, jury, and set the sentence.
I don't know if it is noticed or just kept silent, but women really do have more influence over their men than the men have over their women. I think part of it is that women have so many emotional outlets and support from their personal universes (friends, sisters, mothers, hairdressers, coworkers,etc.), support that men don't have. That isn't a criticism of women, just an opinion.
I have seen too many young women CHOOSE to live the life of the poor single mother. After all, our system rewards this choice with welfare and a one-sided court system. I am fighting to keep my girls away from this, but in their case, the pressure to associate with other students of the same ethnicity keep them surrounded by the low cultural standards that statistically increase the chance of choosing this lifestyle. It is not men who need to "man up", but society that needs to stop enabling incapable parents and start rewarding strong two-parent families. To do this requires the courage to curtail welfare, bring equality to the courts, and in some cases take children away from parents who are unable to support their children, yet keep creating them.
"Denouncing masculine oppression, Women's Lib screams protests against the policy of regarding women as 'sex objects' -- through speakers who, too obviously, are in no such danger." -- Ayn Rand
That's because the best thing anyone can do for American women and girls is to encourage men and boys to “man up.”
Can you image a man writing this article and telling women and girls to "girl up". Yeah, I don't think one needs to read any further.
A few random reactions to the subject:
An adult man who has to be told to "man up" is a lost cause.
I am so weary of the "men screw everything up" meme. No they don't. A man will place his body between danger and his family without hesitation.
Is it any wonder men are confused about what role women expect them to assume?
Just as a side note: Men are objectified too, as "wallets" and a "social status".
Women who are groupies of doctors are not doing that because they are interested in the fine points of medicine.
Same for women who are groupies of cops or musicians or lawyers or firemen or whatever the high-esteem male occupation is at their societal level.
Yeah, Donald Trump always has a couple Supermodels on his arm because of his swell haircut.
This comment has been removed by the author.
I do put the blame on women. Men are reactive in nature. Chivalry was devised to tame men's passions in a useful manner.
These days women give up sex on a first date or even before that. Why aspire to be anything other than a whore-monger?
Women in this country have almost no virtue. Very few remain anything remotely resembling "clean" let alone "pure".
Why do I want to marry a woman that's slept with double digit numbers of men, had an abortion(s) -indicating that her childrens' very LIVES are subject to her mere whims - and in some cases will readily reveal that she was a lying cheating whore while with previous men?
And that's just the crap she's willing to tell you about! Who knows what else she's actually done?
I'm not perfect, very far from it. But I see no point in picking up the used pieces of a female that has abused herself for a decade before deciding she's ready to settle down.
Add to this a toxic legal atmosphere where she can legally rape me and take my children away without legal penalty?
It's going to take a virtual saint of a woman to convince me SHE is worthy of marriage.
I shan't hold mine breath.
"It's going to take a virtual saint of a woman ..."
--
Well, women are human beings the same as men.
The problem is that in decades and centuries gone by, the woman would feign or fake or pretend or act like she was a caring, empathetic, productive-in-the-home (good cook), shy in public, but lots of fun, only with you, in bed ... type of girl.
And then the man got married to her and in several years her figure went to infinity and her sex drive to zero, but you were married to her and that was that. You had to pay for her for the rest of her life because of those few early years in which everything seemed so different.
But women don't even bother with that today. And there are still plenty of stupid men, but the numbers are really, truly dwindling. Even women are starting to notice that men will have sex, but they won't get married. Maybe the government can somehow force men to get married - that will fix everything.
I think ... frankly ... that if you get married today (as a man) you are kind of slow on the uptake. I'm not a kid, I'm heading towards age 50.
It's simply stupid to give a woman that amount of leverage in the societal climate today.
I see a relative who worked his entire life - and got married around age 21. He eventually worked his way up to being a vice president in a kind of small automotive parts company.
After over 20 years, his wife divorced him. He has always worked his butt off, she sat home. No, she wasn't a "homemaker", she sat on her fat butt.
And now she is living in the large family home - with him paying for it - he is living in God-knows-where crummy, temporary housing and he is forking over a hefty amount every month, on top of already turning over a massive chunk of assets.
I ... don't ... get ... it.
Talk about rewarding failure and rewarding leeches. I simply don't understand it. But I don't have to play the game.
br549, no. I misspoke. Badly.
Trey
I find it interesting that a female blogger (/psychologist) is able to repeatedly generate so much male angst.
Not that I disagree with much that was said above.
My gripe is that the President formed a council for women and girls, and what he really should have done (instead) was form one for men and boys. It has been decades since girls were the at-risk sex. It is pure sexual pandering on the part of the Obama Administration. (Or, maybe he is just being henpecked or bulldozed by the three females in his family).
I think that we all know which way the statistics run, when it comes to incarceration, graduating from high school or college, being victims of violence, cancer, heart attacks, being the respondent in divorce cases, etc. And, yet, our new President has formed a council for those who are on the winning side of all those statistics.
Who would have guessed that we were getting such a sexist President.
vivictus asked: "TMink, what do I need a woman for?"
I am stumped a bit in not knowing you, but I think we all need a spouse. A happy and helpful and comitted spouse. The kind of spouse where one of you buries the other when one dies of old age. (Had to add that part lest it seem I was supporting Mary Winkler.)
It is for the children. 8)
Trey
TMink:
Not everyone wants what you want, and what you feel is a deep need.
I can honestly say that I don't want a spouse. Honestly.
You are generalizing your feelings to the rest of the free world. Not good if you claim to be a psychologist treating other people (like ... for head stuff).
I DO want sex and I DO want companionship from a woman. I've got that. I DON'T want a spouse, and I am willing to put up with a replacement process every 5-7 years for that.
As for men objectifying women, of course they do. The women dress and act to sexually stimulate the men into wanting to mate with them (and thus get something out of the guys), and the guys react as expected.
My guess is that the women who complain about that want their cake and to eat it too. They want all the benefits of sexually stimulating males, but none of the downside. They like the fact that guys will open doors for them, work long hours to support them, be overall chivalrous to them, but then after sexually stimulating the guys, they complain that the guys are sexually stimulated and want to mate with them.
And I see that England is starting to treat living-together couples like married couples (because men are more reticent to get married, so the chivalristic legislators are going to nail these men). I assume that will eventually come to the rest of the industrialized world - apparently women are unable to work and support themselves - so I will back off appropriately when that comes.
If the legislature starts charging me to even talk to a woman, I'm going to believe with finality that the world is bonkers.
I went to MaryBeth Hicks' blog and she sounds like one of those RINOs that's killing the Republican Party. First of all, I'm automatically super-suspicious whenever I see a kudos quote from NPR (leftist trash). Furthermore, this woman has been on Oprah and MSNBC (again, two pretty leftist programs/stations). And to top it off, one of her blog posts had her gushing over Kathleen Parker, who is pretty much a liberal in conservative clothing.
Yes, I read the article and I have to agree that she sounds an awful lot like most feminists out there.
TMink,
I have read a lot of your posts and I generally agree with you, but I'll have to disagree about the needs part. I don't need someone in my life. I'm quite content being single (I totally agree with JG). Your idea of marital happiness is fading fast and will be even less likely with each coming generation.
Bruce Hayden:
Of course it's that way. Women also know that.
But for some reason there is a huge mass of women into "plausible deniability" (they don't know WHY they wore an ultra-short mini-skirt) and there is an even huger mass of stupid, chivalristic, blind men who are stuck in eternal competition with other men (and the need to put down any men "lower" than them) and in the eternal chase after stupid, game-playing women.
You almost couldn't think up anything stupider if you were in charge of organizing the world.
In any case, yes, women objectify men. Of course they do.
Oh, my stars! My skirt must have shrunk in the dryer. How embarrassing! Tee-hee.
I am disappointed that Obama thought it was necessary to create a council on women. To me, this shows that he feels women are lesser beings in need of government support. I disagree with this and would prefer not to go into debt to create another bureaucracy which is not needed.
At the onset of the Civil War and practically till April of '65 the main reason some men stood and fought was the fear that their wives, mothers, sisters, etc., would accuse them of cowardice and shun them. That is pressure and when compared to the exhortation to "...man up" leaves the latter as useless as giving a packet of condoms to a 15-year old and cautioning him to use them wisely. Useless and worthy of a shrug of the shoulders.
They should just form the "Department For The Advancement of Everyone Except Straight White Males" and be done with it.
I think that some of us need spouses, and others don't. Maybe if I was better in bed, I would figure that I don't need marriage. But seriously, I like women, particular women, not just women in general, but I do like looking at them all. I can't imagine anything more boring than having to listen to some woman explain her tedious little life to me in excruciating detail, but still with the good stuff edited out, just so I could have a chance of getting some later.
Sure there is female privilege, owing to evolutionary reasons, but a lot of men's happiness is also evolutionarily selected for as a complement to female privilege. I think you have to embrace it. This doesn't mean that you let her run your life, or sacrifice your own life in order to guarantee her happiness, even though you may want to instinctively, it just means that, you should pick a woman you really like, and tolerate a bit of crap (bitching, spending) from her, and expect her to tolerate a little crap(discrete cheating) from you. Otherwise, it will never work.
"it just means that, you should pick a woman you really like, and tolerate a bit of crap (bitching, spending) from her, and expect her to tolerate a little crap(discrete cheating) from you."
---
What's odd is that I don't cheat - or want to cheat - when I have a set girlfriend (although I don't want a spouse). On the other hand, "spending" is not a problem, since I'm not married to her and she spends her own friggin' money and I have a very low tolerance for nagging and bitching.
It's like the complete opposite experience.
Well, there was a time when marriage was a lot classier affair than it is today. When men took up the responsibilities of the head of household, they were treated like the head of household. Being married was a lot more respectable and people got a lot more out of it in the long run. The role of the traditional male earned a certain dignity rather than make you out to be a fool like it does today. And, above all, there was often a real, albeit intangible, value to having spent your life with someone in a way that was reliably unique and special and shared only with them.
It's kind of like fine art or fine wine or something. Some people appreciate it, and some people don't. But, nowadays, all we really have are cheap immitations of the real thing, so don't judge the value of an original J L David by the Giclee reprints or, worse yet, the random impressionist somethings that are little more than a child's glorified water color painting adorning some corporate apartment somewhere.
This comment has been removed by the author.
I read about things like Jackie Kennedy with Aristotle Onasis - he gave her an "allowance" of $100,000 per month, and that was back in the 70s, when $100,000 per month meant something (LOL). She couldn't live on that, so (as later came out) she would buy dresses in good shops on "credit" under his name and then immediately resell them in secondary shops for 50% and pocket that money.
What a whore.
But here's my question: Why in the hell would any man want a woman like that?
I understand that it is a way some men show off - I have a ditzy wife who spends like a drunken sailor - so that is proof I am richer than you and better than you. But I still can't picture myself doing it, even if I had half the money in the world.
Those types of women are simply stupid whores who have been elevated to that level by a man. Even Jackie Kennedy was elevated by JFK.
I am happily married. As far as I can tell, so is my husband.
The comments here absolutely boggle my mind.
I can understand not wanting to get married -- fine, there's no accounting for taste. But I can not conceive of the level of hostility, and of generalizations, I see here.
It makes me wonder if you were all beaten by your mothers as little boys, seriously. This level of anger does not strike me as either healthy or reasonable. I think a lot of you should get help, or maybe find religion.
"Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing[b] her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body."For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband." Ephesians 5
Adrian:
I do understand what you mean, but I don't think that exists today if it every existed.
Maybe because of the lies that feminists propagate, I have become very skeptical of "how things were" years ago.
As an example: I was convinced as a young man that women before a certain year couldn't go to college (the 20-year-old feminists today are even saying before 1970, which my mother - who was a professor in the 1960s - kind of chuckles at). Then I saw an old, yellowed photo of my paternal grandmother at a college in 1923.
Apparently, she dropped out because of grades (is the real reason). Huh.
Hey, Bearing,
If you don't mind, I'm going to rub your nose in Buddhism.
Oh, you mind? Well, maybe I'll be a bit more considerate of you.
If you have a point to make without quoting the "Good Book", then make it.
And I'm glad you assert that your husband is happy.
"It makes me wonder if you were all beaten by your mothers as little boys, seriously."
---
My opposition to marriage revolves around the fact that I think men absolutely get the shaft in family court today - and that even has a bearing on marriages that are not subject to divorce, because the woman knows that she wields the stick today. Married men just give up their ghost - they truly do - but I don't blame them (except for getting married in the first place), I would behave the same way with an immutable god-like being whom society would 100% back.
Secondly - and I know to my amazement that there are men even on this board who think men "owe" a woman something, maybe even for talking to her - but I am perfectly content to have mutually-agreed-upon sex and companionship with a woman I am not married to. That's all I want.
I'm fairly happy with my life. I know that I would be very unhappy being married.
As far as religion or spirituality goes - I have taken a different path than you, but I'm interested in it. I'm not interested in block-headed Bible-thumpers. Yeah, I know that's offensive, but I also find you offensive, I really do.
---
So, in summary, yes, the only reason I have these bizarre thoughts is because I must have been beaten as a small child.
Feminists have pushed things too far, and are about to court a backlash that they are going to regret having created.
The relative power of women over men is peaking. The pendulum is about to swing back :
1) Many men are choosing not to marry, and instead participate in the exploding industry of teaching men how to become pick-up artists.
2) Islam is making rapid inroads into all Western countries. Violence against women is already earning less sympathy from men than it once did.
3) More American men are marrying foreign women, who are likely to be slimmer and have a more pleasant disposition.
4) By 2020, 3-D, holographic displays with immersive tactile interfaces will make many video games very immersive and realistic. Virtual porn will be compelling enough to allow many men to not bother with the games that real women, partly those who are below-average in looks, play.
So the pendulum is swinging back.
It makes me wonder if you were all beaten by your mothers as little boys, seriously.
Actually, I was inculcated with lots of modern liberal values and hackneyed, politically correct ideals. I have very slowly and bitterly discovered how plainly abusive and sick these values and ideals really are, especially to straight white males no doubt because we never got our own little special interest group. The simple fact is that all of the infinitude of little protections and privileges granted to women over the decades is unfair, inequitable and unjustified, and always ultimately comes at some sort of a real cost to the other members of society, namely the men. It may not have been obvious at the time what that cost was or even obvious now, but you simply do not get something for nothing. Everything women have gained, non-women had to share in the burden of providing. After decades or more of this, a huge burden has been accumulated on the non-women (mostly men but also children).
I used to think that the spread of Islam into the West was a bad thing. But feminism is so out of control that I have changed my position, and now actually welcome the prospect of more Islam in America and other Western countries.
There is only one force that can fight, and destroy, radical feminism. Islam is that force.
Islam has to stop random bombings and instead focus on fighting feminism.
Men in America today are treated in much the same way that blacks were treated under Jim Crow laws in the first half of the 20th century.
Society has built a massive system to transfer wealth from men to women through alimony, child support, welfare, affirmative action, sexual harassment laws, etc. while shielding woman from any reciprocal responsibility.
So yes, I think men in America today have it about as bad as blacks did under Jim Crow.
The question is, can the treatment of men in America today become even worse?
KMG has it right. I would recommend the Muslim faith and Islam to any low-status male in this benighted society. And I'm a Christian, and my wife is Buddhist.
Islam holds a lot for men on the outside of their own world, and will help them establish solid relationships with women and each other. They may not be the kind of relationships modern gender feminists approve of, but so what?
A Council on Womyn and Grrls is a good idea; it will simply accelerate this process. And KMG is right about the foreign women thing, they are thinner and do have better attitudes. And they cook, too.
Lord, I wanted to gag when I read about the Council on Women and Girls -- although I admit I had a laugh over what the reaction would have been if Obama had established a Commission on Men and Boys. Where are the fairness doctrine folks on this one? Sheesh.
Lumping women and girls together is like the ultimate combo of patronizing and pandering. My concerns as an adult woman are entirely different than the concerns I have about both girls and boys. While issues I might want to address may differ from those of my male counterparts too, they're not exclusively feminine, and they certainly won't be resolved in some government sponsored feminine pow-wow or by the "initiatives" which will inevitably follow.
I'm glad to see Dr. Helen manning up for men, because I think the feministas have outlived their usefulness and are just hanging onto the bullhorn. It's time to stop fighting and start collaborating. Folks who can't carry on a conversation about differences in men's and women's roles and perspectives without demonizing one sex or the other should seek professional help. Ditto for the folks who assume that their own experiences represent some universal or evolutionary norm.
It's kind of strange that non-Islam people want Islam to take root just because it would effectively deal with feminists.
But I almost understand it.
Here's what you have to realize: The true enemy is the chivalristic man enabling the feminists. Without him (and "he" is legion), they would be a laugh number. You can start yourself: If women (say they) want equality, give it to them. A lot more than they're getting now. That means a little pony-tailed girl doesn't get the same salary at the police department, although her co-worker has to break down the doors of drug dealers, and she goes to an elementary school for PR on police, your friend and helper.
No, she either busts down the door to the drug dealer - the same amount - or she gets demoted or fired.
Do something completely out of order. I have quit helping Cute Young Things (TM), although I still help old ladies and other people in public.
At least refuse to help them one time in your life if you are male. You almost won't believe the look of shock they have - a man had the opportunity to TALK TO HER (while he fixed her car) and he just kept walking. It IS almost funny how they react.
"The comments here absolutely boggle my mind. I can understand not wanting to get married -- fine, there's no accounting for taste. But I can not conceive of the level of hostility, and of generalizations, I see here. It makes me wonder if you were all beaten by your mothers as little boys, seriously. This level of anger does not strike me as either healthy or reasonable. I think a lot of you should get help, or maybe find religion."
All of which says far more about your particular mental limitations than it does about our comments, let alone objective reality.
Sorry, but our behavior is rational and sensible; it's your perceptual filters that are wrong and broken.
We're fine; our reactions to the ridiculously abusive conditions forced upon us are healthy and normal. You're the one who's all messed up psychologically and needs professional counseling help.
As I've said previously, the odds are that you -- and the rest of the commenters calling for more self-sacrifice by men for the benefit of others -- are heavily dependent upon just that: the willing self-sacrifice of men for your own benefit.
And your sexbot market competition is getting closer and closer every day.
I don't know if Bearing can process this properly - a man didn't bow in agreement to her as he should.
How much money flows to women from men in society?
If you look at Document 475 (on the aggregate line "Alimony Paid"), you will see that men (I assume mostly men) pay out around 7 billion dollars in alimony per year.
http://www.census.gov/prod/2004pubs/04statab/fedgov.pdf
So we start with 7 billion flowing to women per year ("per year").
Child support dwarfs that: Something like $100 billion per year. Some men are paying $30,000 per month, most of that is going to mommy, not the kid.
So then, figure in the net amount that men are paying for dates and vacations. Subtract the amount that women pay for men on dates or vacations. I'm (somehow) convinced that this figure will be a net outlay on the part of men. Huh.
And then figure in the fact that more men work full time, more men work ... period ... and more men work hazardous jobs, or overtime or have more social pressure on them to be the earners. We get the drift. So men pay more taxes. And then look at programs for women. VAWA, affirmative action, federal money to promote women, federal money for women's shelters, "woman and infants care", welfare and all the rest. Net taxes paid (majority of men) go to women as the majority.
With the dating thing, consider as a rough approximation that 1 man in a 100 will have a date each month, and will give out $100 for that date. That may be $2 billion a year flowing to women (do your own calculation, and subtract something for women paying for men). We're not even talking about vacations or money for informal prostitution.
And then -- divorce settlements. This doesn't include alimony or child support, I'm talking about a net transfer of assets to women in a divorce. This one may blow the stack out, because I have seen transfers (in the newspapers - Gary Wendt at GE is one example of many) of $50 million or more to a housewife. In one shot, one guy. But most divorces involve a net transfer from the man to the woman, so we're talking about multiplying by millions.
And then ... simply the inter-marital transfer of money. The big one. Men work and pay for wives. Wives take money and sit on their fat asses watching Oprah and the View.
------------------
What's the net transfer of money from men to women in society? Several hundreds of billions? The Gross National Product of a good-sized company? That's obscene, frankly.
I started suspecting that women weren't as oppressed as they say they are when my older brother got drafted to go to Vietnam ... and never came back.
And lots of Party Girls wrote lots of "Dear John" letters while they were fucking the guys back at home. The boyfriend is ducking bullets; some of the husbands who were shot down by wives with these letters were still sending money back to these pigs.
Men need to wake up. I am not kidding.
men get the shaft legally- they do.
Not all American women support men chronically getting the shaft from unscrupulous women. I have two sons and I hate how American society discriminates against them.
some of the commenters on this board seem insistent on painting women with the same broad brush. We're not all mooches and gold-diggers.
my husband and I are best friends. My mother's advice was to marry a man who was smarter than I am. That way, I would always respect him. (also you can't go wrong with brains) And I do. My husband wanted to marry a woman who loved the 'marital act.' And I do.
Men (and humans in general) crave respect. Women who put out for free, for years, don't respect themselves, let alone the man they're with. No wonder your whole livelihood is at risk. They might as well have 'public access' tattooed across their derriers.
friendships, partnerships, and marriage are about respect. I agree that men have little to respect women for lately. Most of us have bungled it. Royally. But a good start might be to date and marry a higher quality of woman and stop rewarding the moochers and idiots who want to take you for everything you've got.
All men are not created equal, and frankly not all cats are gray after midnight... at least they all won't go for child support, alimony, etc...
Gentlemen,
The backlash against feminism is near. It won't be pretty. A lot of innocent, good-hearted women will suffer in the process.
But it is near. Refer to my points in an earlier comment.
kmg:
I'd like to think so - it would be cool, this kind of feminist judgment day - but the same chivalrist men are out there operating ... I don't think anything is going to change in the near future.
Dawn sez:
"But a good start might be to date and marry a higher quality of woman ..."
Yeah, Dawn, I think I've heard that advice before.
As a side note, I notice men tend to talk about broader trends, and women come on here - only when they are offended - and declare that "they personally are not like that because ..." and then they disappear.
Them slaves should just pick better masters.
Frankly, if I had to tell men one thing that I really believe, I'd say ...
... men tend to be direct, and women tend to be manipulative. And men don't realize the extent to which women manipulate.
Open your eyes.
Sometimes I watch the manipulation right before my very eyes, but I can't say anything about it because she has done it with "plausible deniability". And then I watch other men fall right into it.
I don't know how else to say it: Shake off your childhood beliefs and open your eyes.
I personally have always enjoyed being with women - just not permanently.
I am over 50 and have had my share of near misses with marriage, one that resulted in a cheater who gave me herpes and another who lied about being pregnant in an effort to trap me into marriage, something I've since learned is far more common than I imagined (it happened to my own brother twice).
That was the luck of my draw, and while I won't paint all women with the same brush, I am no longer willing to look at a long-term commitment with someone whose motives I'm unsure of, considering I'm financially secure and she might not be (I can't tell you how many women I've dated who are in debt and out of a bad relationship and/or marriage). I've also wondered about the current financial meltdown and how that might encourage certain women to be more, shall we say, "accessible" due to their increased desperation, said desperation perhaps due to their over-50 divorced status, heavy debt and lack of job skills. I do not see the point at putting my life's work at risk for a woman whose motives I can't divine and who may simply view me as the least worst alternative she might have to "getting by". That's particularly true when the lady has children and is concerned with ensuring their well-being even if it might mean faking enthusiasm in a relationship. Been there, got the T-shirt and burned it.
No thanks, I'll continue simply dating with absolutely no commitment, and I'll continue to be honest with the women I'm going out with. If they don't like it, they can go their way, and my life will continue just fine.
JG,
"broad trends"
I don't think you're allowed to say that anymore.
"There is only one force that can fight, and destroy, radical feminism. Islam is that force.
Islam has to stop random bombings and instead focus on fighting feminism."
Garbage. Islam is a return to the fun filled world of the fourteenth century with beheadings, ritual mutilation of female genitalia and the elimination of non-believers as it's shining goals. You don't need a bunch of bomb-wielding bogeymen to stand up to a nasty bitch. Just stand up. That's what your spine is for.
Doc,
You freakin' NAILED it!
MarkyMark
Where's Obama's council for families,children, and society? Why this bias gender-sided council?
Its time for all this nonsense to stop and people must realize that its not a man woman gender battle beneath the surface, it is war against our children, families, and society.
There's big money in the destruction of the family and our society. The general population has a major part in the financing of the industry. When need to stop fueling the force that is destroying us......
As we sit here arguing gender issues CPS has kidnapped more children, attorneys have schemed more couples out of life savings and assetts, and Judges have seperated more children from one of their parents.
This is where our focus should be. We as men and women need to come together and save our children, families, and society.
I find it interesting that a female blogger (/psychologist) is able to repeatedly generate so much male angst.
Because it is so damn unusual to see a woman say "Men get the shaft in family cout, etc..." without having "..., BUT...." appended to the end.
Bearing:
Like many women, you conflate a hostility to the institution of American "marriage as a legal contract" with a hostility to women.
Pull out your wedding vows. Now, if you decide to violate any of them, which are legally actionable?
I'll wait.
In fact, I'll also point out that in several states, you can screw around with another man, become pregnant, and bear a child which is manifestly not his and he will still be on the hook for providing for that child for two decades plus.
No fault divorce? The current application of it makes marriage a joke. No matter how good a husband I am, I can still be divorced - and taken to the cleaners. No matter how bad a wife a woman is - in divorce court, it is irrelevant. Infidelity, lesbian affairs, abuse, drug use, spending like a drunken sailor on shore leave after payday from a one year cruise in a Phillipine whorehouse? All irrelevant. Pay the woman. She owns the kids. Prove she's a bad mother, and then prove you are better by far, or you'll see them only at her sufference.
So here you go, bearing - let's you and me get "married." Despite the vows, I can run around on you, beat you up emotionally and physically, help myself to whatever was yours before the mariage, and ditch you for any reason, and at any time. If and when that happens, I will get the kids by default, and of course the home and he best vehicle, plus put you on the hook for money not based on what you DO earn, but based on what the court feels you could earn.
"But ... that's a sucker bet! What woman would want to get married under those terms!"
"What! Why, you ... pigette! Not *ALL* men are like that! You must need therapy! You just hate all men!"
Hmmm.
Uncle Ken,
How are people supposed to stand up to that nasty bitch if she, say, just happens to be your sister?
Alex pulled the same crap on me the other day... lambasting for words he put in my mouth, and then a sentence later, saying that a man who puts up with women's crap doesn't possess a spine.
The implication, of course, is that those who accuse others of not having a spine magically possesses one themselves by way of some masculinity-potion which they are failing to share with the rest of us.
Men do this all the time. They also fail to empathize with other men and always think "that would never happen to me - I am a better man than that. Better than the rest of them! If everyone behaved exactly like me, they wouldn't have these problems with women." Yup! The famous last words of millions of men who came home one day to an empty house and a restraining order.
PUA's laugh at such chumps, as their women/wives are some of the easiest pickings around.
I don't purport to be an expert on Islam.
But, I do understand the destructiveness of a female-led society. So did the Bible, and so did the multitudes of civilizations that came before us.
Islam shoving their filth down our throats is little better than us shoving feminist filth down their throats. Feminism kills civilizations, remember? It is a cultural suicide pill - literally - thanks to unsustainable birth rates.
Feminism is more destructive and evil than Islam... because it actually does destroy entire civilizations.
What Islam has been attempting for a thousand years, feminism accomplishes in mere decades.
Which is worse then? Then enemy outside the border, or the ones within?
Aren't we being just as wicked as them for trying to force a cultural suicide pill down their throats according to our values?
The fact is, the best way to fight Islam is to take away women's privileges (er...rights), and remake ourselves into a strong and healthy society again... so we won't be run over by those societies who are still respecting males and therefore, still are reproducing enough to be sustainable.
Our civilization will not be here in another 40 years if we continue along this road.
All the hand-wringing in the world will not change this.
Either the ladies get knocked off the pedastal tout de suite and we start maintaining our civilization, or you can rest assured that Islam is coming for certain. By force or by stealth, they are coming. They are stronger than us because they actually still have babies.
One would think we would start drafting women to get pregnant, as a pregnancy is still far safer than running around with a gun while getting bombed and shot at. You know, equality and all that jazz.
The American government should be worried as should American women about the increased feminization and subjugation of American men.
American women receive privilige in employment, education, and otherwise in employment, education, and otherwise concommitant with stringent and aggressive protection against discrimination in the same.
Men, especially caucasian men, receive no such protection and IN EFFECT NO PROTECTION AGAINST DISCRIMINATION AGAINST THE SAME.
The aforementioned makes men, especially caucasian men, a SUBJECT INFERIOR CLASS, whose economic and social status is subject to the arbitrary, whimsical, and completely discretionary destruction by members of the PRIVILEGED CLASS, women and others (political correctness).
The same cultural, political, economic scenario will destroy and/or force gentlemen (men who have self respect and respect for the rights of others) from American society and replace the same with effiminate and feminist men who are trivial and/or inconsequential emotionally and/or intellectually.
The long term consequence of the same will be the "Trojan Women" scenario in which our society becomes enslaved (enclusive of women) and conquered by aggressive unprincipled enemies either foreign and/or domestic because real men, willing and/or able to defend society and women against the same, have been destroyed by the "Trojan Women".
It is very clear that the same is occuring now.
The following is a quote from President James Madison, one of first the President's of the USA and a Founding Father, which is appropriate to this issue.
"Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression. In our Governments, the real power lies in the majority of the Community, and the invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from the acts of Government contrary to the sense of its constituents, but from acts in which the Government is the mere instrument of the major number of the constituents. James Madison, President of the United States
o Letter to Thomas Jefferson (1788-10-17) "
End of Quote
The more I read these posts the more I want to stay as far away from marriage, or romantic relationships with men in general. Many of my friends feel the same way.
Cham...
GOOD! Marriage strike is one way to help balance the scales.
As said earlier, any male considering marriage is not thinking clearly and needs an intervention.
When I read a column like Hicks' and comments likes those of Chris', this bit from "As Good As It Gets" always comes to mind.
Receptionist: How do you write women so well?
Melvin Udall: I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability.
Whether it's Mary Winkler shooting here husband while he slept or, more recently, Cheryl McCafferty in KY, women aren't held to the same standard as men. Regarding marital infidelity, it seems that when a man has an affair he's a sex crazed beast thinking with the wrong head. A woman who has an affair is simply seeking someone to fulfill the emotional needs that her clod of a husband couldn't satisfy. Or, is simply expressing her liberation.
And, so it goes.
There is no more lopsided dichotomy in our society. The current bias against men is stronger than racism, religious prejudice, etc.
Cham, I think both men and women are going to avoid marriage & romantic relationships.
The final blow is going to come from men. I think the PUA lifestyle is going to do us all in.
Women are actually not all that hard to figure out - what they want/what they are attracted to and how they think etc. - Part of their allure is the mysteriousness about her... the "feminine mystique." Take it away and it becomes much more animalistic. I think that society has always tried to hide this on purpose, because it is destructive for men to understand it.
The hardest part for men is unplugging from themselves. Once society starts to do this en masse - watch out!
Sexual instinct derives from our "instinctual brain." It is not logical. Our cortex/thinking brain merely re-organizes itself to co-incide with more or less along the lines of the instinctual brain. We can "convince ourselves" of almost anything, if our instinctual brains/bodies are demanding it of us.
Women have always been good at manipulating men's sexual instincts. It's what women "do." It's what they study - ever seen women's magazines in the rack next to the varied subjects for men? Men have always been confounded by women's sexual instincts - they are clueless. I think society tends to wish it this way on purpose. I believe that once men understand it, the genders will repel from eachother so fast - while screwing eachother sexually a lot more.
Also, men will start to become much more vicious with eachother, once they understand how a woman's sexual drive doesn't really "disappear" but rather just transfers from Alpha to Alpha - always just as strong of a sex drive, but just for different men. Women are attracted to certain things about men as intensely as men are attracted to certain things about women. The very act of committing to a woman diminishes/alters her sex drive - women have contradictory love which destroys that which she finds attractive. A controllable man is not sexually exciting. He may logically be, but he isn't instinctually.
Also, one of the easiest ways for men to appear the most dominant/affluent male in the group, is by putting down the other males - leading to a lot of mistrust, and possibly much violence between men.
Also, women tend to go from man to man - there is very rarely a break in between, and this means that, for the most part, each time a PUA "scores", another man is getting screwed over.
PUA's understand why married women are so willing to cheat, as it were.
Each man can only get screwed over by both men and women so many times before he starts looking eerily at every person who passes by.
It all fits together like a big working machine, and when you take certain pieces out, it begins to fly apart.
"Tolerance is how much a part can deviate from the norm before it screws up the entire machine." -- Any Mechanic.
A fully sexualized society... worshipping sex... widespread homosexuality... promiscousness... sounds like Paganism to me.
Why did we try to stamp this out before? Why do so many myths and legends try to send us some wisdom from the past to us... which we always ignore.
This kind of thing has happened before. I don't think it ended pretty.
In the case of Western Civilization, the science is settled. Mathematically it can be proven. We have shrinking populations with an ever expanding multi-generational debt - this forces us to take in immigrants or we will go broke (Capitalism will be destroyed). Since every nation in the West has a declining birth rate that is accelerating in its decline, there are no nations to take immigrants from that share our values.
None.
So we are going to be forced to take in immigrants from places that do not share our values or our way of life - and, since we promote "multiculturalism," we encourage them to continue to embrace the very values which are hostile to our own.
Within most of our lifetimes, we will become the minority in our own countries - and these values we discuss today will be gone and ruled by a majority of someone else.
The science is settled.
Unless we start examining honestly what has gone wrong with us - now. You can't just order up a bunch of 20 year olds who share our values, one day in the future.
All of these debates ought to be leading to whether the participants are for, or against, our civilization, because that is ultimately what these things are about - whether the ladies & chivalrists like it or not. It is coming.
There is no other way out - and perhaps that was the point all along, eh?
Cham said...
"The more I read these posts the more I want to stay as far away from marriage, or romantic relationships with men in general. Many of my friends feel the same way."
and
vivictius said...
"TMink, what do I need a woman for? I'm serious, as the years go by I see less and less reason to have anything to do with them. The vast majority of women around my age (~36) have very little of interest to talk about, can't cook, and really seem to just look at men as walking wallets. So what do they have that I need? Sex? Lol, it aint worth the hassle. Outside of having kids, the social and legal system we have today makes them far more trouble then they are worth."
I doubt either are alone in their opinions, and I can't help feeling their numbers are growing.
This may be part of the reason the hispanic immigrant population is growing so rapidly in the U.S.
Much like the Islamic population in Europe, growth is not just through immigration (legal or not), but also because they're the ones reproducing in a way the increases their numbers, while the the ethnic majority (for now) are not, and their population shrinks.
"My gripe is that the President formed a council for women and girls, and what he really should have done (instead) was form one for men and boys."
Of course, if Obama were to form such a council, its focus would again be on how evil men and boys are--just as the purpose of "white studies" in academia is to vilify whites (and provide further employment for otherwise useless people.)
Rob Fedders beat me to it.
Rob Fedders has it right. Western civilization is in deep demographic doodoo. Russia will be done by 2050, western Europe is not much better. America still has 2.1 births per couple, but only because of hispanic immigration. Low birth rates have little to do with whiteness btw and everything to do with society achieving mass prosperity. Same thing that did in the Romans.
I think the legal/cultural favoritism of females stems from the days when many if not most women died young, during childbirth. Men often remarried just to have someone to raise the kids that survived. Now it's the females that live longest.
Submitted without comment...
http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/personal/03/19/tf.how.not.to.deal.sick.boy/index.html
My man... well, he definitely falls more on the crybaby end of the spectrum when he's sicky-poo. And according to an unscientific survey I conducted --despite their rough and tumble reputations -- most men are right there swaddled in the crib alongside him.
"Waah! Waah!" my friend Nell squealed, imitating her boyfriend the last time he came down with a cold. "A ginormous baby," reported Claire, adding, "it's international, my brother and father in Ireland are the same."
Yes, if government had it's way, if there was a 'Department For Boys & Men' I shudder to think what the agenda would be- better that we DON'T have a department like that- careful what you wish for, because if such a government department does come into existience, the only possibiltities are all nightmarish. Think 'Wicker Man' with Nicholas Cage.
I've finally come to the conclusion that I simply do not have any reason to even speak to a woman for any reason during the day. The one place this manifests itself more than any other is the workplace. If i'm not interested sexually or it is clear that nothing sexual is going to happen if I try- then why do anything other than the obligatory nod and forced grin? All day long, day in day out?
As a man, you have nothing in common with the 21st century female- their only interests are all trash/gossip/empty-mindless consumerism/manipulation. And if they do have any political interests 99 times out of a hundred it will all be slanted toward what women should get- either in the left wing Feminist sense or they will monsters like Nancy Grace or Dr. Laura on the right.
You also quickly learn just how socially retarded women are in general because they cannot iniate any real meaningful human interaction having done nothing their entire lives except react in social situations.
The only way they will iniate is either with a petty attack to put you on the defensive or the weakest gesture humanly possible such as the offer of a cookie. It is truly, truly the most pathetic thing you will ever witness in your life.
Try it- just try completely ignoring women around you day in and day out, all day long & you'll see it for yourself. This is why women never grow as people. A male heroin addict/homeless bum has more proactive social skills than the average woman. (Probably even more ethical as well).
It's downright dangerous to even talk to women anymore & that is what men need to realize. Yes, most men I talk to haven't even woke up yet- are completely clueless & realize they have no rights- and even if they do.. they think it is nothing more than a winner's/loser's game wherein the 'smartest' guy has the successful marriage that lasts forever- that somehow they can beat the odds of their wife just simply becoming bored one day and ejecting him from the house.
Think of labor laws. We all take them for granted, but a lot of countries do not have them. We have them for a reason- they are a legal protection, otherwise you just have to 'trust' that your employer is going to pay you for work completed.
Same with modern marriage- you have no legal protections as a man-you just have to 'trust.' And not even a man - but a WOMAN? HELL NO. What are freaking CRAZY and RETARDED? Only an idiot would live like that.
But it's far, far worse than just getting stiffed a mere paycheck- oh no- you're risking having to pay her for the rest of your years, seperated from your children & possibly jailed and your record destroyed even though you are innocent because a woman can imprison you on nothing more than an accusation.
Why men want greater access to women- the very mosters in this country who have the power to destroy their lives and who do not even possess the mental ability to understand ethics (what a combo) is a complete mystery to me.
Test
Watch this video- it says it all. It's called '21st Century Female.' It's rips American women a new one AND it's hysterical.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIVHGDvR8UA
(You'll have to copy and paste the link of course).
DADvocate --
"When I read a column like Hicks' and comments likes those of Chris'
...
Whether it's Mary Winkler shooting here husband while he slept or, more recently, Cheryl McCafferty in KY, women aren't held to the same standard as men."
Respectfully (because I enjoy your comments and have enjoyed your blog), that is not at all what I was getting at and I believe you jumped to a conclusion.
Men who advocate casual/uncommitted sex have no place blaming women for having casual/uncommitted sex and bringing fatherless children into this world.
Pretty simple. Is the opposite true? Yes.
Women who advocate casual/uncommitted sex have no place blaming men for having casual/uncommitted sex and bringing fatherless children into this world.
Nothing more, nothing less. Men who say, in the same breath, "I want sex without committment" and "women should take responsibility for children they have" are either amazingly bitter and emotional, or amazingly dense, neither of which I consider manly virtues.
If you believe in commitment, but are so pissed off at how the legal system disregards what we all know are father's reproductive rights, making the argument that the legal system should place all responsibility on women, well -- that's a consistent argument.
But the whole "I want casual sex while she takes responsibility thing" -- where did I read recently? Most of us learned in gradeschool that we can't have our cake and eat it too?
-Chris
But the whole "I want casual sex while she takes responsibility thing" -- where did I read recently? Most of us learned in gradeschool that we can't have our cake and eat it too?
Alright, then let the man take responsibility and force her to have an abortion. Since you won't do that, just STFU! He doesn't have to do a damn thing once he disowns the whole pregnancy that she insists on having. This is all very easy to understand. Very easy.
"... neither of which I consider manly virtues."
----
Well, that convinced me right there. I had to go back and read your prescription of how men should act (because I wasn't paying attention the first time), but I will CERTAINLY follow it now.
I don't want to take the risk that Chris won't think my virtues are manly.
@ Rob Fedders: Normally I find myself in overwhelming agreement with your posts. However...
"Feminism is more destructive and evil than Islam... because it actually does destroy entire civilizations."
Having lived in Saudi Arabia for 4 years and done more than a little reading on Islamic expansionism, I am compelled to say...Wow! Seriously. Wow!
As bad as feminism is, next to Islam it is the Sesame Street kiddie pool Barney the Dinosaur mosquito bite on the neck of Western civilization. Islam is a ticking nuke. Feminism is barely 50 years old. Islam is 1,400. Who do you think has their game figured out? It wasn't feminists who nearly obliterated the indigenous cultures of the Indian subcontinent, and brought about the deaths of an estimated 400,000,000 people in the past three centuries.
No comparison. Not on Planet Earth.
@Rob Fedders "Uncle Ken, How are people supposed to stand up to that nasty bitch if she, say, just happens to be your sister?"
Ask the immortal shining example for us all, who said..
"I won't be wronged, I won't be insulted, and I won't be laid a hand on. I don't do those things to other people and I require the same of them."
You don't have to shout or raise your voice. Just quietly inform the bitch du jour that you will not be insulted and leave the room. If she hits do not hit back, leave the premises and do not return.
You'll survive, and soon be happier for it.
God Bless John Wayne!
If you believe in commitment, but are so pissed off at how the legal system disregards what we all know are father's reproductive rights, making the argument that the legal system should place all responsibility on women, well -- that's a consistent argument.
Chris - Be advised that by your standards I have a consistent argument.
Rob F. - heed uncle ken's advice. One of my sisters uses feminism as a way of practicing her narcism and ego centrism. I haven't been to her house in 5 years and don't plan to return. I avoid her when ever possible otherwise too.
What?
Kevin M,
I understand your point... but, in a thousand years, Islam has not defeated us... neither has Nazism or Communism nor a a host of other threats.
Due to the low birthrates in all countries that have embraced feminism, Muslim (and/or Communist) victory over us is all but assured.
So what is worse? The disease, or the germ that guarantees we will catch the disease?
I am from outside of the USA, and it is a little frustrating sometimes because the USA is "the leader" of the Western World, and so tends to concentrate on looking inwardly at themselves rather than outwardly to the rest of the world.
The USA does have the highest birthrate in the West at 2.0/couple (2.1 is replacement rate.) The USA is also the country that still adheres the most to our Judeo-Christian way of life (even though it is getting wildly distorted).
Other Western Nations have not faired so well, because of the very programs which America now seems to be embracing.The rest of the West is much more feminist & anti-family.
It appears they have chosen America as "the last one to fall." Probably for the very reason that it lulls the rest of the West to sleep while it happens.
Canada has a 1.5/couple birthrate - down from 1.8 only a dozen years ago.
Spain is at 1.1/couple, and the Scandinavian countries and Germanic countries are also hovering around the same. All Western nations that have adopted feminism are snuffing themselves out.
Here in Canada, we are now getting into the government arguing over whether to uphold Sharia law within our country. The Muslims population is stealthily growing as all we can do to not be crushed by our ginormous debt (the USA is the least indebted and also the least taxed of any western nation also).
What difference does it make to fight them over there when we throw open our doors and tell them to come here and change our laws to be more palatable to them?
The UK and mainland Europe are crumbiling as well, forcing them to take in immigrants hostile to their own culture or face crushing tax burdens and inevitable insolvency.
The riots in Paris are an example of what we can begin to expect here as we open our doors and beg our enemies to share our house with us and let them express their "anti-us" views.
What is worse? The vicious enemies trying to break into your house, or the "friend" who is hiding in your house with you, but opens the door wide and not only invites the enemies inside, but shows them the closet you and your family are hiding in... and then points over to the gun closet, giving them the exact tools needed to wipe you out?
Without producing enough babies for the future, we may as well just invite them in today, and save ourselves all a long and agonizing defeat.
No babies = no victory.
Again, Rob is right. Canada opened the floodgates to essentially unrestrained immigration after they realized they could not fund their vast socialist agenda, imposed by Trudeau 1968-84, with their aging population.
Ditto the UK and Europe generally. Collectivism is not only the antithesis of liberty and freedom, it is the death knell of Western Culture and Society. The most egregious example is Russia, of course they had a 70 year head start on creating a worker's paradise.
Nero fiddled as Rome burned, Obama is on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno this evening. The irony is staggering. And I apologize for getting twenty miles off-topic :-)
I am largely in agreement with Mark Steyn on the whole "birth rate" issue, and it clearly bodes darkly on the future. As for Islam not (yet) defeating us, well, what do you call defeat? The battle losses cumulatively or whoever stands victorious when the war is over? If we focus solely on the birth rate issue, then I might agree that feminism's influence (however we may wish to define it) on the birthrate may very well be the single strongest component in what could ultimately be Islam's eventual victory.
(Whew! Lotta qualifiers there).
Anyway, between a boat full of feminists and a boat of Islamists appear in my submarine's periscope, I have a definite preference where my torpedoes will go. But that's just me.
I forget who posted it, but someone else predicted that the foreseeable backlash against feminism will be the onset of Islam, then I have to worry about where we will be. If such people think that the riddance of feminism due to Islam is a good thing, try to remember that, like feminism (which I always thought was women voting and taking part in the workforce), the Islamists will, like the feminists, go ape-s**t and the cure will be far worse than the disease.
DADvocate: Chris - Be advised that by your standards I have a consistent argument.
You and me both. To abuse the cliche, women can't have their cake and eat it too.
I was watching an episode of Star Trek recently; the plot involved a female character (B'Elanna) going on and on about "her baby", making drastic genetic alterations to her unborn child against the father's consent. The episode payed almost no attention to the father's wishes, making one or two comments to the effect of "and you're also doing this without [the father]'s consent." It was an afterthought. Nobody was enraged by this, it was just accepted. Instead the focus of the plot was racial equality and mixed children.
Damn if I can watch that episode and not be bitter and grumpy by the end.
The attitude of some women that it is "their" baby makes me grind my teeth. The fact that the show's writers mostly accepted this as a valid premise is a reflection of the times and of our legal system: men often have no rights.
The problem is that some men find it "the thing to do" to give women all the responsibility, current legal system aside, they believe that this is how it should be. Screw and leave. If the woman gets pregnant, well, it's her fault, she can take care of it.
The reality is that in many, many cases, this is exactly what happens. The (usually young) father flakes out, leaves the (usually young) mom with an abandoned kid. Today's legal system reflects this as an assumption, that women are ultimately saddled with the kids, that's often the justification given.
It's not right because the effect is that men who do try, who are committed, are shafted beyond belief; most of us here have been or know someone who has been.
Feminists and many women at large are guilty for all of this, but so are the men who don't take the hard responsibility. If you have taken responsibility, then I'm not talking about you.
-Chris
Feminists and many women at large are guilty for all of this, but so are the men who don't take the hard responsibility. If you have taken responsibility, then I'm not talking about you.
To clarify, this 'you' was not aimed at DADvocate, I know you take care of your children. It's aimed at the rest of the blog commenters, like JG.
Wishing you the best,
Chris
It is interesting, I happened to do a video that turned things upside down. What if Obama had created a Council on Men and Boys?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hq75iccYEVQ
Kevin M said...
"... the Islamists will, like the feminists, go ape-s**t and the cure will be far worse than the disease."
You are probably right, then again there might be some men that think what they'd gain under Islam would balance out what they'd lose.
They're likely wrong, but some have been so burned by women/the legal system/etc. that they might no longer care. I hope I'm wrong, but I fear that group may only grow larger...
@g21: "You are probably right, then again there might be some men that think what they'd gain under Islam would balance out what they'd lose."
You show me a Western man who, duly educated on what Islam is really about in all its aspects, still thinks Shariah rule is a good thing (all things considered), and I'll show you degenerate bigot who is looking for a religion to "perfume" his hatred.
Tether
Thanks for the Census link (although the document to look for is #477), and for a perspective that I hadn't really contemplated myself. Your estimates did strike me as a little high though, so I was interested in seeing how the alimony stats would break down. While it's probably a good idea to check both my math and my assumptions, here's what I got:
Average alimony for those earning more than $100,000 a year is $23,078
Average for men earning less than $100K is $7,385
Clearly there are very few men in the $100,000+ bracket who are paying anywhere near the average (let alone $30K) since it represents twice the $100K cut off point. That makes $30,000 a real outlier. The Gary Wendt case made the news because it's actually so uncommon, as divorce among the super-super-rich always is.
The median for those earning less than $100K will similarly be substantially less than $7K. In fact, given the total per year the averages represent, I have to think that the alimony numbers already include child support -- which isn't listed separately elsewhere that I could see. I can't imagine that alimony would be deductible if child support were not. Assuming it's included, the straight alimony portion going to women personally would be even lower.
If you calculate the real costs of raising children (from clothing to computers to medical attention), women with custody are not getting astronomical sums for themselves alone as well -- which is not to imply that such payments are not a substantial burden. Those paying the alimony take a tax deduction, however, while those on the receiving end pay income tax on it, so the total transfers are considerably less than the aggregate numbers might suggest. If you factor in eventual inheritance as well, it's quite possible that the bulk of the untimate transfers would be going to the children of most divorced couples.
The push for "equality" has also affected women in divorces dramatically -- which is one thing that men might actually be able to thank the feminists for (although I wouldn't be surprised if it were one of those unforeseen consequences!). Ditto for the vast increase in households with two working parents, btw. In North Carolina, alimony is rarely permanent any more -- even for women with custody of the children, I believe. The duration is generally tied to the number of years in the marriage and on how long it is presumed it will take for the wife to be "rehabilited" and returned to the workforce.
While the presumption that women should get custody of children in a divorce seems unfair to me, I believe -- contra the feminists -- that children are far better off when one parent stays home full time. While that certainly reduces any aggregate income, it does eliminate farming kids out to daycare at young ages, which is both expensive and detrimental to both children and society as a whole, IMO. In addition to individualized parental attention at home, the quality of educational institutions and the performance of students, for example, can be directly tied to the amount of direct parental involvement in both regards. Children are amazingly resilient, of course, even when reared in less than ideal circumstances, but single parenting is not easy in the best of circumstances.
I personally think women should pay their share when dating, which has become pretty common in my children's generation, and should a draft ever be re-instated, I don't believe women without children should be exempted, nor men with children conscripted. I have no idea what you mean by "informal prostitution" unless you're assuming that buying your date dinner is a down payment on services to be rendered. In that case, as in "formal" prostitution, such outlays would be transactional, consumer, expenses, not transfers of wealth.
I am certainly not arguing that the flow of money doesn't primarily go in one direction! I just think the size of the transfers are considerably less than you imagine.
PS, Tether
How do you suppose the hours women spend watching Oprah stack up to hours men spend watching football, baseball, basketball etc. (which last longer than an hour)? Not being part of either group, I wouldn't be the best person to hazard a guess myself. I'm sure there are a whole lot more women watching sports events than there are men watching Oprah, though!
Uncle Ken,
I agree with your advice, per se, but only on an individual level. That is, of course, the best way to deal with an out of control woman. Ignoring women is mostly the best way to interact with them anyway, because all too often there is an alterior motive behind her visible actions, which you will not become aware of until it is too late. Men are so unmatched against women in this area, it is not even close to a fair match.
It is also the best way to deal with the chivalrist bullies who she will inevitably call upon to "defend her honor" when you ignore her. (Mostly husbands, boyfriends, fathers & brothers, btw - keep in mind these people are the favourite female tools for violence). Mind you, like my dad taught me as a young boy... you always walk from a fight... you never run. I've pounded on a few chivalrous men before... but the woman always got away when they both deserved an ass-kicking for bringing violence into my life.
But, we have a wider problem in society that needs to be addressed, and it won't get solved until society gets much more hardened towards women and quits mollycoddling the little princesses.
It is one thing to walk away when it is just your house, or your pride... but, what about your children's futures? What about the very nation in which you live? Should we tolerate the widespread mollycoddling of the princesses in this regard as well?
There is no shortage of idiot women and chivalrist men rushing up to hush anyone who dares speak of the princesses in anything but an angelic light.
As a society, we hardly have the cajones to stand up to anonymous women, for fear that one of them might become upset - gasp! Horrors!
There are very rarely women around who jump down the throats of other women when they bash men. Most women will either join in on the bashing, or remain silent. Men will rush in to defend the ladies even more than women though, and they do it all the time. The biggest problem with "the Men's Movement" has always been the men themselves, insisting that men must fight fair (ie - one hand tied behind their backs - take the moral highground, grasshopper). Women are not afflicted with this handicapping morality, are they?
Women are not going to step off that pedastal willingly... and 75% of men are going to actively try to stop any men who try to get them off of there.
But, given the dire consequences for the future of us all... how can anyone justify to just "walk away?"
I guess my point is that, there comes a point where there can be no more "middle ground." (As if there ever was, lol). Since we are certainly staring into the abyss if we do nothing, I would suggest the time to get a little bit nasty with the ladies should come sooner, rather than later.
This stuff has all happened before. We would do well to examine history a little closer.
Dealing with women is like dealing with teenagers - not because of their intelligence, for they have well shown they are quite crafty indeed - but mostly because women are able to empathize with men only in a similar fashion as teenagers empathize with self-sufficient adults... big mouth, lots of huff, full of entitlement... but really can't back it up without the help of those they are complaining about.
And this is not something which has only begun to occur in women in the past 40 years... rather, try the past 4,000 years. This is how humans "are." The evidence is everywhere if you open your eyes to it.
And woe is the man who figures it out... the rest of society will hate him and threaten him either directly or indirectly for merely stating the Empress Has No Clothes.
It has always been this way between men and women... which is what the men of the past have been continually trying to warn us about.
I tend to imagine myself sitting up on a cliff, overlooking a herd of buffalo living on the plains below... to remove myself from it all, and just observe how human beings interact with eachother in an animalistic sort of way. Running around inside of the herd distorts one's views too much.
Walking away from women might be a personal and temporary solution... but it is no way to deal with the situation in general.
Too many men walk away from opposing women... even on the damn internet.
And the situation is far too complex to honestly expect people to put in the time and effort neccessary to understand it all - in any significant portion of the population anwyway.
What to do? Walking away is what men have been doing all along. It ain't working.
@Rob: "What to do? Walking away is what men have been doing all along. It ain't working."
I was speaking of immediate conflict resolution, not women in general. I don't know the answer, but I do know no one else does either. I suspect feminism is an outgrowth of our current societal woes, rather than the proximate cause of them.
Maybe give it up, adopt the Cromagnon method,whack 'em with a club and drag them back home. Keep them barefoot and pregnant.
All our troubles started with women's suffrage in the first place. Let's repeal the 19th Amendment - it came right after Prohibition; men obviously were not thinking straight. If nothing else, we will really piss them off and for that alone it is eternally worth it!
On the matter of alimony, this story is definitely an outlier but interesting just the same.
HARTFORD, Conn. – A 36-year-old Swedish countess divorcing a former CEO says she cannot live on $43 million.
Marie Douglas-David, a former investment banker, says she has no income and needs her 67-year-old husband, George David, to pay her more than $53,000 a week — more than most U.S. households make in a year — to cover her expenses.
David stepped down last year as chief executive at Hartford-based United Technologies Corp. but is still chairman of the board and has an estimated net worth of $329 million. He and his wife accuse each other of extramarital affairs. Their divorce trial started Wednesday.
...
David and Douglas-David married in 2002, but the marriage was in trouble by 2004, court papers show. Amid a series of reconciliations, the couple signed a postnuptial agreement in October 2005 that would give her $43 million when they divorce.
Douglas-David wants the agreement invalidated. She accused her husband of coercing her to sign it by preying upon her fears of being divorced and childless. She's asking to be awarded about $100 million in cash and stock, plus $130,000 a month in alimony.
Let's see, they wre married about 7 years ago and she wants $100 million immediately plus $130,000 a month. Sure sounds like a lot for such a short marriage.
To women like Tether who're reading this blog, you have to understand that it seems quite a few of the male commenters here have been burned by women. Other men see the deck stacked against men - especially in the courts - and have a lot of resentment.
Personally, I've been happily married for over 25 years. It might not be a coincidence but my wife was born and raised in the Philippines. We're true partners in marriage and are happy. However, should I outlive my wife, I seriously doubt I'll consider remarrying. I doubt I could be so lucky again and have too much to lose.
Rob Fedders:
Do you have kids?
The problem is that some men find it "the thing to do" to give women all the responsibility, current legal system aside, they believe that this is how it should be. Screw and leave. If the woman gets pregnant, well, it's her fault, she can take care of it.
WTF? Are you talking about men going "Hey, let's have a baby!" And, then after the child is five, they ditch the mom and the child? No. You are talking about a man that gets a woman pregnant. Even if you are pro-life, he is, at most, responsible for half the pregnancy not 18 years of child support. It is the woman that decides to have the baby. It is the woman that decides to keep the baby. WTF are you talking about??
In fact, according to your scenario, he wasn't even there!! He has sex and splits? Well then, he isn't even there when she finds out she is pregnant. He isn't even there when she decides to have the baby rather than get an abortion. He isn't even there for week after week while she could change her mind and not go through with the pregnancy. He isn't there for month after month while she could make plans to put the baby up for adoption but chooses not to. And, he is not there when she gives birth and decides to take the baby home with her rather than put it up for adoption. He isn't there for days or even weeks after that where she could almost surely change her mind and put it up for adotpion.
So, this whole time, the woman is making huge decisions that even if he was there, he would really have no say in, anyway. But, he isn't even fucking there! And, yet, somehow you have managed to attribute all those decisions to him. Somehow you have figured out that he is being irresponsible, as if he made her have the baby, as if he prevented her from having an abortion, as if he refused to let her put it up for adoption. W-T-F?!?
While I won't go as far as those who say men should never marry, I will say a man should only marry if :
1) The wife makes the same, or more, money than him.
2) They get a solid pre-nup, properly done, with lawyers on both sides. No pre-nup is foolproof, but you can increase the probabilities of it holding up. Remember that just having it will remove the sword that she could otherwise wield over you in day to day life.
Only if BOTH of these conditions are met, should a man consider marriage.
I'm so tired of people using the word "bigot". Almost everyone that uses that term does so in a bigoted fashion. (And, besides that, we all know that all a "bigot" really is is someone that truly believes what they claim to and doesn't just rollover on it with the first PC rebuke they receive.) At any rate, everyone acts like Sharia law is some kind of crime against women. You always hear about some woman that got 40 lashes for seeing her nephew without an escort. But, you never hear about the nephew that got 70. Men commonly get nailed just as hard if not harder than the women.
Secondly, islam is not going to save the west from feminism. All that will happen is islam will become decadent and corrupted just like Christianity did. Have we forgotten that Christianity and all of Christendom used to be every bit as strict and extreme as the most extreme muslim law is today? A few years of western decadence will go right through islam like a hot knife through butter. It's not the religion that makes a place like, say, Saudi Arabi like it is. It is the old timey monarchical aristocratic culture. Back when we were ruled by Christian kings, we had the very same kind of thing: beheadings, the wheel (for crying out loud), corporal punishment in general. In fact, even during the early days of the republic we still had public floggings and what not. Frankly, I question the humanity of the modern western-style justice system using prisons. But, in any case, the bottom line is pretty much: don't think islam is anything special and won't suffer the same fate Christianity has.
If islam spreads through America, all you are going to get is a bunch of liberal muslims. (Actually, they already exist.)
While I won't go as far as those who say men should never marry, I will say a man should only marry if :
1) The wife makes the same, or more, money than him.
Then, you shouldn't consider marriage. It is fairly well known that role reversals like that strongly tend to lead to divorce. So, just forget about it, then.
kmg:
I pretty much agree with your conditions in theory, but here are some real world considerations:
1) She may be earning the same as you NOW (i.e. before marriage), but what is going to stop her from instantly welding her butt to the sofa right after marriage? That's not hypothetical, I stood up in two marriages when I was in my 20s and the wife pulled exactly that number. She simply quit. What is the husband supposed to do about it? What can he do? (Hint: Not a damn thing).
2) Women usually want to marry up. They will certainly overlook temporary situations, like you're in your last year of medical school and she is earning more than you as a nurse, but not major structural situations.
In other words: It's sometimes a bit hard to find a reasonable woman who earns as much or more than you. How guys like John Kerry did it (he married TWO heiresses with major bucks), I will never know.
Also:
If a woman earns more than you, she will eventually start treating you with disgust. She will. Women don't seem to be able to tolerate that very well.
From their point of view, if you earn a lot more money than her, everything's equal. I guess she's throwing in the golden vagina, so that alone is worth a few hundred thousand a year.
Lol! Uncle Ken,
I have often thought, since being spanked is such a common female sex-fantasy, we men should fight for the right to give the ladies a light paddling now and again... I wonder if we could get them to agree on that? Nah.
It has nothing to do with women voting though. It has more to do with people voting. Landless men got the vote only around 50 to 60 years before women. Indians not until about a decade or so after women. If one studies how "women lead society's values" though, one must wonder if it was the suffragettes that were largely responsible for changing the US Republic into the attitude of accepting a Universal Democracy.
Voting is not a "universal right." Not for men or women. We make such a big deal about "the vote," and hell, we even nationally support making the world "safe for democracy" by use of violence - without realizing that democracy is the main tool of socialism and tyranny. Hitler dismantled Germany with "the tools of democracy," and he did it all legally.
Karl Marx said that "Democracy is the road to Socialism."
Rights are guaranteed within a Republic regardless of the right to vote.
Rights are far more important than "the vote." The problem becomes when "the vote" is used to take away your Rights... which is what happens with Socialism.
I would be far happier to go back to property owners voting, than the system we have now, which continually challenges with democracy the very articles/documents/books which Western Civilization has spent centuries creating that guarantee my freedom.
The problem is that "the female principle" is far easier to manipulate with Socialism/Democracy while the male principle of rules and logic is more akin to the Republic/Laws.
When the female side leads society, because of men's manginaness and willingness to always choose females over males, the feminine principle quickly chokes out people's rights.
The female principle always chooses safety over individuality... and the end result of this is totalitarianism.
One can see it happening all around us. Socialism is beginning to choke us to death. In every situation I see where people are advocating for "equality"... basically begging the government for a piece of the pie... the only true solution is complete totalitarianism. There is absolutely no way to "level up" past a certain point - not to the point of equality anyways, so the drive of equality always becomes "levelling down," - by way of totalitarianism.
The female principle naturally leads to totalitarianism. It cannot lead for long... and it never has.
Neither female nor male is "worth more" than the other. We just "are." But, also, because of who we "are" biologically, the "male principle" has always been dominant as a civilizations builds and the "female principle" has been dominant at the end, during the decline. That is just the way it is.
If we could recognize this as a people, we could do enormous good for ourselves while still protecting our rights. Possibly we could take the greatness of our civilization even further than imaginable - if we could just stay alive! But we're killing ourselves instead, and the proof is all around us.
We had better wake up soon. We really only have about another decade, and then that cultural suicide pill will be past our throats and on the way to the stomach... there's no turning back after that point. This road don't look too pretty to me at all. I don't know if I'll want to be around to see it.
Aside from my daughters, perhaps the owner of this blog, and a couple others I know, I won't pull over to help a female who is broken down in the rain or snow. Even if they wave me over and cry out "please". Carry a cell phone, girls.
Not because I am mean, but because I want my ass to stay covered. I'm absolutely serious.
That about sums it up for me.
God Bless John Wayne!
The Quiet Man.
McLintock.
Both with long scenes of him kicking Maureen O'Hara's ass over hill and dale. Yanking her, dragging her, thrashing her, throwing her to the ground.
@Pete: "long scenes of him kicking Maureen O'Hara's ass over hill and dale. Yanking her, dragging her, thrashing her, throwing her to the ground."
And as I recall QM closed with a scene of M O'Hara happily dragging JW back into the house for a little afternoon woo-woo. Hey it was a movie, but it reflected life it's ownself. Observe whom the females cluster around in bars. Always the Joker, never Batman.
Well, I don't want anyone having a council on me. I can council myself.
But I thought "man up" just meant "take hold" or "gird your loins". I've told my daughter to "man up" before. I've told myself to. I might think "bitch up" to a female coworker who is too nice and doesn't ask for things she needs to do her job and lets people take advantage of her but I probably wouldn't put it quite that way.
Rob Fedders:
You seem to be saying that the problem is not women who want to take away your rights, it's women and people who don't own property who want to take away your rights -- which sound like different propositions.
That said however, I believe studies do suggest that men and women tend to have different concepts of fairness. Generalizing, of course, men think in terms of enforcing rights, women think in terms of meeting needs. In that sense you would not be entirely wrong in associating men with republican instincts and women with socialist instincts. At the same time, men operate by establishing pecking orders, where women work through concensus.
I don't believe either is sufficient unto itself. Checks and balances are needed in all things; it's the optimal balance part that is hard to achieve.
The benefits of combining multiple approaches is a big part of why two parent families are the ideal, IMO. Take Mom and Dad at the pool teaching Johnny to swim, for instance. Mom says swim to me, promises not to back up, and stays right where she is. Dad says swim to me, you can do it, and backs up. They are both doing something important.
Mom allays fears, and knowing she'll be right where she said she'd be, Johnny feels confident enough to try a pretty safe bet. Dad takes over and backs up, which is scary exciting, and Johnny is pushed to do more than he thought he could. That's a typical order, for good reason. If Dad throws Johnny into the deep end, he'll be frightened off completely. If Mom never challenges him, he won't get out of the shallows.
It's harder for one person to provide both security and challenge, or judgment and empathy, just for starters, at the same time. It's harder for Johnny to know where he stands when he is never sure which persona to expect. I tip my hat to all the single parents who are struggling to strike a balance on their own. Financial insecurity makes it just that much harder on both parent and child.
In the larger scheme, the upside of a pecking order system is decisiveness and speedy progress; the downside is resentment or abuse and revolt. The upside of consensus, is that when everyone has a stake in a decision or objective, subversion and reversals are unlikely. The downside is indecision, paralysis and decline. Experience seems to suggest that with either one and not the other, the trajectory from upside to downside is inevitable.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Lol! JM Hanes.
I think you are deliberately misconstruing what I was saying... which is, we are not supposed to be living in a universal democracy in the first place (A Repulic - if you can keep it. *Not a democracy)... and "democratic socialism" is a form of tyranny - which is why tyrants historically choose it.
There is a level that goes beyond all of this, and it is how our brains work - philosophically. You are right that women tend to seek consensus - this is traditionally the problem - by seeking consensus, one is lowering all of the parties to the lowest common denominator - that is what consensus is, after all. Consensus is the lowest common factor in which all parties can agree.
It eliminates the higher ideals that some men aspire to, and makes things stagnant. (And men do get to those higher ideals more often than women - they also plumb the depths more - it's how we are built).
This is why the female principle is easier to be lead astray - it basically is the human emobodiement of Hegel's "The Truth is Relative." Thus it is that women are most often led by socialization and fashion, all pulled together by the solidarity of the sisterhood.
That is what makes it so dangerous. It tends to ignore principles - to wish away that which we don't wish to be true.
The world has been in a massive philosophical battle for well over a century now - and it basically comes down to "is there absolute truth" or "is there only relative truths."
That is why there is such a battle against the Bible - take "the Christians" out of it for they are only screwed up humans like the rest of us. The Bible represents "absolute truth." It represents that certain things will always stay the same. That is a male principle - rules and logic, overtop of emotion.
It doesn't really matter so much whether the Bible is real - from a philosophical point of view - but what matters is that it represents a philosophy that acknowledges "Absolute Truth." The kind of truth that will always be the same.
The US Constitution is the same thing. It is an "absolute." It is meant to be that way, which is why it was attached to the absolute known as God - to be extremely difficult to change, because the people who wrote it recognized that what societies tend to do is take things for granted and toss them to the wind - often by way of a universal democracy. They wish away that which they don't like, and create new truths to satisfy themselves. (The female version of "consensus truth.")
Evolution vs. Creationism/Intelligent Design is not about religion vs. science so much as it the Relative Truth challenging the Absolute Truth.
If evolution is real, then what was real yesterday is no longer true today, and therefore what is true today, will not necessarily be true tomorrow. Therefore, we can affect human evolution my imposing totalitarian control on populations, and forcing them into certain evolutionary directions - in order to create a better kind of man. This is where social re-engineering comes from. It is the belief in science/humans as God.
If Intelligent Design is real though, then it indicates there is absolute truth. That things are the way they are for a reason, and we have to live within the bounds of the absolute truths... therefore, we can set up solid, unchangeable pillars/principles and rules by which to live by.
That's why Karl Marx & Engels loved Darwin so much - his "science" matched their philosophy - or, more or less, Hegel's philosophy.
The female principle follows "the Truth is Relative." In fact, Hegel's Dialectic seems to me to be almost a mirror of how the female brain processes information.
Hegel didn't really "create" his philosophy as much as it already existed within humans and he identified how it worked/how to manipulate it.
The Relative Truth has existed all throughout history... the message that seems to keep getting sent to us from the past is "beware of making the Relative Truth more important than the Absolute Truth." I can imagine a thousand good reasons why that might be so.
Marxists have always advocating for women to be in the lead, so have other megalomaniacs like Auguste Comte - who devised the Social Sciences in the 1700's as a way to regulate human society, via totalitarianism. (That's how it was done in Communist countries btw - things often weren't illegal, but, say, you would be found crazy to believe in God and thus "taken away." The APA has also recently declared that religious people may be suffering from a form of mental illness... as well as I heard something about Globaloney Warming deniers... something to think about, putting too much faith in the loonie Social Sciences. Seems no better than them "awful Christians" to me).
All of it comes down to that - do you believe that the absolute truth exists, or is the truth always evolving? Certainly some truths evolve... but is there an absolute truth?
Society has been battling this for quite a while already.
Most of those who advocate that there is only relative truth, are also those who advocate the loudest for the female principle to be dominant in society - it is easier to manipulate for other purposes. If you can make one truth more fashionable than the other, (which is the essence of the female principle) - you can lead society around anywhere you wish.
Women already lead because of their sexuality - males are the sexual servants all throughout the animal kingdom.
Obviously, the "universal moral code" found in all successful religions/societies in one form or another, such as the Ten Commandments, is trying to tell us humans to live differently from animals.
Following the female principle of relative truth - of being led by the fashion of females, is to bring humans back to their natural state of living.
Hey, famous feminists like Kate Millet and company openly admit that the utopia we will all live in will be similar to living on the plains of Africa...
Andrea Dworkin also realized that there were real "polarizations" within men and women (as with all opposites) and she called for them to be destroyed. She obviously believed that human nature can be altered by humans themselves.
I think it can only be altered to a minimum degree. It can be suppressed a lot though.
There can be no advanced society without an absolute truth to "join us together." If there is no absolute truth, then who is to say your truth is any more real than my truth? And then why should society go this way instead of that way... and so on. It ignores universal principles and logic... and then the only way to maintain order is through totalitarianism.
Evil people love the female principle for a very good reason.
Btw, never married, no kids.
@Rob: "A Republic - if you can keep it. *Not a democracy"
Yes - Rule of Law not Rule of the Majority. And you are also correct that there is no right to vote guaranteed in the American Constitution. But I digress.
I have never understood the conflict between evolution and a belief in creation. Evolution is demonstrable scientific fact. Perhaps that is how God chose to realize all his creatures. Nobody can presume to know God's methods, after all.
Q: What is the No. 1 cause of Single Motherhood?
A: SINGLE MOTHERS.
While it may take two to have sex, there is only ONE person who can legally DECIDE to have the baby.
Remember, you as the man have NO say so AT ALL. You are GARBAGE in the eyes of the law, with less rights than a dog.
@Cham said..."The more I read these posts the more I want to stay as far away from marriage, or romantic relationships with men in general. Many of my friends feel the same way."
____________
I'm glad you understand where so many men are coming from. What you read here is no where near as horrid as you hear on women's forums, and, unlike the men, you have the full weight of the law on your side, as well as the support of most media. Your unwillingness to deal with this situation surely helps you understand why men are losing interest in dealing with far worse circumstances.
I'm glad to see you don't want to get in a situation that is not likely to turn out well, just as men want to avoid one with worse odds.
:)
Uncle Ken, evolution is theory. Science has been trying to prove it as fact since the theory was derived.
Uncle Ken, br549
Evolution may be a "theory", but it's a theory with a rich set of testable predictions and a huge amount of supporting data. What most people mean by "theory" is what scientists call a "hypothesis" or "conjecture". From the hypothesis comes the testable predictions, the tests/experiments and the data which fully or partially supports or refutes the hypothesis. Very often, the "theory" has to be modified as a result of the data.
The problem with creationism is that there are never any testable predictions so it's never possible to determine if the hypothesis is correct or not. A physicist once wrote that if you wanted to find an atheist, you should go to the philosophy department. Most physicists are agnostics and look upon proving the existence of God as an somewhat interesting but incredibly difficult research problem. They can't figure out how to conduct the experiment.
I won't be drawn in to a discussion of religious beliefs or worse; another Monkey Trial. My personal notion is that the answer is moot, as I explained above.
Perhaps Obama could decree a Council Of Human Origins when he has finished resolving all the problems of male-female interactions.
1) She may be earning the same as you NOW (i.e. before marriage), but what is going to stop her from instantly welding her butt to the sofa right after marriage? That's not hypothetical, I stood up in two marriages when I was in my 20s and the wife pulled exactly that number. She simply quit. What is the husband supposed to do about it? What can he do? (Hint: Not a damn thing).
Eh? Are you serious? The solution is easy. The man can quit his job too.
If you're the type of guy who simply can't bring himself to do this, then you've been outmaneuvered.
"Eh? Are you serious? The solution is easy. The man can quit his job too."
--
Well, not everything is symmetrical between men and women.
Man working: OK in society's eyes
Woman working: OK in society's eyes
Woman not working, leeching off man: OK in society's eyes
Man not working, leeching off woman: Not OK in society's eyes
--
Aside from that, most women (at least try to) "marry up". I mean, the whole point of them getting married is to leech off the man.
If he quits, he's "not doing it right".
Lastly, I personally want to feel good about my life by working and being responsible, I just wouldn't want a parasite of a wife, and especially not one who did it in a surprise fashion.
Here's something odd I've seen, though:
Some men kind of fake complain about their non-working (or stupid) wife, but it's really a kind of disguised bragging.
I think the idea is that they are showing what high-earning and generous dudes they are by easily supporting a parasitic dope. The internal benefit to them is that they have, or think they have, a kind of compliant blow-up doll at home who won't make waves because she's so dependent. And then she gets fat, so it doesn't matter anyway, and the guy finds out that she isn't very dependent because the government (or other men) will help her.
They think all of this makes them look good. This is usually the chivalrous, hard-guy type of man (species: chivalrus hardguyicus). They can also be identified as the ones in utter shock in divorce courts across America.
Regarding Kevin M's comment on 1:29 PM, March 18, 2009:
I have never been married and have no kids (am now 47). When other men (who are married with kids) find this out about me for the first time, their first nearly universal response to me is (and I quote) "Smart". Women never say that, they either try to set me up with one of their friends, or just think I'm weird.
Smart, weird & happy is not a bad way to go through life...
"well she told me she was on birth control" is almost as paper thin here, too. You're playing around with creating a CHILD, the risks are huge and life altering... I guess I'm tired of men blaming this stuff on women when the men in question think casual sex is OK. Take responsibility"
I don't follow. We know that birth control is not 100% effective yet we CHOOSE to take that risk anyway. So aren't the women also promoting casual sex as "OK"?
" I guess I'm tired of men blaming this stuff on women when the men in question think casual sex is OK"
Here's my advice:
Men, whenever you get lonely just put some Julio Iglesias on the stereo and paint a happy face on the vacuum cleaner.
This comment has been removed by the author.
I thought it was hilarious when I heard it, but then I have a sense of humor,
This comment has been removed by the author.
This comment has been removed by the author.
This comment has been removed by the author.
For all those men desperately afraid of getting a woman knocked up:
Get vasectomies. Seriously. They're pretty much reversible at this point, and you will never need to worry again.
Easy to say PunditusMaximus, less easy to do.
Ignoring the whole possibly not reversable issue you have three problems I've read about from guys going that route.
1. Good luck finding a Doc who will do it if you're under 30, doubly so if you're not married and/or don't already have kids. Same goes for women as well IIRC. Its understandable given the legal climate for Docs to take that position but still annoying.
2. If you're married and want one, most Docs won't do it without the signed consent from the wife (and maybe even a long term girlfriend if the dude isn't hitched). You know, that whole reproductive rights thing.
This hypocrisy kills the whole deal for me and its why I likely won't get one if I'm married, I'd make my wife go through the more serious surgery to get "tubes tied" if that was an issue. Women have had laws passed where they can abort the kid without ever telling their partner, even their husband if they're married. Thats not equality/parity within the law.
3. A vasectomy still does not absolve you of possible child support obligations through a variety of laws currently on the books, whether you are single or married at the time. It means you'll likely get off the hook but its not a slam dunk and will likely cost you money via a lawyer to clear your name. In fact, in some states you could be snipped and end up with the bill while married if you're wife gets preggers via "any child born into a marriage is considered a product of that marriage".
Sio:
Right. You don't necessarily have to be the biological (DNA-) father to be ordered to pay child support. There are other legal circumstances where you could nevertheless be obligated.
Many men don't know that.
And the laws only seem to be creeping in the direction of trying to nail more men. I see in England that they are now going after men who only life with women. In California, you can be ogligated if you have a "substantial bond" with a mother and child.
Men will back away even further, and laws will push forward even further. I don't even quite understand why.
Sorry, "live with women" not "life with women".
Rob Fedders:
I don't expect you'll be checking back, as this thread has probably passed its expiration date, but just in case:
"Consensus is the lowest common factor in which all parties can agree."
A common misconception. Effective consensus takes real leadership skills on the part of some folks in a group. It is achieved by persuading others to agree to a course of action, dealing with their objections and reservations up front, and convincing them that they have a least some larger, if not immediate, reason for being part of a joint decision. When people sign on voluntarily, they are generally not going to spend their time trying to stab you in the back later, or working behind the scenes to peel off enough players to derail you.
While women tend to operate by consensus, it is not an exclusively feminine "principle." We owe our Constitution to consensus building at its best. If there was pandering to the lowest common denominator, it was in pushing the problem of slavery down the road because agreement on the issue could not, in fact, be achieved without losing members of the group. We all know how that turned out. Where consensus was achieved, it has lasted, and where it was not, the consequences were devastating.
If you really believe that the greatest threat to civilization is low birth rates, it would seem that your own childless state is part of the problem, no? You seem to believe you are a realist, but from my perspective, your vision looks distinctly utopian. Women do, in fact, have to acquiesce voluntarily or be brutally prevented from dissenting. If you condone the second, you are not talking about saving western civilization in the first place. If you have yet to reproduce because you cannot do so in what you consider to be ideal male dominated circumstances, you essentially confound the very demographic imperatives you're promoting. You are in the uncomfortable position of needing to work toward a civilized consensus, or having to accept the probability that your vision will not survive you.
JM Hanes,
No actually consensus is always the lowest common denominator… what you are describing is merely being able to achieve a “higher” lowest common denominator.
Consensus is crap foisted upon us by leftism… it is Marxist in today’s context and hearing people striving to “achieve consensus” makes me cringe.
Really. It does.
What you seem to be describing in your consensus building sounds an awful lot like the Delphi Technique used for brainwashing.
The US Constitution is not really consensus in today’s modern terms. Keep in mind that the US System of Government was based on the ideals of John Locke and used both deductive and inductive reasoning. The Founding Fathers believed in Absolute Truth and they devised their system upon this frame work:
#1 – God’s Laws
#2 – Natural Laws
#3 – Civil Laws
Their system is based upon placing Absolutes higher in importance than Relatives. There is zero consensus when talking about Absolutes – none. It is the Absolute’s way or the highway. The Absolutes always take more importance than the Relatives. Always. Zippo consensus there. Lower down there can be consensus/relatives, but only if that consensus/relative coincides with what is further up the ladder.
Also, they stated that freedom can only be maintained by following the morality of the Bible. This was not intended to be something to convert people to Christianity. It is intended to keep people on the path of “one truth.” If we all have different truths, then we all go different directions, and society will fall to bits. If all of society agrees that the morality of the Bible is correct, then there is less need for the government to pass laws which unify the people into certain directions necessary for a successful civilization. They pinned everything important to the Bible (an Absolute) so that there would be no arguing and need for consensus building. Consensus building still occurs, for sure, but it is important to note that it must take lesser importance than the Absolutes.
And, btw, what the Founding Fathers did was create an Absolute. That’s what they discussed… what Absolute Truth to create that would be difficult to change. That became the Constitution… something which is not supposed to be changed lightly nor easily… despite the Leftist calls for a “living Constitution.” The Constitution is an Absolute.
It didn’t have to be the Bible, btw. But it did need to be an absolute. Some truths are unchangeable. When we find them, we are supposed to nail them to the wall.
Modern day “consensus building” is based upon the Hegelian Dialectic. It is Marxist to the core. It acknowledges no absolute truths. It looks like this:
#1 – Relative Truths manipulated for consensus
#2 – Relative Truths manipulated for consensus
#3 – Relative Truths manipulated for consensus
Hegel’s philosophy
was revolutionary in its day because it “dethroned God.” It got rid of Absolutes and made everything into Relative Truths. That’s why Marx & Engels adopted it. It is easy to manipulate. Much easier than something like the Bible anyway. Marx adopted it because he could “turn it on its head.” He could figure out which things he wanted to see in society, and then generate the arguments needed to bring society to that conclusion. If there were absolutes in the way, he would have been stopped dead in his tracks. Blammo!
As for the argument that I should be going out and spawning a bunch of babies to keep civilization alive… lol! Well, this argument is rather bland, especially after hearing it 10,000 times. Marriage is completely hostile to males. It is so off course from what it was intended to be… well. Thanks “consensus building!” The government is making it more and more illegal with each passing year – each law passed against men blows marriage more to bits, lowering our birthrates. In Canada, we have had two provinces attempt to pass legislation that would give women the right to seize your assets even if you are merely dating and she files a TRO against – without a trial, of course. (You don’t have to even be living together anymore to have the privilege of handing over your house to Princess – you know, she needs that money to escape you, even though you live in different residences). Thankfully, such stupidity got knocked down before it became law… but, what the hell is everyone thinking in the first place. Yeah, such laws will have us popping out street urchins in no time. I’m not going to bother listing all of the stupid laws passed against men in regard to marriage/dating/women.
You cannot ask men to self-immolate upon the altar of marriage anymore than you could ask women to enter into an agreement that is completely hostile to them. Governments only pass laws against things they are trying to stamp out, not against things they are trying to encourage. Being a father and husband is now becoming synonymous with abuser, exploiter and criminal. I choose not to be a criminal. If we want more men to marry, then it only makes sense to make easier for them to get married. We are doing the opposite, with no end in sight. Don’t blame me. Blame the State and those manipulating the system with “consensus.” We are obviously being subjected to Social Re-engineering… along Marxist guidelines, it would seem.
Btw. Consensus never lasts. Its very nature means that it is ever changing. That’s why it is a tool for social engineering. Absolutes, however, they last.
The only “consensus” we need to achieve, is the one to re-establish the absolutes (like the Founding Fathers once did), so we can all start living under one truth again.
That was an outrageously good little article, Rob.
Even your own source says that "the Delphi Technique is an unethical method of achieving consensus."
"The US Constitution is not really consensus in today’s modern terms."
It was the product of consensus.
"Lower down there can be consensus/relatives, but only if that consensus/relative coincides with what is further up the ladder."
I suspect it's never occurred to you that in a non-consensual system, you might find yourself occupying one of the lower rungs on the ladder. Or do you think that's where you are already?
"Also, they stated that freedom can only be maintained by following the morality of the Bible."
Not in the Declaration or the Constitution. I'd have said you can't make this stuff up, but apparently you can.
"Keep in mind that the US System of Government was based on the ideals of John Locke and used both deductive and inductive reasoning."
Consensus does not preclude the use of reason.
"Well, this argument is rather bland, especially after hearing it 10,000 times."
I didn't argue that you ought do anything. I pointed out that your own choices are at odds with the demographic imperatives you, yourself, proposed.
Frankly, from the complaints you voice, it doesn't sound like the Absolutes are working out all that well for you.
I'd say you are a leftist.
There are several good arguments for you here, but there is an obvious passive aggressive undertone. A rather insulting one, instead of a debateful one.
Did you vote for Obama?
My absolutes are working out just fine.
If you really want to debate, put forth some real issues... not gobbley dee gook.
I'm up for the challenge.
But you have to challenge with something real, like I have for you.
"I'd say you are a leftist."
Then you'd be wrong about that too.
Well gee... if all you are gonna be is a sound-byte sniper who cherry picks phrases but says nothing of significance, how can we know that your parents spent good money on that Art History degree?
Speak up!
Obviously you've got a problem with me. You've been dogging for this for a hundred posts back or so.
I wasn't born yesterday.
Spit it out!
Or is this your idea of a debate?
Passive aggressive insults are a woman's way of debating.
Still waiting for something intelligent...
...
..
.
This comment has been removed by the author.
I guess that might have been an attempt at a last word. (Deleted)
***SATIRE ON***'
If Mr. Obama wanted to actually do something significant for American's men and boys, he has taken a first step by creating a White House Council on Women and Girls.
Forget for a moment the estrogen-induced response that would have resulted if there were something so sexist as a council chartered to address the concerns of boys over girls.
His is a council to address the issues of women and girls, so of course it is entirely fair.
Actually, I'm the father of three boys, and I happen to think Mr. Obama's new council could actually win the battle of the sexes if it focuses on the right things. That's because the best thing anyone can do for American men and boys is to encourage women and girls to be more “lady like.”
A council on women and girls should promote stable marriage as the best avenue to improve the lives and living conditions of America's men and families. A council on women and girls should address the crisis in American womanhood that results in the scourge of divorce, infidelity, lack of commitment, single motherhood with multiple partners, and rampant paternity fraud.
***SATIRE OFF***
Yep, I can't wait to see the response to an article like that. Nevermind that it is basically identical to what was actually types, just with the genders flipped.
Maybe Obama will spend mothers day calling on mothers to step up.
*shrug* There are still traditional marriages out there. I am in one.
It's been a pretty good deal for both partners.
I can't tell whether all the vilification here is of traditional marriage, or of the lack of it. Seems to be kind of, hm, confused in here.
I can't tell whether all the vilification here is of traditional marriage, or of the lack of it. Seems to be kind of, hm, confused in here.
No, dear, that's just you.
If you really wanted to understand what was going on "in here", you'd be asking rational and appropriate questions.
Rather than just throwing around condescending psychological Ad Hominems, as you have been.
The only reason things seem "confused" in here to you is because you're willfully and deliberately choosing to not comprehend what people are saying.
It's not that hard to figure out. But, as I said, the odds are that you're heavily dependent upon the willing self-sacrifice of men for your own benefit. And under those conditions, it's no surprise that you don't want to understand what we're saying. It's too threatening to your worldview. You're simply not brave enough to handle the ugly truth we present.
But it's okay, sweetie. Just run along and color in your book or whatever. The men will take care of the hard parts of life for you, just like always.
Even if it kills them. . .not that you can be bothered to care about that.
@Acksiom:
We don't know what kind of marriage bearing has. Telling her to run along and color in her book after telling her she hasn't asked rationale questions is sort of a contradiction. No offense, but no one is pursuaded that way.
@bearing
I disagreed with the tone of some of the responders, but I do think you are missing the point at what people are upset about. I don't know if your marriage is good or not, but I'll take your word for it and assume it is. Good for you and your husband. That said, the media and courts are still in your corner if things fall apart, no matter who is at fault. You have the power to throw him out of the house, keep him from his kids, and legally force him to financial your destruction of the marriage. The fact that you won't do that is points for you, the fact that the courts would do it is the problem.
If you look at some other post on dr helen, she makes points about how men get ripped in courts other than the family courts. Like the teen rage prosecutions based on gender she posted on later.
Look also at my satire at 10:34 PM, March 24, 2009. It was ridiculous, yet all I did was take the actual words and flip genders. Had that been the actual piece, there would be a firestorm worse than this one throughout the media.
The problem isn't the insitution of marriage itself, it is how that institution has been vandalized.
If you really see what happens to men, thanks to the family court industry, it isn't fear of commitment or immaturity that turns men away from marriage. Women would turn away if things were as biased against them as well.
Best regards,
Trust
We don't know what kind of marriage bearing has.
No; "we", such as that exists, don't care what kind of marriage Bearing has.
Telling her to run along and color in her book after telling her she hasn't asked rationale questions is sort of a contradiction.
Really? How so? I'm not perceiving any contradiction there; if you want me to change my behavior, you're going to have to do better than that.
No offense, but no one is pursuaded that way.
My experience says otherwise (and as long as we're playing the "corrections" game, it's 'persuaded', kiddo).
More importantly, though, why are you trying to persuade someone who behaves like Bearing does ITFP? Let alone trying to persuade me to treat her differently?
No, seriously. What makes you think her contributions are eventually going to be worth expending the time and energy on the incredibly uphill battle it's going to take to get her to change not only her perceived self-interest but her derogatory habits as well?
Look at how she came rolling up on us in here originally. Even if you get her to change her mind about men's issues and marriage, aren't you still going to have to get her to change her personality such that she doesn't keep alienating other people by starting interactions with Ad Hom. psychological put-downs afterwards?
Actually, if someone really wanted to “turn things upside down” to illustrate what is going on, they would turn men’s & women’s forms of aggression upside down, and do a side by side comparison.
Women dissimulate and use “shaming power” to battle against & manipulate males. Their powers of dissimulation are the equal to a male’s physical strength. Women have traditionally been able to cut a man to the bone with the shaming power of her tongue – providing that women used it sparingly, which they no longer even pretend to attempt to do. (Men are building up a resistance to this snake-venom).
If a woman were being beaten physically by a man, other men would trip over themselves to physically stop the man from harming the woman because it is an unfair fight, and so, men (quite rightly) prevent this unfair travesty.
How come then, when a woman shows up online, and immediately attacks a man with the shaming power of her tongue (her form of gross advantage over men), are there not a gazillion women rushing up to shame the sense into the aggressing women to defend the outmatched man? Women are best equipped to demolish an aggressing woman’s tongue/shaming power – not men.
So, imagine then. A woman is getting beaten physically by a man, and none of the men who see it will lift a finger to help her, and several women actually rush up to the woman who is getting pummelled and pin her arms behind her because they don’t think she should hit the man back.
Seem fair?
What is the difference then, when a woman is incredibly more powerful than a man in regards to the biting-shaming power of her vicious tongue, and all the women stand by silently while scores of men rush up and demand a man who fights back with her own methods, stop doing so because they don’t think he should shame back?
I see very little difference.
The world is turned upside down.
There is no patriarchal “boy’s club” that collectively colludes against women… there is however, and invisibly matriarchal “girl’s club” that collectively colludes against men.
The reason why women are so apt to believe in “patriarchal oppression” is because they are collectively projecting their own sinister knowledge of how the “girls club” operates, onto men… thinking that men think like they do – which men don’t.
And, btw, soft-spoken people don’t convince anyone.
The MRM has, for the past 25 years, droned on and on at men to “fight fair” and to “not stoop to their level” and to “write reasonable letters to their government”, because eventually they will see that “we are reasonable people and they will agree with us.”
And, to paraphrase Dr. Phil, “And how’s that been working out for ya?”
Not very well.
George Orwell noticed the same thing after spending his life studying how to fight things, and concluded that the only way to change things is to get so haywire crazy that those in power will fear losing their own power. Then they will change things so as to maintain their power. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. The calm, reasonable one gets ignored.
The Suffragettes smashed windows, burned down buildings, cut up golf-links etc etc. (Even threatened assassinations). The “2nd Wave” of societal destruction held huge rallies, burned their bras etc. etc. – they were NOT reasonable whatsoever. They were freak-a-zoids bent on scaring the crap out of people who opposed them. They still are.
The biggest problem with “Men’s Rights” has been men themselves rushing up to hold other men back. After all, if men really wanted to “change things,” quite logically, men could make that happen in 15 minutes flat simply by use of physical force. Why doesn’t this happen? (It is because of men themselves).
My wife makes 3-4 times what I make, and I don't do bad. It is not the magic wonderland that people think. Evolution is not so easily dismissed. Not just on my part, but hers.
Note to believers in magic: I don't care what you think.
@acksiom
I don't care to change your behavior. I was just pointing out where she is less likely to be swayed by that tactic. But that's your perogative.
We agree that the quality of an individual marriage is less important than the legal biased surrounding all marriages.
And I was just asking, in response, why you care to try to persuade someone who behaves like Bearing does ITFP?
Again, what makes you think her contributions are eventually going to be worth expending the time and energy on the incredibly uphill battle it's going to take to get her to change not only her perceived self-interest but her derogatory habits as well?
Look at how she came rolling up on us in here originally. Even if you get her to change her mind about men's issues and marriage, aren't you still going to have to get her to change her personality such that she doesn't keep alienating other people by starting interactions with Ad Hom. psychological put-downs afterwards?
Why are you making me ask twice? The questions aren't that hard, are they?
Or is it just that you don't like the obvious answers?
Also, it's "prerogative". Perogative means "like a stuffed boiled half circular dumpling of unleavened dough".
@: "Also, it's "prerogative". Perogative means "like a stuffed boiled half circular dumpling of unleavened dough"."
________
LOL. True. I married an editor, so I should have known better. :)
Post a Comment
<< Home