Courtly love and double standards

77 thoughts on “Courtly love and double standards”

1. Again, not a word about how women ought to act! How do you know that your so-called “Christ” does not appear to you regularly in the form of the men you disparagingly call “MRAs” and whom you denigrate so freely?

   You’re very quick to demand that men change. Dude, the last I checked, women weren’t perfect either. They need to change every bit as much as men do! I don’t see you ever demanding that. Why not? Looks like another double standard to me.

   Regards,

   Mark

2. Trust me, I am well aware that Jesus is to be found among the MRAs. But the fact that I see Christ in a homeless man is not an endorsement of homelessness; the fact that I am prepared to see Him in you, Mark, is not an endorsement of your politics.

3. But if I can do this, any man can
   There’s something about this that intrigues me, and at the same time repels me. Are you seriously suggesting that you are the standard for any man?

   I mean, there are things I do easily that come very, very hard to other women. And things I do with great difficulty that other women seem to do with ease (and sometimes when I ask them about it, it turns out that yep, it’s freaking easy for them; other times, it turns out that it’s as hard for them as for me — or harder — but they’ve been doing it so long it looks easy from the outside).

   But I resist, for myself, seeing myself as the epitome of anything. I guess that, and again, I stress that this is true for me, that suggesting that my struggles with X are as hard as it gets are both arrogant and patronizing. I don’t know what goes on in anyone else’s personal experience, and suggesting that I know that my struggle is sufficient to prove that everyone else can engage the struggle seems a bit, arrogant, or prescriptive, or something.

   In particular, suggesting that something is so important that everyone else should decide to devote time to it suggests that I fully understand the circumstances of everyone else’s life. Which I am pretty sure I do not.

   On the other hand. I think that what you might be saying is that this is a struggle worth engaging, and that it’s one that, you believe, all men should engage. So maybe you are talking about the fact that if you can get to the point where you can see the value of this particular struggle in your life and in the world, then there is reason to believe that other men can do that, too.

   As usual, a post not directed at me or my actions that gives me great food for thought. Thanks.

4. Your penultimate paragraph, sorcharei, captures my intent.

5. Trust me, I am well aware that Jesus is to be found among the MRAs.

   OK, so you don’t practice what you preach, because you don’t treat “MRAs” well. You’re too busy kissing up to the silly victim-feminists who hang out here.

   But the fact that I see Christ in a homeless man is not an endorsement of homelessness;

   That’s the weirdest straw man I’ve seen in a long time.

   the fact that I am prepared to see Him in you, Mark, is not an endorsement of your politics.

   How would you know that? You don’t know what my “politics” is.

   Mark

6. Mark, if Hugo honestly believes that MRA gender politics are misguided, unjust, reactionary, and lacking in respect for women, shouldn’t he speak that? I would see it as disrespectful if someone thought I was full of sh*t but wouldn’t tell me.

   I notice that you presume that Hugo isn’t serious about his views, but is simply “kissing up” to feminists. That’s where I see disrespect in this thread.

7. Well, I’m not sure how I’ve treated MRAs badly. I haven’t used profanity to refer to them, and given my treatment during the whole Glenn Sacks discussion in January, can say that I did not respond in kind to many vicious personal attacks. I don’t agree with most of what is characterized as MR philosophy — though I respect the sincerity and humanity of individual MRAs. I’ve only banned MRAs from this blog when they have been abusive. Some, like stanton, have had much to contribute, and have helped soften some of my own preconceptions about the MR movement.

   Mark, I’m afraid the phrase “kissing up to silly victim-feminists” isn’t helpful, and it is not the sort of thing that I need more of on this blog. It is a sweeping, unfair characterization. I’m willing to take the MRAs seriously, but your unkind dismissiveness isn’t helping your cause.

   Take issue with the specifics of my stand, but spare us the rhetoric. If you can’t do that, then I will ban future comments from you.

8. Mark, I’m afraid the phrase “kissing up to silly victim-feminists” isn’t helpful, and it is not the sort of thing that I need more of on this blog. It is a sweeping, unfair characterization.

   I’m sorry you’re in such denial of the truth.

   I’m willing to take the MRAs seriously, but your unkind dismissiveness isn’t helping your cause.

   Nor is your unkind dismissiveness of men helping anyone. Your unkind alliance with man-hating feminists is also some of the most blatant hypocrisy I’ve seen on the blogosphere.

   Take issue with the specifics of my stand, but spare us the rhetoric.

   Taking issue with the specifics of your stand is pretty much an exercise in futility. I did that. You evaded my comments.

   Whenever one of your little feminist man-wannabes says something, you reply to it. You ignore comments and questions that challenge what you say.

   If you want to view men as some kind of inferior beings, go ahead. I’ll continue to laugh at such nonsense and oppose it at every turn.

   If you can’t do that, then I will ban future comments from you.

   My response: Ban THIS!

   Mark

9. My response: Ban THIS!

   Oh we were being much too harsh with poor little Marky, I think this comment shows it – he can’t be more than 12yrs old. Besides, from his very first post he showed that he missed the entire point of your article – manners should not demand reciprocality.

   Men should respect women, not just the ones they think deserve respect. People should treat all people with respect whether or not they deserve it.

10. Well…can’t say anyone has ever been all that excited about my hair.___ She’s making that up…..Seriously, I do all this stuff to my hair and nobody even notices. Then sometimes I’m in a big hurry and I jump out of the shower and just let it go wild. __ Nobody notices the difference really.

11. “Besides, from his very first post he showed that he missed the entire point of your article – manners should not demand reciprocality.”

    I don’t see why the word “reciprocality” is being used here. That seems to suggest that a person should show good manners while expecting not to be treated with the same courtesy himself/herself. I don’t think that’s what you mean to say, but that’s what the word means. If I treat a person with kindness, and then get it thrown back in my face, then screw that person. I don’t have the patience of Gandhi. I want my courtesy to be reciprocated.

    I also don’t understand what ANY of this has to do with Courtney Love.

    Oh.

12. Charla: There’s no way she’s making that up. I’ve had weird experiences with folks reading too much into my hair for most of my life! Then again, like Lauren I live in the Midwest, so maybe its a regional thing. I get the “dominatrix” tag constantly because my hair is black (Sicilian, not goth), and that’s not the predominant haircolor in my neck of the woods.

    Speaking of double standards and appearance, is there any such thing as a “Joe Average” look for women? You know, a neutral look that folks don’t read hidden messages into?

    and I’m definitely in mythago’s amen corner about which women are and aren’t viewed as “respectable”. I’ve got ‘honorary guy’ status on the job, and damn! the things I’ve heard said over the years….

13. How could you think she’s making it up? She has exactly nothing to gain by making up a weird story. I assure you, I’ve been approached by men with all sorts of “angles” that leave me wondering what exactly how they thought that was going to work. Her stories aren’t even close to the weirdest you’ll hear.

    By the way, ready to get up in arms dudes, I’m not saying that weird angles are the same thing as harassment or that I hate men. Weird is weird. One of the reasons that weird is weird is that it can make someone’s motivations hard to understand, to boot.

14. hugo – are you a gayman?

15. hugo – are you a gayman?

    He says he isn’t. But I do think he’s a girlieman.

    Mark

16. La Lubu, Amanda,
    I stand corrected…..How blind can I be?? ….

17. bmmg39, from a Christian perspective, “screw them” is not an appropriate response.

    From a less Christian perspective, I think you’re misinterpreting Hugo’s point. You don’t, I would guess, start off with the position that if somebody misuses his salad fork, he therefore has substandard manners and you are free to be as rude as you like to him. I’d even venture to guess that if somebody is less-than-perfect in response to your own courtesy, by “screw them” you mean you don’t want to deal with them any longer–not that you feel free to heap on as much nasty, rude behavior as you think you can get away with.

    That’s quite different from the attitude that rules about good behavior and politeness only apply to certain classes of people.

18. On Courtly Love,

    “The path to true love is never easy, and the rules of courtly love would have it that where there is love there, too, is suffering.”__Oh, but to be the recipient of such attentions is surely worth the suffering.

19. Mark and smokeface:

    You are pathetic.

    Stephen

20. On unfulfilled desire,

    I try not to think about it, and I’m so busy that I usually don’t. But when I do, I immediately go eat something really yummy. I guess it’s not good to use food this way, but it really does the job of filling the need. __Spiritual food works the same way, it feeds the soul.

21. Hugo, I wonder if your notion that you can only see women as sisters because of your faith in Christ is at odds with your opinions about the myth that men can’t control themselves.

    Are you seriously saying that you couldn’t control yourself in this way if it weren’t for your religious beliefs? I think that people can treat each other as ends in themselves (rather than means to some end–sexual or not) without any sort of religion, unless you count humanism itself as religious.

22. “bmmg39, from a Christian perspective, “screw them” is not an appropriate response.”

    I’m human.

    “From a less Christian perspective, I think you’re misinterpreting Hugo’s point. You don’t, I would guess, start off with the position that if somebody misuses his salad fork, he therefore has substandard manners and you are free to be as rude as you like to him. I’d even venture to guess that if somebody is less-than-perfect in response to your own courtesy, by “screw them” you mean you don’t want to deal with them any longer–not that you feel free to heap on as much nasty, rude behavior as you think you can get away with.”

    That’s pretty much my opinion, yeah. When working customer service, I found that I was more likely to be polite to those customers who treated my like a human being, as opposed who acted as though I was sub-human. That may sound un-Christian, but part of what I’m doing is trying to protect the NEXT customer service rep/clerk from being mistreated, too. I’m indirectly letting the customer know that how (s)he is behaving is unacceptable and that maybe the person won’t treat the hired help as poorly at the next stop.

    “That’s quite different from the attitude that rules about good behavior and politeness only apply to certain classes of people.”

    I agree. I wasn’t disagreeing with the overall point, just the use of the word “reciprocality.”

23. I don’t think that what you said in your last comment is necessarily inconsistent with what Hugo is saying. If a customer demeans you in your customer service position, or directs other rudeness to you, you absolutely have the moral right to stand up for yourself and let the customer know that their rudeness to you is unacceptable.

    That’s not the same thing as having the right to tell a woman that you think her revealing clothing is inappropriate or demeaning her and treating her rudely because of her clothing choices. You may think that her clothing choices are wrong and that her clothing choices make life awkward for you and others around you, but she has not deliberately demeaned you or directed her rudeness at you.

    Now, if she somehow came on to you, and it made you uncomfortable, you would have every right to tell her to stop it, get out, etc. just as a woman would if a man came on to her.

24. JP, it is certainly possible for people to overcome objectifying others without a conversion experience. It happens that my growth in this area and my coming to Christ were more or less simultaneous, but I am sure that others can have different narratives.

25. By the way, the post two before this one (and one before the one marked “Hugo”) wasn’t written by me. Someone else was responding to my previous comment and copied my handle.

    bmmg39

26. “That’s not the same thing as having the right to tell a woman that you think her revealing clothing is inappropriate or demeaning her and treating her rudely because of her clothing choices. You may think that her clothing choices are wrong and that her clothing choices make life awkward for you and others around you, but she has not deliberately demeaned you or directed her rudeness at you.
    Now, if she somehow came on to you, and it made you uncomfortable, you would have every right to tell her to stop it, get out, etc. just as a woman would if a man came on to her.”

    Yes, I’m agreeing with all of this. I always have.

27. Hugo – The conflict in your post is not whether your ideas are good or bad. It comes from the limited scope within which personal morality can be transferred on to a large group of people.

    If you’ve read my earlier posts, I’ve said that I think personal morality is crap – except with regard to getting to know who an individual person is. (On my more cynical days, I feel that statements like, “Hi, my name is Dave and I embrace a lot of Christian morality.” or “Hi, my name is Hugo and I see the living Christ in all people.” *BOTH* sound like “Hi, my name is Dave, and I’m an alcoholic.” *AND* deserve the same response – a lowering of the head, a shake or two in the “no” gesture, and a resigned, saddened mutter, “The poor bastard…”) But I’ve been doing pretty well at poker lately, and my teaching job is going surprisingly well, so I’m not all that cynical today.

    If you apply your beliefs solely to your own life, they’re beautiful. They’re what make you unique, and are based on your own unique experience. Plus, the fact that you actually *HAVE* beliefs and can so eloquently and thoughtfully articulate them, stands in such stark and beautiful contrast to the majority of people who have either no beliefs, or seem to think having strong beliefs requires no more than a 65 IQ.

    But collectively? Wow. Hope’s a bitch. It feels really good to have hope, but that hope casts a shadow that most people do not see. Or, less wordily, there’s a solid *logic* to hopelessness – to practicing the direct *opposite* of what you believe.

    Again, the conflict in your ideas is the difficulty that comes when personal ideals are applied to a large group of people. It is also the conflict between “soft hope” and “hard reality.”

    You want to view women as “sisters” regardless of how they dress. Ehh, noble goal, kind of. But the grand kick in the nuts is that patriarchy insists on dividing women in to good and bad – with how they dress being a rather reliable way of determining who is which type of woman.

    Good and bad, with regard to patriarchy is strictly in reference to the likelihood of having a man’s marriage investment hold up. Women become evaluated like bonds. (Funny that word “bond”)

    Junk bonds are any woman who puts herself above all others, uses her sexuality first and foremost as a way of accomplishing things, becomes so independent that she doesn’t think highly of marriage, becomes financially well off so that she can afford to cheat, puts personal pleasure and sexuality above all else, has poor taste, seeks cheap thrills, is overly smart – such that she has to argue over everything rather than create harmony, and / or refuses to take responsibility fr creating her own happiness.

    Highly rated bonds (a.k.a. ladies) are any woman who is responsibile, loyal, honest, has integrity, doesn’t chase cheap thrills, doesn’t use her sexuality as a weapon, and views marriage as a lifelong commitment.

    Everything else about the woman is irrelevant. She is evaluated according to her views.

    Now I can understand if you’re annoyed that people merely assumed in the past that poor people had low class and low morals. That’s intellectually lazy. But in the modern world, when a man is looking for marriage, it’s common knowledge he ought not to date a stripper.

    The deep dark secret – the shadow – to your hope, Hugo, is that when you start treating everyone like they’re good based solely on the hope that they *are* good, you’ve removed the incentive for people to behave!! People then find themselves immersed in a communist moral sphere, where without the incentive to be good, no one practices morality strong enough to be an excellent person. Subsequently the number of truly great people in that society decreases. And subsequently what passes for the average person diminishes in quality.

    What is lost is a community of excellence, what you would call Civilization, Etiquette, or Class. Excellence only is possible when everyone pulls in the same direction, or when enough people stand for a common belief and are willing to do their individual parts to accomplish a goal greater than they could ever produce alone.

    In its place is a classless society, an acivil community, where everyone argues over their personal space, but nothing ever is accomplished in the collective space. Mediocrity becomes the norm, while excellence becomes cheapened and eventually fades from existence.

    I’ve come to believe that if you truly want to build a great nation, you have to oppress pretty much everyone – men and women included so that they can all share the same goal and work together to accomplish it. Otherwise you have everyone fighting against everyone, and nothing special ever gets done.

    How this works in modern day America is that with women being so independent and financially well off, marriage becomes cheapened. With women being given a heavy share of recent college degrees *AND* many well-paying managerial jobs, *AND* expecting to marry men who make more than they do – men lose the incentive to succeed. And when men have no incentive to succeed, when they remain single and unnattached, they commit crimes, succumb to addictions, commit suicide, suck at school, &c.. Instead of using their energy to support the system, they choose to fight against it – and the whole of society suffers.

    I know I rambled, but hopefully that was coherent.

28. Quoting Hugo….

    “You have heard it said, “Respect decent women, but condemn those who appear promiscuous.” But I tell you, respect and honor even those who do not seem worthy in your eyes. If you merely respect those whose demeanor demands it, what reward will you get? Do not most men manage to do that? And if you are only courteous to your sisters who do not arouse you, what are you doing more than others?”

    But God said….

    “But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving. For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a man is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God” (Ephesians 5:3-5, NIV; compare Colossians 3:5-10).

    “Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral” (Hebrews 13:4, NIV).

    I assume this applies to women as well as men..

    Jesus spend many a day with “sinners” and was condemned by the leaders of his day for consorting with known prostitutes, thieves and the “unclean”, however, he hardly condoned the behavior.
    Women and men are responsible for their behavior and must suffer the consequences of that behavior. It is not, however, my place to dish those consequences out to my brothers and sisters..
    That does not however, make the behavior acceptable.. No matter the nature or extent of our past sins, God forgives us when we repent and forsake them. To please God, however, we must continue to listen to and try to follow His instructions concerning what is acceptable behavior.

    We need to guard against returning to the evil practices He condemns, to the sins Christ’s sacrifice has covered.

    Best regards,
    Michael

29. MMX, it’s not clear from your comment whether you’re endorsing the picture of women as “bonds”. (I suspect you’re far too sophisticated for that, though.) There are two of things I found especially disturbing about the “bonds” picture as a picture of what’s actually advantageous to men.

    First, it conflates characteristics of women that are in fact completely distinct. A smart, independent woman is precisely the sort who is most likely to take responsibility for her own happiness, as gaining independence requires one to practice responsibility. And a woman who argues is not necessarily incapable of creating harmony; civilized argument is often essential for the growth and survival of a relationship and of the people in it. It’s not like the only two options are letting your husband walk all over you and yelling at him constantly; there is such a thing as a productive conversation in which neither person yields to the other. As for putting pleasure and sex above all else, I’m not sure that many people in real life actually do this, though it’s often thought that if a woman expects to get pleasure out of sex, she’s thereby placing undue emphasis on sexuality. But really, who wants to have sex with a woman (or a man) who’s not getting pleasure out of the whole experience? Finally, responsibility, loyalty, honesty, and integrity are not incompatible with intelligence or fiscal independence.

    The second disturbing thing about the “bond” picture is that its version of “payoff” is a bit sad and limited. If you’re a man who hits the “jackpot”, then what do you really get? You end up with this chattel-creature that will serve you, decorate your home tastefully, and not run away. I guess that’s a useful thing to have from an economic standpoint, but it’s unfortunate for a person if that’s the best sort of relationship they can imagine.

    While you’re probably right that Hugo’s version of agape doesn’t give men with a patriarchal view of marriage the things they want, it’s not so great for them if they do get what they want. The urge to dominate is at bottom sort of mean and pathetic, not to mention the sort of thing that leads people into factual errors. It’s not a worthwhile urge, even if it looks that way from the inside, and that’s why we can both understand patriarchy and criticize it.

30. ahhh….we got some funnyboys in here,eh?

31. Mark – i agree with you

    to the rest of the folks reading this,

    c’mon. here we have a guy, “hugo,” teaching feminism at a community college, all the while bashing men. Gayman? maybe, doubtful – but is this strange? YES- VERY VERY STRANGE.

    Hugo,
    why you hate men? arn’t you a man? don’t punish a man for his nature. likewise, don’t get mad a chick because she sucks at sports, math and scince. that is the way God made her. Similarily, don’t get mad a dude because he sucks a being an elementary school teacher. it’s called gender roles…or are you one of those pyscho’s who doesn’t believe in gender. if the answer is yes then i’m out of here

32. Urk.

    there is such a thing as a productive conversation in which neither person yields to the other.

    To obtain a sentence that actually makes sense, read “yields completely” for “yields”.

    That’s what I get for failure to proofread.

33. Meta, that was a very coherent condemnation of men–suggesting they only succeed because it helps to attract, and then create dependency in, a woman.

    Now, if she somehow came on to you, and it made you uncomfortable, you would have every right to tell her to stop it, get out, etc.

    But, again, there is a world of difference between assertiveness/propriety and “this justifies my being a jerk.” From customer service, I’m sure you know that fighting jerkiness with jerkiness merely makes the rude customer feel justified and escalates the situation.

    Likewise, the comment I made that Hugo drew from was not about assertiveness; it was about deciding that it’s not only acceptable to drop all morals and manners when dealing with a ‘loose’ woman, but downright deserved (for her).

34. [Hugo said..]
    Well, I’m not sure how I’ve treated MRAs badly. I haven’t used profanity to refer to them, and given my treatment during the whole Glenn Sacks discussion in January, can say that I did not respond in kind to many vicious personal attacks.
    Mark, I’m afraid the phrase “kissing up to silly victim-feminists” isn’t helpful, and it is not the sort of thing that I need more of on this blog. It is a sweeping, unfair characterization. I’m willing to take the MRAs seriously, but your unkind dismissiveness isn’t helping your cause.
    [end quote]

    My first visit to your site was after I heard you speak on the Glenn Sacks show, and I kindof expected from you some of the same outlooks on gender issues that Sacks mentioned on his ads for his show in which you were featured. Glenn certainly painted you as “kissing up to silly victim-feminists” And a lot of MRA sites picked up on it. [Hence the trolling]

    I must admit that some of your posters might fall into the catagory of “victim-feminists” and many of their posts I do not agree with. But I have not found most of your posts to fall into that catagory. And certainly Glenn’s description of you and your site were not accurate.
    I have found your posts both interesting and thought provoking, and I must admit that I enjoy reading your blog and that even if I disagree, your posts do make me look at gender issues in a different light. If making people think from different points of view has been your goal, you have been successful, at least with me…

    Best regards,
    Michael

35. To mythago – “Meta, that was a very coherent condemnation of men–suggesting they only succeed because it helps to attract, and then create dependency in, a woman.”

    Actually, it was more of a condemnation of Nature – or “the natural order of things.” It’s very easy to look at animals, and see all the risky male behavior on the one hand, or the toiling male behavior on another hand, and conclude what you said “that males only succeed because it helps to attract, and then create dependency in, a woman.”

    In male lions, one male lion will get to fertilize the eggs of many lionnesses. The females will do all the hunting, and the male will always get the first cut of meat and eat until he is full before the ones who have killed will even begin to eat. It sounds like the ultimate chauvinistic pig’s paradise – until you factor in that because one male cohabits with multiple females, there are multiple males who have no access to females. And whenever a bachelor male walks in and wants to have the females for himself, he has to fight the dominant male lion. In the lion world, winning is everything, but it carries a heavy price.

    The male weaver bird builds these amazing nests out of straw, spends weeks toiling tying one blade of grass at a time to the tree branches. Some of these species are social, so you’ll have 150 males collaborate to build one of the most breathtaking dwelling places in the animal kingdom, period. Why all the trouble? Because the males who cannot build adequate nests will never have female companionship, ever.

    The male peacock’s coat of beautiful feathers is another example. The more elaborate and heavy the design, the more likely a male will have female companionship. But it also means he’s more likely to be eaten by predators.

    And the male walrus? The dominant male has access to scores of females! But he has to spend *months* in battle with other male walruses. If a male loses a fight badly, he drops out of the race – one loss, and he gets to heal up. But the dominant male has to fight everyone! He spends so much time fighting that even though his genes are passed on, he doesn’t survive the winter.

    In every case above, when you ask “Why does the male go through all that trouble?” It’s always – “To please the female.”

    I suspect it goes that way for us, as well.

    To CreepingJenny – Thank you for pointing out the lazy aspects of my post. Like I said, I was rambling, so it didn’t come out all that well.

    Point by point, “First, it conflates characteristics of women that are in fact completely distinct. A smart, independent woman is precisely the sort who is most likely to take responsibility for her own happiness, as gaining independence requires one to practice responsibility.”

    Yes, a woman with those characteristics is more likely to be *personally successful*. I’m the first to agree with that. But a woman who succeeds personally is notoriously less likely to remain married and to have kids. (I lost the stats for this, but there were two studies that say that the higher a woman’s IQ, the less likely she will ever marry. And the other study said that for every $1000 of income a woman makes, there like a 2% decrease in her likelihood of marriage.)

    But I don’t like arguing with stats, so I’ll try to explain it in my own words. People make choices all the time. And when you look at the reasons they do things, you can boil it down to two things: compulsion or cajolement. People either do things because they are forced to do them, or because they want to use their actions to get something else that they want. Need = compulsion. Want = cajolement.

    No society has ever had a law that says “Each person, under penalty of fine or imprisonment, must drink a minimum average of 40 ounces of water each day for life.” Because the need for water is a powerful biological *NEED* you needn’t have laws to compel people to follow what their body already compels them to do. But this point is meant to show that laws are the major way with which society compels people to do things.

    If there’s no law against an action, then people may do it – or they may not – but this is where it’s cajolement at work. People will do the action if they feel it leads to some benefit. The benefit is the source of the cajolement.

    With social trends, compulsion is more effective at creating unity than cajolement. Every single time! This is why I stated earlier that if you want to build a *civilized* society, you have to oppress (compel, use laws, restrict the choices of – however you want to explain it) everyone. You have to force everyone to pull in the same direction by acting in the same way. *THIS is why churches are so damned oppressive!!*

    But with regard to women and marriage – the more financially independent she is, the more she can provide certain needs for herself. She can purchase security, food, shelter, leisure, and so on. And because of this, marriage for her is less about compulsion than it is about cajolement. She marries to acquire certain things, to satisfy what she wants. And I’m not against this, but because marriage is seen as a choice, the undoing of the marriage is also seen as a viable choice. So, from the man’s perspective – a successful independent woman is more likely to divorce him than is a poor woman who can’t survive without him.

    Second point, “And a woman who argues is not necessarily incapable of creating harmony; civilized argument is often essential for the growth and survival of a relationship and of the people in it. It’s not like the only two options are letting your husband walk all over you and yelling at him constantly; there is such a thing as a productive conversation in which neither person yields to the other.”

    Yes, you are correct. I didn’t mean to state that harmony is created solely when a woman has no opinion of her own. That was lazy word-choice of mine. But I will state that success does tend to go to one’s head. Don’t we kind of expect the clear superstars in sports to be assholes while the less skillful role players are often the nicest guys you’ll ever meet? By far the most popular sports icons will be those who dominate their field *AND* be the nicest of all people – but those are exceptionally rare. Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky pulled that off well. But on the other, more normal side of the coin are Ray Lewis, Randy Moss, Barry Bonds, and the list goes on.

    So I do tend to point that out, that a more successful woman – especially in a male dominated field where she has to “out-male the males” does tend to pose more of a risk for being uncivil than a woman who has never had to succeed on her own.

    Point three, “As for putting pleasure and sex above all else, I’m not sure that many people in real life actually do this, though it’s often thought that if a woman expects to get pleasure out of sex, she’s thereby placing undue emphasis on sexuality. But really, who wants to have sex with a woman (or a man) who’s not getting pleasure out of the whole experience?”

    The stereotype is lazy, as all stereotypes are – but I do feel that as more women become more independent, their choice in mates reflects less need and more choice. Since sexual compatability is the one thing no amount of money can buy (unless you’re super rich and famous) – as both men and women learn to support themselves, sexual compatability becomes the most consistent and widespread idea that surfaces in the dating game! (A point about which bmmg complained earlier…)

    Point Four, “The second disturbing thing about the “bond” picture is that its version of “payoff” is a bit sad and limited. If you’re a man who hits the “jackpot”, then what do you really get? You end up with this chattel-creature that will serve you, decorate your home tastefully, and not run away. I guess that’s a useful thing to have from an economic standpoint, but it’s unfortunate for a person if that’s the best sort of relationship they can imagine.”

    I agree with you on this, too. The one point I try to drive home with people is the one that they’re most resistent to considering, let alone accepting. That building a relationship with someone else strictly for the purpose of attaining *HAPPINESS* is the *STUPIDEST* idea I’ve ever heard of! It’s stupid because it doesn’t work!!

    If you say that every couple that divorces didn’t have a happy marriage, then you look at the couples that stay married but are miserable then what are the odds that a newlywed couple will have a happy marriage in ten years’ time? I humbly assert those odds are around 1 in 20 – five measly percent.

    Your last point, “The urge to dominate is at bottom sort of mean and pathetic, not to mention the sort of thing that leads people into factual errors. It’s not a worthwhile urge, even if it looks that way from the inside, and that’s why we can both understand patriarchy and criticize it.”

    Actually, this is where you and I disagree. People dislike me, because on the one hand I can slam marriage (five percent chance of being happy) but on the other hand I’m strongly for it.

    The fundamental flaw with feminism is that it views *ALL* men dominating *ALL* women. But in truth, it’s really just a few men dominating all women *AND* the rest of the men.

    So why do I support marriage despite that it makes 95% of the people who enter in to it rather miserable? Because the cajolement behind marriage is *NOT* the marriage itself, but the *civilized Community* that is created when everyone pulls in the same direction. It’s almost like magic. By pulling in the same direction, civilization seems to appear out of nowhere. And with it comes history, beautiful tall buildings, a strong military presence, a nation-state, a neighborhood, and “something to believe in.” But when people all pull in individual directions, nothing of collective purpose gets accomplished and everything slips in to decay.

    So to conclude, it is my strange assertion that the double standard on female choice serves to oppress both men and women *NOT* for their happiness, but so that everyone can have something called a civilized society. And the dark shadow of my conclusion is that life as a whole is *NOT* meant to be happy. Hell, I even wrote it in my diary like eight years ago – “Nothing makes people more miserable than their unfounded and unexamined collective belief that any life (let alone their own) is *supposed to* make sense, be satisfying, or be happy.”

36. Thanks, Michael. for your kind words. I like the fact that with one or two exceptions, this thread is especially productive.

37. The fundamental flaw with feminism is that it views *ALL* men dominating *ALL* women.

    That’s a very convenient distortion of feminism.

    It is the case that male is valued, in virtually all cultures, over female, and that men gain privileges over women by virtue of being male. That doesn’t mean you ignore all other bases of power, like race, culture, class, wealth, and so on, that may govern how much power an individual woman has relative to an individual man.

    It also means that you can’t play the anti-feminist game and say that because SOME women have enough power in other areas to compensate for the gender disadvantage, that men therefore have no gender-based advantage whatsoever.

    You can point to anecdotes from Nature if it pleases you (how about spiders or bees?), but let’s face it, human brains and human societies are infinitely more complex than a lion pride or a wolf pack.

    Why would a man want a mate who is stuck with him rather than one who chooses to be with him? I’m genuinely curious.

38. MMX, thanks for the response. But if the point of marriage is to maintain a civilized society, and the point of a civilized society is not to make its citizens happy, then I’m a bit mystified as to why anybody should want such a thing in the first place. You offer several reasons, none of which seems adequate:

    …with it comes history, beautiful tall buildings, a strong military presence, a nation-state, a neighborhood, and “something to believe in.”

    Beautiful tall buildings certainly have an aesthetic appeal to them, but I’d be willing to give up that appeal for a happy populace (heck, even for a populace in which nobody starves to death). The value of strong military presences and nation-states is controversial, to put it mildly. Nation-states do things like wipe out ethnic minorities, start short-sighted and bloody wars, and torture prisoners, and it takes a heck of a lot of good to make up for those kinds of behavior. Neighborhoods are nice — but why exactly are domination and coercion necessary for creating them? My neighborhood contains a lot of young artist types. They’re quite collaborative and supportive of each other, organizing performance festivals together, and sharing food and crash space where necessary. Some run programs for feeding the homeless. Nobody is forcing them to cooperate or take part in the community, though; they do it because they want to. As for “something to believe in”, I’m highly, highly suspicious. What are we supposed to believe in? The goodness of our politicians and generals? The almighty will of God? Hugo’s faith is loving and humanitarian, but there are a heck of a lot of faithful believers in big abstract “somethings” whom I don’t trust an inch.

    Not sure what you mean by “history”. Are you referring to the actual events? I’d argue that most of those involve large amounts of human misery, and are things we could well do without. Or do you mean the academic discipline that studies the events? If that’s what you mean, it’s likely that patriarchy has made some causal contribution to its practice in our society. (Patriarchy has made a lot of causal contributions in our society, after all.) But do you really think that easing up on the oppression a bit would destroy it? If so, why? Why couldn’t men and women each shoulder some of the responsibility for raising children, and some of the responsibility for participitating in things like business, the arts, and academia?

    I guess I don’t see what really valuable things are being created by the patriarchy (though I can clearly see where the sucker payoffs are for both women and men).

39. Meta MetaX,
    I like your rendition of social mating theory…the male of the species has to compete for female attention.__ So…they have to be the strongest, run the farthest, display the most beautiful feathers etc…Yup! I agree, that’s just how male’s react to competition for female attention. If every species does this, then it has to be biological.__ I can picture this knight in shining armor ready to fight for ….Well, you know….

    Meta MetaX, I take back all the mean things I said about you. You write some preety good stuff sometimes.

40. Attend any black-tie ball, and guess which gender is “displaying the most beautiful feathers.”

41. isn’t feminism poorly named? what does it mean?

    sexist = one who discrimites based on sex(gender)
    racists = one who discrimitates based on race

    feminist = one who disriminats based on feminism?

    what is a masculinist?

    i’m not feminist, nor am i a masculinist – i hate both positions because they are idiotic – i’m a equalist

    isn’t that what we all mean? equalist?

    also hugo

    who did you vote for?

    bush or kerry?

42. Smoke, look in my archives for early November.

43. [Quoting Mythago]
    The fundamental flaw with feminism is that it views *ALL* men dominating *ALL* women.

    That’s a very convenient distortion of feminism.

    It is the case that male is valued, in virtually all cultures, over female, and that men gain privileges over women by virtue of being male.
    [end quote]

    Yes it is a convenient distortion, but not one limited to anti-feminists. Let’s turn that around and we get a statement like your’s. It’s one that I see in one form or another almost daily in feminist postings:

    The fundamental flaw with patriarchy is that all men dominate all women.

    And that is wrong for precisely the reason you give:
    “That you can’t ignore all other bases of power, like race, culture, class, wealth, and so on, that may govern how much power an individual woman has relative to an individual man.” Well said.

    But I will go further and say that women can’t ignore the political and social advantages they have gained in western society in the last 50 years while at the same time complaining that they have no power and that men have all the marbles “in virtually all cultures.” Nor can women deny the disadvantages of being male, whether biological or sociological.

44. Michael: “Nor can women deny the disadvantages of being male, whether biological or sociological.”

    Michael, if you think this to be true, then you have not been paying attention. “Women” (meaning some of them) can indeed deny these disadvantages (or assert that they are trivial), and they do so loudly. There are men who do the same, although you will not find these men involved in custody disputes, for the most part.

45. Michael, are those direct quotes? Who, please, is saying that women have *no* power and that women have made *no* progress in fifty years?

    Of course there are disadvantages to being male–but whenever a feminist says so, it’s as though Tommy Lee Jones shows up and “flashy-things” everybody in the discussion, because it’s conveniently forgotten. That terrible feminist Susan Faludi wrote a whole book on the subject, as I recall.

    The problem is that the disadvantages of being male stem directly from sexism and patriarchy; jettisoning those disadvantages also means jettisoning certain advantages. You can’t eat your cake and have it too, as some MRA would wish.

46. Mythago: This comment is a case in point. There are admissions of male disadvantages from the feminist camp, but virtually all are delivered with such caveats as to make the admissions trivial, or (in the case above and in Faludi’s case), they engage the “blame the victim” nonsense with a straight face! And how many male victims of domestic violence did Faludi interview? How many deadbroke fathers denied access to their children tell their stories in her massive tome? It is no surprise that the answer is: zero, zilch, none, on both counts. How can she claim to really care about “stiffed” men while ignoring those most impacted by the system?

47. Mythago,
    I didn’t mean ‘displaying feathers’ in that context. I meant that the male has to go to a lot of effort to get female attention in some species__this appears to be the same for humans.

    But I agree with you regarding black tie balls. Women certainly try to outdo themselves in these type of events.__Fortunately, I’ve never been one to either compete or get too excited about these type of events. As far as I’m concerned, they are just a silly waste of time. __Personally, I think that if we all did more of the type of thing that Hugo did this past weekend, our world would be a much better place.

48. Mythago,
    I’m in agreement, the disadvantages of being male stem from our patriarchal heritage. Males are under pressure to compete for females and to be successful at the same time. This has to be very difficult to live with…I think that as females we should all just give these guys a break!__ Gently tell your significant other that you don’t care how successful they are as long as they are a decent human being.

49. Great idea, Marie! Can you think of a way to convince women as a whole to place less value on financial success in a potential partner? All the studies indicate that a large percentage of women prefer or insist on a partner who is in a stronger financial position than they are. If this were reversed, my bet is that the resulting disincentive for men to earn more than women would erase the gender pay gap in very short order.

50. Can you think of a way to convince women as a whole to place less value on financial success in a potential partner?

    Certainly–remove barriers to women’s being self-sufficient, and ease the burden of childcare, for one. Then get men to go along with the idea that it’s no threat to their manhood if their significant other is a higher earner.

    Of course, then you will hear even more wailing from conservatives like William Raspberry about how we’re undermining marriage. but them’s the breaks.

51. who did you vote for?

    bush or kerry?

52. Mythago, were you serious in these suggestions? I honestly do not see how either of these two ideas, good as they may be, would change the mindset of women toward men in this regard. Could you elaborate on exactly what dynamic in these two things would change the mindset of women regarding the financial status preferred in their male partners?

    Thanks.

53. Stanton, I agree completely with mythago on this. It is precisely because I earn a decent living, with benefits that include a healthy pension, that I have the ability to choose a male partner who doesn’t earn as much as I do. In my circle of friends, there isn’t a single woman who demands a man who earns more (or refuses a man who earns less), and I can’t help but think it is due to their self-sufficiency. When you bring home your own bacon, you don’t need a cash cow.

    Granted, none of us are looking for layabouts or losers—guys who are looking for a “sugar mama”. We just want a guy who pulls his own weight, the same as we do.

    FWIW, my mother almost always earned more than my father (mostly due to shift-differential), so it’s not like this is a new development.

    The only woman I ever met who went out looking for a high earner was a waitress who earned poverty-level wages (food stamps were the saving grace for her and her son). “High earner” in her case meant working class man. She was convinced she was too old (she was close to forty) to ‘start over’ in a career, and that her only hope out of poverty was a man. (in case you were wondering, her ex-husband chose the route of drug-abuse, so he was no help on the child-support front). Then she got into the trades and earned her own money, her own pension and became a homeowner. She has more options in her dating life now, and is not willing to tolerate bullshit from a man in exchange for financial support….because she can.

54. Completely serious, stanton, and I don’t see what you’re missing.

    First, if (as used to be very much the case in the US, and still is in much of the world) a woman’s ability to earn a living is dependent on her husband–that is, he is going to be the breadwinner–it’s only common sense for a woman to pick the most stable, high-earning breadwinner she can. Remove legal and social barriers to women paying their own way, and they won’t have to depend on a man to do it.

    Childcare: if you’re doing the ‘second shift’ at home and your partner isn’t, why exert yourself unduly on the first shift? Even if you could? That is, a woman who perceives that in addition to full-time work she’s going to be responsible for raising the children and running the household, that will impact both her career and the effort she puts into it. (Why spend 60 hours a week at work if you come home and do another 20? Why pick a challenging job when it’s always you who’s going to be apologizing to the boss for staying home with a sick kid?)

    And in addition to the social pressures on women to get a ‘good catch,’ there are social pressures on men to be the dominant partner–older, taller, more accomplished, making more money. Sometimes this is a more overt power issue. Sometimes it’s simply the social conditioning that makes a man feel like he’s (at best) a bum and (at worst) pussywhipped if his wife makes significantly more money than he.

55. “Sometimes it’s simply the social conditioning that makes a man feel like he’s (at best) a bum and (at worst) pussywhipped if his wife makes significantly more money than he.”

    Bingo. I’ve had men approach me, who seemed interested in getting to know me better, who changed their minds after finding out what I did for a living and how much I got paid for it. One baldly stated, “Wow. You make too much money for me. I couldn’t date a woman who made more than I did.”…and we were probably only talking about a few thou more a year. They run away faster after that, than when I tell ‘em I’m thirty-seven!

56. It is clear that this dynamic cuts both ways – men are intimidated by a women who earns more than he, just as women tend to gravitate toward men who are more financially secure than they are. It seems to me to be a process that feeds on itself, reinforces itself. And the history behind this seems pretty obvious, as Mythago said. We can all point out counter-examples, but the overall dynamic remains.

    Perhaps it is a simple matter of income opportunity that drives the process, but I believe it runs much deeper. The hypothesis, should a study be planned, would be something like this: “Financially independent women demonstrate a significantly higher acceptance of lower status partners than women of lesser means.” Perhaps it has been done – does anyone know? My feeling is that there would prove to be a small difference, if any at all, because these are pretty deeply ingrained tendencies.

    Does anyone dispute that a substantial amount of human behavior is driven by the desire to attract the best possible mate; to have the largest possible pool of available partners? This creates a drag on incentive for women to earn more, and a boost to incentive for men, reagrdless of who does the housework.

57. While I agree that both sexes have a desire to attract the best possible mate, I don’t think that there is a disincentive for women to earn less. The women I know have every incentive to earn more for their own reasons, and many of us find our hard-won earnings to be a great way of weeding out the men who have issues with educated, independent women. As in, if he can’t take it that I’m earning a couple grand more per year, wonder what else he can’t take?

    ‘nother words, I have yet to meet the woman who has turned down a raise or promotion because she fears she won’t be able to find a date. I do know men who feel pressure to earn more in the hopes of attracting a woman.

    And my, but isn’t this conversation hetero-centric? Do gay and lesbian couples have “unwritten rules” about the earning power of (actual or potential) mates? And if not, why don’t heteros follow the gay/lesbian lead?

58. “One baldly stated, “Wow. You make too much money for me. I couldn’t date a woman who made more than I did.”…and we were probably only talking about a few thou more a year. They run away faster after that, than when I tell ‘em I’m thirty-seven!”

    I’ll never understand people.

59. I swear I couldn’t make ignorant commentary like that up! I met another one who told me I was “too masculine” for him (because of my job); I was wearing a short skirt, a flowery blouse, dangly earrings and lipstick at the time. I couldn’t help but wonder exactly where he was meeting men! (and where those men were shopping! it can be so hard to find cool clothes!)

60. “And my, but isn’t this conversation hetero-centric? Do gay and lesbian couples have “unwritten rules” about the earning power of (actual or potential) mates? And if not, why don’t heteros follow the gay/lesbian lead?”

    I made a similar point a month ago and someone jumped down my throat. I suggested that gays and lesbians are the perfect counterargument to chivalry and gender roles, because, if chivalry were set in stone, two lesbians would never be able to go out on a date, because only the man is to ask. They wouldn’t be able to enter the restaurant, because the man is always the one to open and hold the door. They wouldn’t be able to eat, because only the man should pay for the evening. Conversely, a gay man would never be able to go to his lover’s house for dinner, because it’s always the woman who must cook. The fact that all of these things go on anyway just go to show how ridiculous gender “rules” are. If gays and lesbians don’t need them, then neither do heteros.

61. “And my, but isn’t this conversation hetero-centric? Do gay and lesbian couples have “unwritten rules” about the earning power of (actual or potential) mates? And if not, why don’t heteros follow the gay/lesbian lead?”

    Well, one of the benefits (IMO) of living in a lesbian relationship is (or ought to be) that you don’t really have those pre-defined rules. EVERYTHING is a matter of negotiation — including money.

    In my own relationship (only nine years thus far), we have at times been the image of a 50′s couple with just a single breadwinner (me). My partner had gone back to school at the time and was a full-time student. At other times we’ve had two incomes, but hers has always been substantially lower than mine.

    Of course, the money difference has occasionally caused tension or conflict. Sometimes she feels guilty for not pulling her own weight. Sometimes I feel resentful for having to bring home all the income–that feeling happens most frequently when I’m busy at work and working a ton of overtime. Working past her guilt and my resentment is all part of that negotiation I mentioned.

    Oddly, even though we aren’t a heterosexual couple, I’ve still gotten flak from others for breaking gender norms. For example, once in the midst of a fight, my mother insulted my partner with the charge that she was “dependent” on me (she used some other words that Hugo might rather I not say here). This was laughable, coming from a woman approaching 60 who had never — not once in her entire life — supported herself with her own money (I was far too angry to laugh at the time, though). Furthermore, she has never once insulted my older sister for being “dependent” since she gave up her job to stay home with her kids. The best I could come up with was some odd notion in her mind that it is OK for a woman to be supported by a man, but not by another woman. Or to put it another way, it is NOT OK for a woman to be the one doing the supporting.

    At any rate, I agree with Mythago’s earlier suggestions regarding financially independent women having more freedom in who they choose as a mate. Obviously my own relationship would have been much more difficult if I couldn’t afford to support the two of us. And I would be delighted if my partner found a career that paid better (although I would miss the home-cooked dinners each night). Her financial independence is not a threat to me because it is not her dependence that ties her to me. I want her to stay with me because she wants to, because our relationship is a good, life-giving thing. I don’t want her sharing my home and my bed because she is somehow indentured to me or has no better options. I don’t understand why any man would want such a wife, either.

62. I made a similar point a month ago and someone jumped down my throat.

    I can’t imagine why. My experience is pretty much in line with Sara’s–when you start dating same-sex partners, you realize how pervasive and artificial “natural” gender distinctions are.

63. “I made a similar point a month ago and someone jumped down my throat.”

    “I can’t imagine why.”

    I think the person was under the impression that I was implying that gays and lesbians provide the ONLY counterargument, that straight women wouldn’t be able to open the door for themselves if gays and lesbians weren’t providing precedent. (That wasn’t my argument.)

64. “And my, but isn’t this conversation hetero-centric? Do gay and lesbian couples have “unwritten rules” about the earning power of (actual or potential) mates? And if not, why don’t heteros follow the gay/lesbian lead?”

    Beats me! Maybe all socially enlightened individuals should refuse to honor these gender roles. Let’s have men dating only women who earn more than them, and women only men who earn less. That’s just a little temporary affirmative action to correct past injustices, of course. Once the past wrongs have been properly atoned for, the affirmative action would no longer be needed.

65. I’ve been away for a while, so this is going to be kind of long. I might only address half the posts after mine, and then can it for another day. Or I might just ramble on like an overload semi truck on an icy road with a 70 degree downgrade in the road…

    Mythago – “Attend any black-tie ball, and guess which gender is “displaying the most beautiful feathers.”"

    Ah, yes. But if it’s a black-tie event then, I’ll assume it’s by invitation only, correct? So yes the men will all look the same…but but *BUT* you can bet they’ve spent a lot of time advertising to everyone in the room – who they are and what they do.

    You can even overhear the women now!

    Woman A: “Who’s that?”
    Woman B: “Oh that’s Mr. Kessington.”
    Woman A: “Of the North Carolina Kessingtons?! The ones who own that billion dollar real estate company!?”
    Woman B: “Yup, John there is the oldest son, and heir to the company.”

    Just by being invited in to the event, the men have either been born in to a fortune, or acquired it for themselves. The women, for the most part, are either heiresses (something they didn’t earn) or really hot (something they didn’t earn). The men – even if they haven’t earned the fortune – are expected to learn the business and maintain that fortune long-term.

    When women compete with other women, they don’t compete for life and death, they compete for status. The women displaying their feathers can’t possibly fail. After all, someone at the ball is going to marry them. The only way they can “fail” in their own minds, is to come up with not-the-best-of-the-bunch. Ask a man, what’s the difference between making $40 million a year and making $45 million a year, and he says, “Not Much” or he says “Well, duh – $5 million.” Ask a woman, and it matters – oh WOW does it matter. Think of how much she brags to her friends when she divorces a man making $1 million and marries a man making $3 million. Yeah – it matters.

    Mythago, point Two – “You can point to anecdotes from Nature if it pleases you (how about spiders or bees?), but let’s face it, human brains and human societies are infinitely more complex than a lion pride or a wolf pack.”

    First off, spiders and bees are some of the most male-oppressive entities on planet earth, so why even bring those up to add fuel to my fire?

    Secondly, human tools are more complicated because we have big brains and opposable thumbs. But human motivation!? Nah, it’s more or less the same as in all animals. Survive, compete for status, procreate, nurture (maybe), compete for status, and then die. Everything else is for the philosophers…

    Mythago, Point Three – “Why would a man want a mate who is stuck with him rather than one who chooses to be with him? I’m genuinely curious.”

    Because, if a woman can *CHOOSE* to be with him, she can then *CHOOSE* to not be with him. And I’m cool with this – but then the divorce lawyers and alimony and child support police come along, and I’m not cool with *that*. If we undid the child support laws and such, I think men wouldn’t be so grumpy, but with them being the way they are – good luck getting smart men to marry any woman.

    CreepingJenny – “But if the point of marriage is to maintain a civilized society, and the point of a civilized society is not to make its citizens happy, then I’m a bit mystified as to why anybody should want such a thing in the first place. You offer several reasons, none of which seems adequate:”

    Yeah, I know – because my response sucked. It’s very difficult to articulate what I mean by civil versus uncivil, and so on.

    I will say, though, that “happiness” as defined in America is a frightfully new concept – less than fifty years old. We see happiness as the point where you have no responsibility, or you’ve earned enough so that you have complete choice as to what you want to do without worrying about the consequences. It’s also heavily tied to conspicious spending on items that are unnecessary for survival. People *need* food, cars, houses, and clothes – but they work their asses off to eat at expensive trendy restaurants, drive million dollar sports cars, to put two people in to a dwelling that would house 100 people in a third world country, and buy clothes made of material you’ve never heard of and whose price is six month’s salary of half the people on the planet!

    But that’s another topic…

    The reason I’m so big on marriage and the double-standard is that it creates a civilized society. Without these, you have an uncivilized society. A civilized society is one where everyone within it has a more-or-less defined role and subsequent expectations, where the rules which govern that society are concrete and change little, whose number of goals is small and everyone can evaluate themselves and others in terms of accomplishing those goals, and wherein those who are uncivil or damage that society get some form of ass-kicking out of the group. An uncivilized society has nebulous roles for everyone (and as a result people get to argue left and right over what is right and wrong), has rules that are so nebulous and changing that proper conduct becomes a matter of debate and adaptability (or annoyance), tries to do so many things that everyone has to fight to get their agenda accomplished, and refuses to kick out any “bad” people.

    I’ll continue, but I want to raise your point two – “Why couldn’t men and women each shoulder some of the responsibility for raising children, and some of the responsibility for participitating in things like business, the arts, and academia?”

    There’s something I’ve noticed. One person is smart, two people are smart, many people working together are *dumb as rocks*. Call it groupthink, call it rush to judgment, call it “Holy shit people are stupid.” – but do recognize it. A bunch of people working together to accomplish anything is more often than not unsuccessful – if not downright scary. This goes triply so when that something is seen as a competitive enterprise.

    So again your question, “Why couldn’t men and women each shoulder some of the responsibility for raising children, and some of the responsibility for participitating in things like business, the arts, and academia?”

    Well, one man (me) can agree with one woman (you) to divide responsibilities so that we have a more-or-less happy relationship together. But all of society’s men and all of society’s women can *never* negotiate that conflict – they’re too damn dumb.

    Scroll up again and look at the universal motivations we share with the animals. Survive, compete for status, procreate, nurture (maybe), compete for status, and die. Both men and women agree what survival, procreation, and death are. Plus they both more-or-less know what nurturing is. But it’s the status competition that makes them so so different.

    Mythago – “The problem is that the disadvantages of being male stem directly from sexism and patriarchy…”

    NO NO NO NO NO and NO again!! The disadvantages of being male stem directly from biology and biology alone! One of the greatest human tricks we’ve ever done is to portray male disadvantages (having to work for meaning in life, having to compete with other men, having to protect society, having to make a concrete product that defines the self as a man – not a boy) as being advantages! We admire hard-working men, competitive men, successful men, soldier men, and inventor men! Oh hell yes we admire them! But we always cut out the scene of the movie what happens to those men who compete but are not successful, who are soliders but don’t survive, who tried to invent but couldn’t come up with anything useful, or who worked hard but had nothing concrete to show for it. We leave that part out of the movie, because it’s an ugly and sad sight to see…

    But for what it produces? It’s the greatest trick ever invented!! Those men who actually believe that their efforts will be rewarded on earth as they are in heaven – they make amazing shit! Steam engines, computers, cars, electricity, a whole host of inventions all because someone convinced him that people will love him if he gets it right…

    No, being male is not advantageous, it’s disavantageous! In every two-sexed species, the female is more valued than the male. (If you can name one where the males are superior and the females are oppressed, email me and I’ll definitely look in to it. And *DON’T* say humans, because female oppression is a sham…) Males are disposable unless they compete and are successful, at which point the unsuccessful ones *will* be disposed of (all in a dark corner, of course, so that people don’t catch on to what happens to you if you lose). Females are always valued, so long as they follow the basic minimums required of them: don’t break the law, and be sure to give birth. Anything else she can accomplish is gravy.

    Jenny, your question again “Why couldn’t men and women each shoulder some of the responsibility for raising children, and some of the responsibility for participitating in things like business, the arts, and academia?”

    Because of the differences with which men and women view competition, and because of the inherent stupidity that happens whenever a lot of people all try to do something competitive.

    Men love competition. Well the real men anyway. When men compete, it is *serious*! The ultimate competition is war, where my nation of men gets to attack your nation of men (Forget the fact that recently we’ve allowed women in the military) and the winner gets to rape, pillage and bring home all sorts of goodies necessary for survival and / or bragging rights, while the loser gets to *DIE* and lose everything. Business is war-like and war-lite where the winner gets to have money and bragging rights while the loser gets to have many sad stories, an alcohol addiction, and (horror-of-horrors!!) be forced to work for someone else. Sports is highly competitive, with a splash of war-like behavior on the one hand – but without all the nasty and messy casualties. It’s probably the closest thing we have to something that is *truly* competitive, but nearly everyone who participates wins. It’s no wonder why men love it so much.

    When men compete, there *HAVE* to be two things – uncertainty and rules / punishments. These two things are highly connected and extremely important. What’s the most boring game of all? One which is either won all the time, or lost all the time – in the exact same way, for the exact same reasons. Once an outcome is certain, the game stops being fun.

    You can define RULES as “the codes of conduct by which any behavior that removes the UNCERTAINTY from the competition are deemed illegal.” Another necessary feature of competition is that the punishments for breaking the rules be always well-codified and fairly enforced.

    Think about it. Why is holding illegal in football? Because the person who does the holding will *ALWAYS* gain a certain advantage from the practice, and the person being held will *ALWAYS* suffer a disadvantage. Instead of having a competition, wherein one team might win or the other team might win, you’ve made it uncompetitive – the team that can hold will always beat the team that can’t. Every single time! Thus, no one is allowed to hold.

    Another note about the rules is that there should be as *FEW* rules as possible. The purpose of the rules is solely to ensure competition (a.k.a. uncertainty). Because the more rules there are, the harder the game is to understand, the number of rules is always kept as small as possible. Always, always, always…

    When men compete there can only be one winner. This is also highly important. Football starts out with 32 potential winners, then uses something called “the regular season” to trim it down to 8 possible winners, then uses “the playoffs” to trim 8 down to 4, then 2, then finally 1 ultimate winner.

    And because there can only be one winner, there has to be a whole lot of losers. Men are fine with this, *as long as the loser gets the hell off the field*. I can’t imagine a sport more annoying than where each team takes turns winning, but actually goes through some sort of sham competition to make it look like the pre-destined team earned their victory. Can you imagine someone saying the Knicks had to win the 2006 NBA playoffs and then *made* them win a best of X series against four teams in the playoffs? Most boring basketball ever!

    All good sports practice some form of socialism. The teams that suck the most during the regular season get the best chance to pick from the new rookies in next season’s draft. Some sports have decided that if one team has a whole lot more money than another team that it creates an unfair competitive advantage – so they restrict the amount of money all teams can spend. This socialism is designed solely to create uncertainty – which is a necessary ingredient of competition.

    In the real world, when males compete they use the necessities of *LIFE ITSELF* as the prizes that will be awarded to the winners and be denied to the losers. The winner male walrus, male lion, male bee, male spider gets to *PROCREATE* – and the losers do not.

    That is some serious shit!! When men read this, they nod their heads, roll up their sleeves, and get ready to compete. When women read this, they pull out the referee’s whistle (I told you we should’ve used the rabid pit bulls to guard the whistle, Mike!!) and propose a new idea.

    It’s a woman’s notion that the necessities of life should *NEVER* be competed over. Never ever ever never ever! Who thinks war is bad? Women! Why? Because it competes over life. Who thinks cutthroat business is bad? Women! Why? Because it competes over money and creates losers. Who thinks highly competitive schooling is bad? Women! Why? Because it ruins little Johnny’s and Susie’s self-esteem when they’re told they’re *gasp* “too dumb to be in honor’s classes.”

    I’m not saying women aren’t competitive. They are!! Especially when a rich single guy walks in to the room. Then they do things that even a war-hardened male flinches over. BUT if a woman loses a competition, she doesn’t lose as heavily as a loser male does, because she NEVER competes for life resources (unless she’s really poor or in a war-torn country).

    Now follow me – because this is both difficult and important. Because men compete over life resources, they *HAVE* to have codes of conduct and fairness. However, that code of conduct merely serves to ensure that the spoils were won fairly *ACCORDING to the rules.* I was seriously pissed when the Patriots defeated my beloved Eagles in the Super Bowl – but since the game was played according to the rules, I’ve nothing to complain about. Again, men use rules to ensure that one team wins, and that their win is undisputable.

    The opposite of this is that because women *never* compete over life resources, then they don’t *need* rules to the extent that men do. When women fight, the rules are nebuluous. Watch what women do to each other when they’re fighting over a boyfriend!! Utter lack of rules!! Complete and utter nastiness!! No defined roles!! A woman can be an ally of one woman one minute, and then do something so sick and twisted that they become enemies.

    A second point is because women never compete over life resources, they view competition as a venue wherein everyone wins. The belles of the ball above all succeed by marrying one of the men there. They’ve fulfilled their minimum biological obligation and therefore should be happy. But they compete over who gets to be the *happiest.* The loser isn’t destroyed, excluded, or rendered a non-entity like they are in male-male competitions; they’re merely less happy.

    Thirdly, because they feel everyone should win some time, the rules that are injected in to these forms of competition are designed to create a specific outcome. Anyone who has an advantage – such as the strongest football player – *MUST* MUST MUST forfeit that advantage in order to ensure that the people who don’t have that advantage *DON’T LOSE*! You have no idea how rampant this occurrance is until you’ve had it pointed out to you!

    In a male-viewed competition, Mike is the smartest kid in the class – and as such is an asset. He gets to do extra work, earn super grades, show off, and makes everyone else jealous of his success. If a female-viewed competition, Mike is the smartest kid in the class. Instead of an asset, his intelligence is a *THREAT*. He has to travel at the same pace as everyone else, because everyone in the class has to succeed. He has to be bored (not challenged and not enriched) because he is not as important as everyone in the class. If he acts out, he is punished, period.

    Or consider this. Men have an advantage in the workforce because they are more willing to work longer hours – especially if they’re either not married, or married to a traditional wife whom he can trust to maintain the house while he’s away.

    In a male-centered competitive workforce, he is an asset. He is paid much overtime and is considered first and foremost when promotions come and has much respect (and jealousy).

    In a female-centered competitive workforce, he is a *THREAT*. A threat to what? To any of those who will not (or cannot) work as many hours as he does. He is a threat to the notion that everyone who competes must win, because if you let him compete freely, he is *guaranteed* to win, and produce a bunch of losers in the process. Thus, the solution in a female-centered world is to either: make him forfeit his advantage, or to give the rewards to everyone so that everyone wins. You can either make him work less hours, or you can pay people who have worked less hours either more money or with quicker promotions.

    And in addition, notice how the rules are designed to *LIMIT* uncertainty. Because of this, there is no limit to the number of rules that can be created in order to squash uncertainty (a.k.a. competition). This is the exact opposite of the male-centered logic of rules! Instead of using few rules in order to increase uncertainty (as per males), many rules are created to decrease uncertainty (as per females).

    In a female-centered competitive universe, the addition of a rule will *ALWAYS* be seen as the ultimate solution, and those rules will *ALWAYS* be enacted to limit the advantages of a stronger group for the benefit of the weaker group.

    So finally your question “Why couldn’t men and women each shoulder some of the responsibility for raising children, and some of the responsibility for participitating in things like business, the arts, and academia?”

    Because business, arts, and academia are competitive by nature – and no amount of wishful thinking will make it not so.

    When you think about it, if a sport is designed in the male competitive fashion, women will find it unappealing and will not rush in droves to compete in it. The reverse is also true – if you design a sport to cater to a woman’s need to have everyone win, then the men will not play it. This is HUGE HUGE HUGE!!

    If men have their complete way, they will produce civilized competition wherein a lot of people will get to try out, they will all compete by a set of well-defined and minimal rules, but only a very few will win. This will produce a two-fold product. On the positive side you will get some amazing business ideas, beautiful artwork, and wonderful academic progress. On the negative side, you’ll produce a whole bunch of unsuccessful people who have to be dealt with. That is a problem, no doubt.

    If women have their complete way, they will claim that art, academia, and business are too precious to be competed over; they should be free for everyone. Thus, everyone who enters in to the competition will be guaranteed to win. Everyone’s art project gets displayed. Everyone’s business gets a chance to exist. Everyone’s academic theory gets to be accepted and pondered over. There are no losers, simply because losing hurts and no one likes it. That’s the good thing.

    The bad things are that because there are no losers: there are no rules (people can be made to forfeit whatever advantage they have in order not to win by creating losers), there is no uncertainty (everyone has to win), there is no defined role for everyone (it doesn’t matter how you win – just that you do), and the losers aren’t kicked out of the game simply because there aren’t any.

    And this is bad because by creating a female-centered competition you’ve *ELIMINATED* the reasons, risks, and rewards that men expect when they compete! When men aren’t spurred to compete, they become self-indulgent, predisposed to crime, and destructive. You can’t create a civilized society whenever the females are trying to build a society and the males are trying to undermine it!

    So again, “Why couldn’t men and women each shoulder some of the responsibility for raising children, and some of the responsibility for participitating in things like business, the arts, and academia?”

    Because the differences with which men and women view competition cause women to make society incompatibile with the male view of what a society should look like. And this alienates men to the point where they do not contribute to the society, becoming instead a deadweight that will necessarily and with certainty drag the entire civilization to the point of non-civilization!

    Long rant, eh?

    To Marie – “I think that as females we should all just give these guys a break!__ Gently tell your significant other that you don’t care how successful they are as long as they are a decent human being.”

    Feminists in the 1950s *PROMISED* that as more and more women became able to support themselves financially, they wouldn’t be so pressured to marry for economic reasons, and thus could marry any man they fell in love with.

    It does not work that way. The females of every species requires that the men they choose be *AT LEAST* more accomplished than they are. Otherwise, they are good for nothing other than sex – since no amount of personal success can replicate having a warm body of the opposite sex in your bed. Because of this, the more successful women become, the higher and higher men have to succeed in order to be considered marriage material by the women!

    When you consider that: 1) it takes a ton of time for a woman to gather remarkable financial success, and 2) that highly successful men usually want young, pretty, submissive wives – you’ll discover why the class of women least likely to have kids and least likely to be married is the successful middle-aged woman in a pro-feminist country. Every single time…

    To stanton – “If this were reversed, my bet is that the resulting disincentive for men to earn more than women would erase the gender pay gap in very short order.”

    It would. You’re right. But then you’ll also create a huge class of men who are either bored as hell or destructive as hell. Teach a high school in an inner city and you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about…

    To mythago – “Certainly–remove barriers to women’s being self-sufficient, and ease the burden of childcare, for one. Then get men to go along with the idea that it’s no threat to their manhood if their significant other is a higher earner.”

    Remove barriers to women’s self-sufficiency? Hah hah hah! This is exactly what I mean when I say that women do not want to compete by the same notion that men compete. My male-centered view of competition notices that many women have college degrees wherein they earn a median salary of say $40,000 of Long Island money. If they marry a man who makes $50,000 and Long Island, they have $90k between them. Couple this with the fact that you can pay a *PITIFULLY* small amount of money for day care, and I want to scream, “Barriers?!? Are you serious? What more do you need?”

    But then the answer hits me – she needs *CERTAINTY* that she will not lose, and she will take from anyone and everyone to ensure that she doesn’t.

    As for, “Then get men to go along with the idea that it’s no threat to their manhood if their significant other is a higher earner.”

    The only way you’ll do this is to ensure that no woman who earns a salary of X shall ever be entitled to child support if she divorces her husband. *That* will make me more than convinced that a successful woman is no threat to my manhood. But since I know that *NO* woman will ever give up anything that is provided for her (especially if she doesn’t have to earn it) I know you’ll disagree with my proposal.

    La Lubu – “Granted, none of us are looking for layabouts or losers—guys who are looking for a “sugar mama”. We just want a guy who pulls his own weight, the same as we do.”

    Yes – you have used your financial freedom to not need a man. However, by eliminating male-centered competition, you’ve rendered a lot of men bored, useless, unmotivated, and ultimately unsuccessful.

    And, if you notice that woman you praise only has one child. She has replaced herself, but that’s it. One of the ways a female-centered population dies out is that the females simply cannot either find a good man to procreate with, or she becomes so successful that when she tries to have a child it’s too late.

    You continue, “One baldly stated, “Wow. You make too much money for me. I couldn’t date a woman who made more than I did.”…

    A woman who makes more than a certain threshhold salary is significantly more likely to cheat on her husband. Don’t think men don’t know this…

    To LaLubu again, “The women I know have every incentive to earn more for their own reasons…”

    One of the cornerstones of a civilized society is that everyone’s actions are considered with regard to how they affect everyone else. In an uncivilized society, all actions are evaluated strictly within what they achieve for the person who performs them. Now read your sentence again…

    You add – “And my, but isn’t this conversation hetero-centric? Do gay and lesbian couples have “unwritten rules” about the earning power of (actual or potential) mates? And if not, why don’t heteros follow the gay/lesbian lead?”

    Because heteros are heteros and gays are gay! There is way too much animosity between the groups for them to even consider following each others’ example. Wow! You might as well have asked, “Why don’t the KKK in Alabama follow the lead of the Alabama Blacks?

    To bmmg39 – Your post was perfect until you got to this last sentence!! “The fact that all of these things go on anyway just go to show how ridiculous gender “rules” are. If gays and lesbians don’t need them, then neither do heteros.”

    But the heteros *DO* need those rules, because those rules *CREATE* a defined set of social norms wherein everyone follows the same rules to perform certain roles and to achieve certain goals!! A hetero couple is one where the man earns the money, the woman has the kids, the woman raises the kids until they reach a certain age, and then the father has more say on their actions than the mother does. When you look at the shared motivations of animals and humans – Survive, compete for status, PROCREATE, nurture (maybe), compete for status, and die – which one of those does a gay / lesbian couple have very little chance of doing?

    Secondly, notice how gays and lesbians merely want to be left alone. They want to be able to have their relationships and not have anyone tell them what to do or have their actions evaluated by how they affect society at large. But because these qualities are the cornerstone of a civilized society, gays and lesbians will always be seen by heteros as anti-social. Not because they hate everybody and aren’t friendly. But because they want to have what they want no matter how anyone tells them it affects the people around them. They do the opposite of what is considered civilized behavior, and are therefore seen as uncivilized.

    To SaraS – “Well, one of the benefits (IMO) of living in a lesbian relationship is (or ought to be) that you don’t really have those pre-defined rules. EVERYTHING is a matter of negotiation — including money.”

    Yes – but because everything is a matter of negotiation, you have to spend a lot of time negotiating. Thus, there’s less time to actually accomplish anything. When the rules are few, competition thrives, and the game has more time to play. When the rules are many, competition is thwarted, and the game sputters due to someone arguing yet another point…

    You add, “I don’t understand why any man would want such a wife, either.”

    Again, because when people can choose to be good to each other, they can choose to be not good to each other. But when they are forced to be good to each other, they can’t afford to not be good to each other.

66. >> Can you think of a way to convince women as a whole to place less value
    >> on financial success in a potential partner?
    >
    >
    > Certainly–remove barriers to women’s being self-sufficient, and ease the burden
    > of childcare, for one. Then get men to go along with the idea that it’s no threat to
    > their manhood if their significant other is a higher earner.
    >
    > Of course, then you will hear even more wailing from conservatives like William
    > Raspberry about how we’re undermining marriage. but them’s the breaks.

    I only know a few men who are SAHDs. Their wives have jobs where they are able to earn an income equivalent to, or higher than, these gentlemen. So the couples made a decision for the dads to be the ones staying home to take care of the kids and the households. I think it’s great, especially since I’ve had the opportunity for the past 4 years to be a SAHM.

    The comments I hear from other MEN about these SAHDs are very disconcerting. Most of the women I know think it’s great that these dads are concerned enough about their kids and secure enough in themselves to stay home while their wives work. So why is it that other men get so wound up about families with this type of arrangement?

    The interesting thing is, I don’t see the same type of reaction about wives who go to work in town so that their husbands can farm. Farming is a work-at-home job. Unless it’s a really large farm, it’s pretty much the same as being a SAHD/SAHM. (I’m a SAH and homeschooling mom, farm manager, and part-time exchange student director for my area, so I can identify.)

    So what’s the difference in perceptions? Why is it alright for a dad to stay home with the kids if he’s farming, but not alright if he’s not. It’s not a feminist vs anti-feminist thing. It’s a cultural perception, something much older than the current feminist/meninist movements. But how do we begin shifting the perception to something more accepting of people’s different ways of living?

67. > I think the person was under the impression that I was implying that gays and lesbians
    > provide the ONLY counterargument, that straight women wouldn’t be able to open the
    > door for themselves if gays and lesbians weren’t providing precedent. (That wasn’t
    > my argument.)

    They never studied anything about pioneer women? I’d always known that pioneer women were an independent lot, but after I moved to Texas, I found a whole new history of women.

    It was common for the men to leave for a few years at a time on a cattle drive, leaving the women home to manage the ranches/farms, the homes, and the children on their own. It apparently wasn’t uncommon for a husband return home, expect his wife to slip back into her previous “wifely” role, and meet with an “Excuse me?”

    Didn’t take me long to decide I like Texas attitudes.

68. Mesca! Are you living on Planet Earth? Where are you meeting women? Do you have a mother, sisters, aunts, cousins? And do you consider them to be contemptible vicious golddiggers also? Hey…if those are the only women you’re meeting, you need to start hanging out where there’s a better class of women.

    Let’s see now…when a woman works for a living, she renders a man bored, useless and unsuccessful? No, he renders himself that way if he chooses to be a layabout. My working does not lead to male (or another female’s) laziness; their own actions (or lack thereof) are to blame.

    I read that sentence again and still don’t see the problem. Remember, we were talking about single women. Single women do not have a partner to compromise with. They are obligated to themselves…and to society, as you pointed out. They demonstrate their obligation to society at large by getting an education and working. Our society is industrialized. Now, back in the old days, peasant men and women both worked in the fields. Now, our fields are in buildings…and still, both men and women are toiling in them. Only the very wealthy can “opt-out” of this scenario.

    You seem to be operating under the delusion that education and employment are barriers to marriage for women. Nothing could be further from the truth. I live in the Midwest, and here the woman with the most difficult time finding a mate is the woman without a high school diploma. Even women with only a high school diploma find it difficult to marry (and stay married). Women with an education and a decent job have a much easier time finding a mate. And staying married. And yes, that includes women with advanced degrees. About the only women with advanced degrees I’ve met that weren’t married were lesbians (and they’d get married, if same-sex marriage was legal, but that’s another topic). So, if you are so pro-marriage, I can’t help but wonder why you’d be opposed to female education and employment.

    I work with mostly men. Well, quite frankly, I might as well say “all men”, because I’ve only been on a handful of jobs over the years where I wasn’t the only woman. Anyway….almost all of these men are married to women more educated than themselves. And they like it that way. They specifically chose women with careers to marry. So they could lie around and do nothing? Noooo! Remember the peasant analogy? Back in those days, men chose strong women for wives…women who could literally ‘pull their own weight’ doing heavy farm labor. It’s not so different now, only the labor isn’t physical (for most folks). Your contempt for women is matched only by your contempt for men….women are golddiggers, men are deadbeats. Whatever. Like I said, start hanging around a better class of people.

    Cheating? Hah. Show me your proof, including the tipping point of income that supposedly makes a woman cheat. Sorry….you lost me there. Cheating has nothing to do with income, and everything to do with a personal lack of integrity. Lack of integrity is independent of income, and that goes for men and women.

    Oh, and the example I gave, the woman who “replicated herself” as you put it? Actually, she had two sons. Her older son was already out of the house and in college, so I didn’t mention him.

    Step outside the house sometime and breathe the fresh air. There’s a whole world of people out here that are making their lives work for the better by cooperation. More men interested in spending more time with their kids. Women have been getting jobs and degrees for decades and the sky hasn’t fallen yet! In fact, for an educator, you seem to be completely bypassing the well-known statistic that correlates a child’s achievement in school with his or her mother’s level of education.

69. La Lubu – I have no contempt for women. I have contempt for the laws they attempt to enact that make someone (almost always a male) forfeit their right to excellence, so that someone else (almost always a woman) can hang around and “compete” with lesser skills.

    The better class of women are those who actively bash both male players AND women who lie to men in order to get pregnant and then sue them for child support. They are also those who will never ever NEVER laugh at the idea of kicking a man in the groin or having his penis cut off. For the record, I’ve only met one or two of these.

    Continuing – “You seem to be operating under the delusion that education and employment are barriers to marriage for women.”

    Re-read the part about rich executive women being unmarried and childless. I’ve explained the reasons for these above.

    You continue, “Let’s see now…when a woman works for a living, she renders a man bored, useless and unsuccessful?”

    NO! When many women, because they don’t like the idea of competing over things that they think everyone should have, enact rules that make men forfeit their advantages so women don’t lose – then they make men useless and unsucccessful. I always speak in social trends – which requires that you see the long-term effects of everyone acting in such a way. Not everyone can pull it off…

    You continue, “No, he renders himself that way if he chooses to be a layabout.”

    Again, I only speak in large social generalizations, not specifics. But if you want to be specific, in that analogy of Mike, the smartest kid in the class, is he being a layabout or is he being prevented from excelling because the theme of the classroom is that everyone must succeed?

    You continue, “Single women do not have a partner to compromise with…”

    Right, but for every single woman who delays marriage, there’s a single man who has no choice but to delay marriage. Every choice has a consequence. And which demographic is most likely to commit violent crime? Single men aged 16-30. Thus it is fundamentally true, that the longer women delay marriage (by choice), the longer men delay marriage (by lack of choice), and because young single men commit the most crime – the crime rate increases. Every choice has a shadow, an unforeseen consequence.

    And single women are *NOT* obligated to society – if only because they are so awful at seeing how their actions affect others. Listen to a woman talk! (This goes for men, too.) They are excellent at explaining how their actions will benefit them, but terrible at explaining how their actions affect others. The prevailing theme that everyone is allowed to do what they want (as long as they don’t break the law) in order to achieve something nebullous called “happiness” is inherently anti-social and narcissistic. Hence, most people are anti-social and narcissistic.

    You continue, “So, if you are so pro-marriage, I can’t help but wonder why you’d be opposed to female education and employment.”

    I’m not opposed to these things – but I also acknowledge that these things tend to create women who are self-absorbed and men who see no incentive to succeed. It’s fine in small doses, but there becomes a tipping point after which all of civilized society ceases to exist.

    You add, “Cheating has nothing to do with income, and everything to do with a personal lack of integrity. Lack of integrity is independent of income, and that goes for men and women.”

    Okay, two ways of attacking this.

    1) Which is more likely to produce cheating? A society where men and women are kept separate or a society where men and women routiney mingle in the workplace?

    2) Who is more likely to cheat? A woman who has her own bank account and a steady income – or a woman who is poor and has no skills who *knows* she is screwed if her husband leaves her?

    3) Integrity implies responsibility to others because one *knows* that it’s important to decipher how one’s actions affect others. Which is more likely to produce integrity – a civilized society wherein people know their role and can evaluate their contributions to the whole, or a society where everyone is roleless and are only instructed to acquire as much as they can in order to be happy? When everyone pulls in the same direction, integrity becomes possible. When everyone is in it for themselves, integrity falls by the wayside – simply because people can either get away with not having integrity, or because they don’t see the point in doing so.

    Again – I don’t advocate much of anything, because I am not, at heart, a moralist. What I *am* is an analyst who can see the hidden consequences of any group belief applied over time.

    You add, “Your contempt for women is matched only by your contempt for men….women are golddiggers, men are deadbeats.”

    I’ve no contempt for either. I’ve merely accepted that more damage is caused to the whole of society when people start assuming that they’re entitled to happiness – and are willing to use law and rules to force others to make them happy.

    You conclude, “More men interested in spending more time with their kids. Women have been getting jobs and degrees for decades and the sky hasn’t fallen yet!”

    You did notice how you put the word – YET – right? If we call 1965 the year where feminism was fully adopted by society, now is 2005. Ask someone who was 25 in 1965 the following questions:

    1) Do you think society is more or less civilized now than in 1965?

    2) Do you think political debate on television is more or less civilized now than in 1965?

    3) Do you think the interactions between men and women are more civilized now than in 1965?

    4) Do you think more or less people believe in the idea that hard work will lead to a happy and successful life now than in 1965?

    5) Do you think that personal integrity is more prevalent now compared to 1965?

    6) Do people feel more or less personally and financially secure now compared to 1965?

    7) Do American high school graduates possess more or less knowledge now than in 1965?
    Are American schools more or less conducive to education now than in 1965?

    Should I keep going, or do you surrender?

70. The idea that educated, gainfully employed women remain single and childless is a myth. Read the newspaper. Look at the bios of women in the business pages. Almost all of them are married (or have been) and most have at least two children. Educated, employed women have a better chance of getting married, staying married, and having children. These are the women that most men are seeking. Most men are not seeking high school dropouts as potential wives. Feel free to provide reputable statistics to disprove this.

    I can only imagine how bad things must be in Long Island if every man is lying around in a pit of apathy because *gasp!* women are working and attending school. Color me skeptical, but I don’t think this is the case. I have seen no evidence of rampant male laziness in the face of women of accomplishment, and frankly, if that’s not the case here in the rather conservative Midwest, I suspect that’s not the case in the more liberal Long Island either. Those “large social generalizations” you speak of don’t exist in what most of us call “the real world”. Only in your mind, Meta. Out here in the real world, men aren’t saying, “hell with it! I’ll just sit here on skid row rather than work (or attend school) with women!”

    You must be high if you think young men commit violent crime because they aren’t married. Then again, if you are coming from the perspective of “if these violent men had a wife they could stay home and beat, rather than attacking and beating random strangers….” maybe you’d have a point. You’d certainly prove your claim of being amoral if that were your view. Regardless….both men and women are delaying marriage and child-raising for the simple reason that it takes more education to acquire the kind of job it takes to have a home and family! Back in my father’s day, it was possible to get married straight out of high school, go to work in a factory, and earn enough to raise a family. Those factory jobs are gone. Burger King isn’t paying hamburger flippers enough to raise a family. College is a great alternative! But yeah, it takes time, and hence child-rearing is delayed. Instead of having children starting at eighteen, people are having them at twenty-five or thirty. So? My grandmothers (and perhaps yours) were merrily having children into their mid-to-late forties. People are having smaller families now (two-to-four, rather than six-to-nine), so unless you think every family needs to number in the double-digits, delayed childbirth shouldn’t be an issue.

    A few of the men I’ve worked with had cheating wives. Wanna know what they had in common? That’s right—stay-at-home wives! It’s hard to cheat on your husband at the local no-tell motel when you’re on the clock! But again…it all comes down to personal integrity. If you have it, you won’t cheat on your spouse. The argument “women shouldn’t work because they will cheat” doesn’t hold water. Why not “men shouldn’t work because they will cheat”? How about shoplifting? We could prevent that by eradicating shops, too! Or, we could just prosecute shoplifters…

    I agree that integrity implies responsibility to others. Where we differ is that while you think women who pursue education and the employment that results from that education are being irresponsible to themselves and society at large, I believe we are being responsible to ourselves and society at large. Where you say we are abandoning our roles, I say we are fulfilling them. When I look out my window, I don’t see a sea of lonely, selfish single men and women; I see a sea of mostly married folks with housefuls of kids. And both parents are working. And they’re making their lives work, even in this shitty economy.

    Now to the good part:

    Hey, my father was 24 in 1965, so I’ll ask him. (warning! We’re dealing with my old man here, so we’re about to enter the politically incorrect zone!)

    1. more civilized in some respects, less in others.

    2. political debate has been dumbed down, but then so has everything else on television.

    3. more civilized. Men in general have more respect for women now.

    4. about the same number of people feel that way now as they did in 1965.

    5. same thing. people have as much personal integrity as they did in 1965…quit romanticizing the past.

    6. less financially secure. the middle class is shrinking, decent paying jobs are becoming rare.

    7. education has been dumbed down. then again, there were a lot of dummies back then, too.

    8. less. too much emphasis on standardized tests and not enough (actually no) emphasis on critical thinking. kids today have no sense of history. fundamentalists have taken over the schools; they want people to believe the Earth is only 5000 years old…(I had to cut him off here. He could riff for hours on the abysmal state of education).

71. The ultimate competition is war, where my nation of men gets to attack your nation of men (Forget the fact that recently we’ve allowed women in the military) and the winner gets to rape, pillage and bring home all sorts of goodies necessary for survival and / or bragging rights, while the loser gets to *DIE* and lose everything.

    I guess I’m still failing to see the charm in this.

    Who thinks highly competitive schooling is bad? Women! Why? Because it ruins little Johnny’s and Susie’s self-esteem when they’re told they’re *gasp* “too dumb to be in honor’s classes.”

    Huh? I’m a big fan of highly competitive schooling; I think it’s pedagogically quite effective to expect a lot from students. I do think it’s inappropriate and unproductive to call students “dumb” instead of focusing on particular skills and behaviors they need to fix, though.

    In a male-viewed competition, Mike is the smartest kid in the class – and as such is an asset. He gets to do extra work, earn super grades, show off, and makes everyone else jealous of his success. If a female-viewed competition, Mike is the smartest kid in the class. Instead of an asset, his intelligence is a *THREAT*. He has to travel at the same pace as everyone else, because everyone in the class has to succeed. He has to be bored (not challenged and not enriched) because he is not as important as everyone in the class. If he acts out, he is punished, period.

    In my math classes in high school, I was Mike. Some of my teachers certainly felt threatened and envious, and some of my classmates too. (It was not exclusively or even predominately the females I unnerved, though.) I’ll agree that it’s not a good idea to make Mike sit through a lot of boring lectures on stuff she already knows. But it also isn’t an idea to hold Mike up explicitly as an object of jealousy for all the other students, since this may cause them to beat her up after school, which is not necessarily good for them and which I can assure you is extremely unpleasant from Mike’s end of things. Really, she might prefer to do her mathematics in peace, rather than to constantly be involved in other people’s stupid macho pissing contests or backstabbing status contests. And the other students might prefer to concentrate on improving themselves, rather than constantly being made to feel inferior to Mike, who has nothing against them except that she would prefer not to get beat up.

    The teaching styles you describe as “male” and “female” do not match up very well with the sexes of my high school math teachers. I had a guy who seemed bored and lectured in a monotone, a guy who was a fair if somewhat generous grader, and a woman who pushed everybody really hard.

    In college, it was all men, and few of them had discernable pedagogical styles distinguishable from their desire to be done with students and get on with their research.

    The females of every species requires that the men they choose be *AT LEAST* more accomplished than they are. Otherwise, they are good for nothing other than sex – since no amount of personal success can replicate having a warm body of the opposite sex in your bed.

    It is possible to want more out of a person than just money, sex, or cheap labor. One might want companionship, for instance. Or a partner who will share the work and the rewards of raising kids. Even creatures as weak as human beings do occasionally rise above their pettiness to treat each other as worthy of respect and dignity.

    But since I know that *NO* woman will ever give up anything that is provided for her (especially if she doesn’t have to earn it) I know you’ll disagree with my proposal.

    Guess it’s time for another brief personal anecdote. When I was in college, I decided that I didn’t want to be financially dependent on my parents anymore. (I had an academic scholarship, so they weren’t paying my tuition, just my room and board. Still, I felt like I was too old to be treated like a little kid who leeched off other people’s resources.) So I worked part-time to feed and house while I earned my degree. There, I suppose, is your counterexample.

72. To LaLubu – First off, thanks for the reply. I know my views tend to grate on others, so I’m glad I’m being talked to rationally rather than being flamed.

    You state, “Where we differ is that while you think women who pursue education and the employment that results from that education are being irresponsible to themselves and society at large, I believe we are being responsible to ourselves and society at large. Where you say we are abandoning our roles, I say we are fulfilling them. When I look out my window, I don’t see a sea of lonely, selfish single men and women; I see a sea of mostly married folks with housefuls of kids. And both parents are working. And they’re making their lives work, even in this shitty economy.”

    My view is more subtle than – all women who pursue education and liberation = bad. I figure that 10% of women in this society are empowered and talented to the point where they live exceptional lives – high class lawyers and executives or women like Oprah who achieve fame and fortune. Another 20% of women are talented enough to have a very good life – yours, Jenny’s, mythago’s – a decent upper to middle class life with little or no destruction around them.

    But it’s the other 50% of women that do things that are so aggreggious that it ruins it for everyone. The false allegations of rape, the producing of children they have no intention to support, the use of divorce at a whim because they’re unhappy, and above all the advocation of policies that demand that the best and brightest among us slow down so that everyone else will catch up. I don’t expect much from the law – at minimum it’s supposed to protect everyone from the worst among us, and I don’t think as a man that the law does this for me.

    As for what I see when I look out my window…if the people you see haven’t been married for ten years or more, they don’t count. The odds still say that no matter how good they look now, they will divorce (and likely bitterly) soon enough to make my point. On Long Island, it’s about a 60-40 split among men and women under 30 between being just married and just barely getting by financially (a symptom of youth) and living still with parents. The number of children from 21 to 30 who still live with their parents has dramatically increased here, to the point where there is very little stigma attached to it.

    And again, my argument isn’t that all women shouldn’t work (and I hate the word SHOULD) because they all will cheat. It’s more like – when all women work the worst among women will use that financial security to fund their cheating habits.

    And again – it’s the worst behaviors among all of us that ruin the entire civilization for all of us.

    Some follow up questions for your dad.

    1. What three ways has civilized behavior increased since 1965 that we should be proud of? Also, what three ways has civilized behavior decreased since 1965 that we should be ashamed of?

    2. Accepting that political debate has been dumbed down since 1965, is there anything that we’re noticeably smarter at now than in 1965? List as many that come to mind.

    3. You listed that men have more respect for women now than in 1965, but do most women have more respect for men’s abilities and their differences now than in 1965? Are men’s differences seen as exotic, charming, and quirky – or foreign, dangerous, and pathologically unusual?

    4. What five things do schools do that are the least conducive to education?

    5. I’ve stated that the idea of happiness being linked to conspicious consumption of luxury items is the strangest thing I’ve ever heard of. Was it generally true that such extravangant spending was considered vulgar and socially-destructive in 1965? Can you point to a time period where this notion, if it existed, started to erode to produce the bling-bling culture we have now?

    Thanks in advance for yor replies!

    To Jenny – Ehh, the alternative to winning at war is losing at war. Trying not to fight one by being all peaceful and nice is an invitation for an ass-kicking. Just ask all of those peace-loving matriarchal societies that existed in the past…. :/

    You add, “Huh? I’m a big fan of highly competitive schooling; I think it’s pedagogically quite effective to expect a lot from students. I do think it’s inappropriate and unproductive to call students “dumb” instead of focusing on particular skills and behaviors they need to fix, though.”

    See that’s the thing. You’re trying to blend the rewards of a highly risky ultra-competitive model with the rewards of a less risky slightly competitive model. You want people who enter the school system to be skilled and talented on the one hand, *but* you don’t want educators to be able to use shame and threats of loserdom to motivate / exclude the lower performing students. Remember, in an ultra competitive setting, the losers must get of fthe field – but in a less competitive setting there are no losers. Pitting two systems against another usually leads to the liabilities of both systems being prevalent, with the rewards of both systems being invisble. You do NOT get the best of both worlds – you get the worst of both.

    With the Mike example, you don’t get Mike alone in his world kicking ass, and a whole bunch of inferior students who try really hard to improve themselves without feeling jealous. Instead you get Mike bored so that the rest of the class can “catch up” while you have the rest of the students too bored to bother to catch up. Everyone loses…

    You continue – “Even creatures as weak as human beings do occasionally rise above their pettiness to treat each other as worthy of respect and dignity.”

    I realize that – but notice how you said occasional. My only assertion is that when you create community standards and hold everyone to them, that you create more people who reach the level of respect and dignity, but when you allow people vast personal freedom, you create less people who do so.

    As for your last paragraph, I’ve known a few women who individually decide to suck it up and do things without asking for assistence. My own sister, when she gave birth to a baby girl that the father did not want, did not sue hm for child support. Instead she mooched off of my parents until she became a bright girl and her father eventually came around. Still, though, he pays less than half of what he could be legally bound to pay – but her sacrifice did let him come to her and the child on his own terms.

    However, it’s the worst behaviors among us that ruin everything for everyone. Yet another case in point is that 42% of women saw no problem with lying to a man about the paternity of a child – either by tricking him to get pregnant, or by cheating with another man and then saying he’s the father. Forty-two percent of women can’t be trusted to do the right thing when a baby is involved!?

73. Ok Meta…busy day, but I’ll be back. It might be this evening till I can get back to the old man, but I know that regarding conspicuous consumption his answer is going to read something like “when people started worshiping wealth and aping the rich instead of taking pride in who they were…” and if I give him enough rope, he’ll go on to discuss the role of television and the rise of marketing and image, and how human beings are visual animals enhances the power of advertising, and how red-baiting made it so you couldn’t even breathe the words “working class” without being called a communist, the rise of suburbia and how that contributed to the destruction of community and feelings of isolation….oh yeah. It’s one of his favorite riffs on “U.S. civilization is going to hell”. But, he thinks we’re all going to survive anyway. Human beings have been through much worse, and yet we’re still around. I’m a lot like the old man!

    You know what I really dig about my father? Besides the fact that he likes to talk, and has a distinctly unedited way of speaking (even when I was a child)? He doesn’t whitewash the past. He remembers the good, but also the bad, and even the ugly. And he learned this from speaking to his elders. As a child he really dug hanging out with the old folks and listening to their stories…and back before television was popular, folks would tell a lot of stories. Yet another weakness in U.S. culture is the age segregation that is endemic here; another reflection of the destruction of community life. I doubt the old man knows a whole lot about “new urbanism” (and would probably squint his eyes skeptically at its hopelessly bourgeois background), but he would subscribe to many of those premises (just not the gentrifying ones…the ones that would throw us out as part of urban renewal!).

    And really, you are dead wrong on the abilities and motiviations of most women. I hear this trope every now and then at work, usually by some man that has ‘been done wrong’ in the recent past–”but, you’re different”. No, pal. You’ve just had bad luck. Or made bad choices. Or a combination of the two. Most women don’t lie, cheat and steal. There is no epidemic of false rape allegations. There is certainly no epidemic of forced fatherhood. It’s just that fewer women are choosing to have abortions than in the seventies. Men wishing to avoid paternity should recognize that every time they engage in sex with a premenopausal, unsterilized woman, they are taking on the risk of impregnating a woman. (I’ve gone on at length about this in other threads).

    And the part about your sister…hoo boy. Look, I’m somebody’s mother. Parenting is not an abstract concept to me, so I’ve got some strong feelings about this. Parenting is something you have to step up to the plate for from day number one. This is not like guitar lessons, or flying an airplane, or any other mundane hobby one can drop for a time, and get back to it later. If a person is unable or unwilling to be a parent, do the child a favor and step the hell back. On-again, off-again parenting does damage to a child’s psyche. And someone who cops out on a kid has already proven themselves to be the type of person likely to do so in the future. I hope your sister is prepared to take on the full responsibility for her child. because her partner (from your description) has already shown himself to be unreliable. Parenting is a sacred duty. Someone who cops out on that…maaan, they’re just not worth the time.

74. And I’m sure Creeping Jenny will be back to do the math!

75. Gosh, Meta, my mom falls right into your weird demographic hit, and she’s always said how much better things are now that she can, you know, be taken seriously at whatever career she chooses, support her own household, get credit in her own name, and so on. She doesn’t think men were so much more decent to women back in the Olde Dayes, either. But then, I believe she values being treated as a human being with a brain more than having doors held open for her.

    I really don’t know what to say to somebody who thinks half of all women “screw it up” for the rest of us, and do so by failing to become upper middle-class professionals; or to someone who believes it’s understandable and excusable to ignore a child until the mother ‘sacrifices’ enough for you to decide maybe parenthood is OK after all; and that without a single, rigid template, procreation would cease. That’s not exactly a reality-based platform from which to launch a discussion.

    The comments I hear from other MEN about these SAHDs are very disconcerting.

    Bingo. You’d think the guys who say “Feminism? Damn, I’d love to have a woman pay my bills while I sit on my butt all day!” would be cheering on their brethren who are living the dream, wouldn’t you?

76. And for the record, I’m not an upper-middle class professional, I’m a working-class blue-collar woman who still manages to do alright. Just so you know. (feel any differently, now that you know you’re talking to one of the great unwashed?)

    I’d like to get my mother in on these questions, but she thinks I’m crazy for even talking to anti-feminists.

    And speaking of civilized political debate, have you ever checked out how political debates were conducted in the 1800s? You should see some of the ‘civilized’ debate surrounding say, Abraham Lincoln’s presidency! But, your question was about television.

77. See that’s the thing. You’re trying to blend the rewards of a highly risky ultra-competitive model with the rewards of a less risky slightly competitive model. You want people who enter the school system to be skilled and talented on the one hand, *but* you don’t want educators to be able to use shame and threats of loserdom to motivate / exclude the lower performing students.

    You’re a high school teacher; I’m not. (I TA college classes in logic, but that’s about all the teaching I’ve done so far.) I am only familiar with the ins and outs of high schools from the student end. So your perspective is probably much better informed than mine, and you may be able to tell me where I’m going wrong. Let me state my views with greater clarity, that you may better critize them.

    First, I’ve got no problem with separating students into more and less advanced classes in various subjects, for exactly the reasons you mention. Second, I have no problems with harsh grading, because grades are only useful insofar as they actually measure anything, and giving everybody an A is not informative. But I guess I’m not so down with telling students they’re stupid, instead of that they haven’t mastered skills X and Y, and that therefore they can’t do activity Z. And I’m not really sure about constantly comparing students to each other. Now, these methods may be absolutely pedagogically necessary in high school, and if you can demostrate that they are, I’ll be willing to change my mind. I’ll tell you where I see problems with them.

    It’s fine with me if students are able to infer, from facts about who’s in which math class, facts about who’s best at math. The benefits there (ability of at least some students to access advanced material) seem to vastly outweigh any harms (possible feelings of inferiority on the part of other students). But constantly drawing attention to the top student for the purpose of inciting others’ envy, doesn’t seem to add much. I’m not sure whether anybody’s envy of my skills made them want to excel at math; but I pretty strongly suspect that it made them dislike me. There’s a difference between making distinctions for practical reasons and constantly shoving those differences in people’s faces in order to create a sort of class divisions. (Similarly, there’s a difference between healthy competition and the urge to wantonly destroy. Hugo is a competitive runner, but I don’t think he hates his opponents.) I’m fine with making distinctions and with being honest about what they mean, but what they mean is not that some people are more intrinsically good and worthwhile than others.

    As for telling students they’re dumb, I’m just not seeing how it’s a better motivator than telling them what they’re doing poorly at, and expecting them to improve. Being dumb is supposedly irreparable. Lacking skills is something that’s worth fixing. Maybe I’m missing something important about the way people function; if so, I’d like some empirical evidence. I recall seeing a study that pointed in the other direction: telling a teacher that some students are slated to make an academic improvement actually causes the students to improve, apparently because the teacher pays more attention to them. The speculative upshot is that thinking of people as dumb actually causes them to perform poorly. (Argh, that’s all very sketchy. If anybody remembers this study better than I do, please jump in!)

    So as far as I know, competition is not the same thing as bullying, and good results can often be achieved by using the former without the latter.