PYRRHIC VICTORY: Joel Kotkin: Women have won the ‘war between the sexes,’ but at what cost?
Even Vox is wondering why women have gotten everything they said they wanted, but are still unhappy. Their explanation, of course, is that men still aren’t doing enough to make women happy. But it’s interesting that they’ve noticed the problem.
My hypothesis: What we’ve been told that “women” want is in fact what a relatively small percentage of women — 20% at most — who tend to be neurotic and anxious, and largely incapable of sustained happiness anyway, say they want. But even to the extent that’s true, their needs aren’t really those of most women whose interests fall closer to the norms.
Lots of parts there, so let's take this one piece at a time.
First, Joel Kotkin's "Women have won the ‘war between the sexes,’ but at what cost?" (National Post)(the original link was dead, but this one might work). Subtitle: "Current trends portend not a feminist paradise, but a dysfunctional society where men and women are increasingly indifferent or at odds with each other." Kotkin says the rise of women has been at the expense of men. So who are women going to marry? Glenn is adding "Pyrrhic victory." Women's climb out of subordination is presented as a war, and the failure of men to respond well to their loss of control over half the population is cast as the women's problem. The "war" wasn't worth winning. Remember the good old days when you had no choice and you looked up to that husband of yours, who was doing reasonably well because half of the population wasn't competing with him in the workplace? Ha ha ha. You should have stayed put and counted your blessings.
Moving on to Vox — even Vox — we see a comic from 2019 by Aubrey Hirsh, about "The gender gap we’re not talking about." What I'm seeing here is the opposite of Kotkin's point. Hirsh is saying that men are not the losers as women have risen. They've gained sexual freedom and escaped from family responsibilities. But still, from the woman's point of view, things are bad, not so much because women can't find men worth marrying, but because women entangle themselves with men who don't do an equal share of household work. There's also still inequality in the workplace. This comic is designed to fire up women to demand true equality. So, yeah, women are "unhappy" about that, but men can read that comic too and feel motivated to live up to a vision of equality. Why wouldn't they? Don't marry a man who wouldn't! And don't have children unless you've got a man you can trust to uphold equality (or you've got a trustworthy man-free arrangement).
Glenn hypothesizes:What we’ve been told that “women” want is in fact what a relatively small percentage of women — 20% at most — who tend to be neurotic and anxious, and largely incapable of sustained happiness anyway, say they want. But even to the extent that’s true, their needs aren’t really those of most women whose interests fall closer to the norms.
It's a hypothesis, so someone else will have to delve into the psyche of women and find out what percentage of them are the troublemakers making life less pleasant for the other ladies, the ones who easily find fulfillment living a life close to "the norms." I haven't read the comments over there yet, but I suspect they will be full of men eager to disparage "neurotic and anxious" women and to tell us of the real women, the feminine women who are happy with a simple family life and a dominant husband. Writing that last sentence caused me to google the term "manosphere."
So I was stunned to find the word "manosphere" in the second sentence of the 2018 article at the next link — Mona Charen's "Can Feminists Cure What Ails Men?" (RCP)." Charen is reacting to a NYT op-ed by Jessica Valenti that worries about "a generation of mostly white men are being radicalized into believing that their problems stem from women's progress."
Valenti cites the "manosphere," the network of websites that peddle misogyny, and she's right that it is disturbing. But Valenti undermines her case by citing the popularity of Jordan Peterson as more evidence of woman hatred. On the contrary, Valenti and other feminists would do well to remove their women-centric blinders and examine the situation of young men more sympathetically.
Valenti imagines that girls are doing great because when the mainstream culture gets them down, they can always repair to "feminist blogs and magazines" while "female college students who have critical questions about how gender shapes their lives can take women's studies courses." Actually, it's very much an open question as to whether feminist interpretations of life make women happier....
It's interesting to read this 5-year-old article. Valenti took the position that feminism, rather than "manosphere" material, could help men, and Charen used the occasion to opine that feminism wasn't even helping women. But Charen was also talking about men. That cartoon by Aubrey Hirsh said men got the advantage of sexual freedom, but Charen points out something that got pointed out a lot 5 years ago, only some men — a "small percentage of 'players'” — got that advantage....
... but many men are not so suave and find that forming relationships is out of reach. A fringe few describe themselves as "incels" (involuntarily celibate) and fulminate against women. As for the average guy, well, they are more likely to be out of the workforce, unmarried, and alienated from their children than any previous generation in American history.
This returns us to Kotkin's point. In the old-fashioned arrangement, those un-suave men got marriages and families and decent jobs and docile women.
Valenti imagines that feminist ideas can help men through "the rejection of expectations that men be strong and stoic or ending the silence around male victims of sexual violence."...
Obviously, it's hard to see how that helps the un-suave incels reconnect. Charen has an idea (and it's Jordan Peterson's idea):
Could it be, perhaps, that men actually don't want to be freed from the expectation of being strong? That perhaps they are attracted to Jordan Peterson because he is a refreshing voice of masculinity as traditionally understood?....
Boys will always seek to be manly. It's in their natures....
Their natures. You know where this attitude has led, 5 years later: If you don't "seek to be manly," you must not be a boy. Get treatment. Change your body so it fits your mind. I liked it better when feminism was about being exactly whoever your really are and valuing that, not bullying yourself into fitting "nature" (or "the norms").
Finally, there's "The Female Happiness Paradox." This is a working paper by David G. Blanchflower and Alex Bryson:Using data across countries and over time we show that women are unhappier than men in unhappiness and negative affect equations, irrespective of the measure used – anxiety, depression, fearfulness, sadness, loneliness, anger – and they have more days with bad mental health and more restless sleep. Women are also less satisfied with many aspects of their lives....
I took a break to listen to this song (which I've had in mind for half a century)(original version here):
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173 comments:
“Poor women. They always suffer the most don’t they? If they’re single, that’s bad. If they get married that’s bad. If they get divorced, that’s bad. If their husbands are away – that’s bad. But if he’s hanging around the house too much, that’s bad too. If they work, they’re stressed out. If they stay at home, they’re bored. Its tragic. The life of the American woman. At least the ones that read the NYT.”
- rcocean
That quote was so good I saved it in my 'quotables' file. That comment was so cash.
Back when I was in high school practically every boy could have a girlfriend and many got married right after graduation.
That all took careful selection and cultivation by the girl, usually.
He'd would go to work at the phone company or the mill and she'd have babies. Then maybe go to work herself.
What a different world that was.
Feminism is a class-disordered ideology of diversity, which represents feminists, not women, not girls.
The State has compelling cause to keep women affordable, available, and taxable, and the "burden" of evidence, the carbon pollutants, sequestered in darkness.
That said, women and men are equal in rights and complementary in Nature. Marry or don't. Conceive or don't. Do reconcile.
Regarding the feminine 'happiness paradox', in the "The Privileged Sex", Martin Van Creveld doesn't explicitly come out and say that women are biologically very difficult to make happy, but he all but implies it.
The root of feminine unhappiness is that women are humanity's biological sorting mechanism for 'fitness'. At a fundamental level, women are mankind's quality control, constantly on a never-ending hunt for the best genes possible and the best situation to make sure those genes survived to get passed on too. Think of what men do with TV channel surfing and then imagine women doing it to people in the real world and you won't be far off.
It is this very concept that created the 'husband store' of joke fame. Yes. You're not delusional. It is very very hard to make women happy. Nature made them very very picky and they all picked up Eve's RBF at a genetic level, especially the white ones.
There's nothing fundamentally wrong with this...in 'Dunbar-limited' hunter-gathering society. In modern society this is causing all kinds of neuroses beyond your wildest dreams, and it's just getting started.
Phyllis Schlafly could not be reached for comment.
If I was a woman, I'm pretty sure my goal would be to be the best woman I could instead of trying to be a better man than men.
Instead, largely due to activist women, we live in a world in which the "best" women are now men.
Feminists are so unhappy, they are letting men take over women's sports. So much for womanhood. The left aren't biologists, so they don't know there is a difference.
Clearly, the professor bristles at the responsibility laid at feminism's door by these people. Women express less happiness in surveys than in those benighted days of the past. As do men. But no small number of women (and men!) are navigating their lives well, they are getting married, having children, or are content with choosing some of that and rejecting some of that, and navigating their lives well with those choices. The situation is not quite so dire as these critics of feminism suggest!
But the reality is still that there is less expressed happiness by women with their lot. This was not predicted as being an outcome. The professor also clearly feels uncomfortable with that. So, what are some solutions, rather than the wish for confrontation and defeat of the enemy that is expressed, by very strong implication if not explicit statement (and usually it is the latter), by both sides quoted here?
Women can currently choose:
1. Full professional career (once referred to as "career girl"). Doctor, lawyer, engineer, teacher, entrepreneur, firefighter, soldier, really any type of employee status.
2. Full time Stay at Home Mom, if she can find an agreeable partner.
3. Some combination of the above, with appropriate pie chart to make the Power Point show.
We would do well to reflect that the freedom to choose between 1, 2, or the intermediatary status is a luxury good, one that has been made possible by the incredible productivity of the modern world. The life of a typical man or woman was a constant struggle for survival for the 1st 200,000 years of human existence. We got wealthy enough to stop struggling and explore more interesting ways to exist only over the past century or so. It took a few decades to get going to the point where there are more women than men in medical school and law school. Not engineering, not yet. Ever? It was almost entirely (male) engineers that made the progress widespread.
When things get tough (and they will), we will no longer have the luxury of such choices. Men will have to devote full time to hunting and gathering, and women to child rearing, for the species to survive. For now, we can still afford to devote massive social resources to sending women to medical school, then seeing them be 40% less productive over their careers (there is some sotto voce discussion about that in medical fora here and there).
We can either wait until we are forced by circumstances to correct the course, or make the correcction deliberately and with minimal disruption.
It's our call.
I can't help thinking this is very similar to, "We wanted a country where no one goes hungry, and now everyone is fat."
women are the worst.
I say let men dress up as women and allow the men to compete against them. bitches.
Did you ask ChatBot why women are unhappy?
Just tell them to calm down.
I would say in general, whenever we hear "what X group wants", it is not indicative of what members of that so-called group want, but instead indicative of what some vocal portion of the so-called group want.
The politicians and media who write about them have categorized Americans, and then seek to speak for those groups. And then we start doing it do ourselves. I'm a knitter, and for some reason people who knit and consume social media have now decided there is a "knitting community". And that "knitting community" has certain values. No! You are just a subgroup of people who knit!
You see it all across society. As for women, I am one. I know a lot of women. A lot of us want very different things. But my friends don't want an idiot husband like the ones we see in commercials, we don't think our husbands are idiots and our sons are about to rape someone. We don't all need to always be told we are right, or to see NFL players wearing pink shoes for breast cancer. We know plenty of women we wouldn't believe if they told us something.
In the war without end that is between men and women, we will find more heat than light when we move away from our inner nature. That said, please let your freak flag fly if you must, as that IS your inner nature if you MUST.
It's all semantics. Without heat or light, there would be no life.
Is there meaning in "happiness"? Is there happiness in "meaning"?
Is suffering fatal to men? Are we men to believe that it is fatal to women?
Or is it all a matter of degree? Seeking nuance in the ultimate binary is suddenly a more significant force that I can ever recall. How fungible is that binary? Is this our Brave New World?
Most women are happier married with children and a part time job. Many surveys have confirmed that. But our society, instead of pushing SAHM from the 1950's has instead pushed girl bossery. Most people don't find great gratification from their jobs so working full time leads to less happiness for everyone, unless there's something to work for. The myth of the 1950's June Cleaver was always a myth, just like the powerful girlboss who has it all is a myth today.
I just finished a Jordan Peterson podcast with Riley Gaines. From that, I’d say whatever feminism was meant to accomplish is now lost. Most interesting was when Gaines was told by an NCAA official how they violated the woman’s locker room to allow Lea Thomas to undress in it; “we got around it by labeling all locker rooms unisex”. So the NCAA, champions of Title IX, made it possible for any male to walk into a woman’s, err unisex, locker room and undress in front of them. That was a good day compared to Gaines trying to give a speech at a California university.
Responding to Ride Space Mountain: I had not heard the concept of women acting as "humanity's sorting mechanism." It seems accurate.
What is "Eve's RBF?"
"In modern society this is causing all kinds of neuroses beyond your wildest dreams, and it's just getting started."
More on this:
The neuroses are just getting started because women don’t face the same Darwinian pressure from social sources that men do. There isn't 'quality control' for women in the same way women QC men. This is where drama comes in, aka female-induced chaos.
Women want to be with winners. It's a genetic craving. But how do women know who the winners and who the winning societies are? In the old world this was easy - the winners are the guys who can maintain their standard of life and who're powerful enough to keep other guys away from them. Modern societies are lacking in hard, preciously fundamental indicators of fitness at the societal level, and this is driving women crazy.
In the old world, if there was war and you lost, the tribe's women got to have sex with your enemies and thus their genetic line didn't die. Consequently the world's women have never needed to evolve a need to care about the conditions that lead to war or social upheaval because mathematically women are benefitting regardless of the outcome of chaos and upheaval (eggs are always valuable). In yet darker ways, women benefit from creating conditions that lead to chaos since this filters out ‘unfit’ men and unfit societies.
This is why in the absence of conflict and chaos women start getting uncomfortable, and why they will create so much drama and chaos out of nothing. If you're a man and you've been around women for any reasonable amount of time, you know what I'm talking...especially you Jada Pinkett Smith. Drama is just a shit test, and our societies drama is just a bigger shit test on a massive scale. Petty drama, chaos, neuroses, all of it is a reflection of the feminine sexual impulse – create conflict to separate winners from losers. That impulse is beginning to drive modern society in an information age where everything is recorded crazy. It is driving women crazy. Men are being driven crazy too, when they're not picking up their jaw from the floor and scratching their heads in disbelief.
"In the old-fashioned arrangement, those un-suave men got marriages and families and decent jobs and docile women."
Nonsense. None of my mother, mother-in-law, grandmothers or grandmothers-in-law could possibly be described as "docile".
Oh, for god sake. Quit whining and fix it yourself.
Maybe this is some sort of dating strategy? There are a lot of dudes out there who prefer women with mental health issues like anxiety and depression. These women are "hot" (i.e., sexually available and neurotic). These men can play the role of the white knight who rescues their crazy girlfriends from themselves. The men feel special and have a purpose in life. This is sort of like women who try to fix their violent, degenerate boyfriends.
those un-suave men got marriages and families and decent jobs and docile women.
The hell?
The un-suave men didn't "get" "docile" women. They "got" harridans, whom they worked for, had children with, and complained to their buddies about throughout the rest of their lives. Or they "got" boring, willfully unattractive, "frigid," and/or lazy women who knew that their husbands didn't have the juice to complain about their bad housekeeping or poor company, because they had no other options. They "got" the women whom the suave men wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole (or "somebody else's dick" if you will).
We all still know who these women are; they may now have careers, even lucrative and successful ones, which may mean they have more access to the suave men now (or it may simply mean that they don't understand why the suave men still don't go for them), but they retain the ability to make men miserable.
The suave men "got" the docile women if they wanted them. The suave men, then as now, "get" the women they want, in brief.
Geez. I sound like an incel myself. I can't seem to help it - I absolutely hate the tendency of some women to see men as their vehicles for - name it - happiness, fulfillment, prosperity, with no obligations on them. My husband has been making me happy, supporting my efforts at fulfillment (and giving me our children, the most fulfillment I've ever been granted), and making us prosperous for thirty years, and the contract we both entered into includes obligations on me to try to make him happy and support his efforts at fulfillment (in our situation, I am not responsible for creating our priority, but I do have significant responsibility for trying to maintain it).
Asking people if they're "happy" doesn't really get at who's happiest. You've got a lot of liars and delusional people in there, and nearly everyone believes what they want to believe. I think people with settled lives and commitments are more likely to say they are happy, because admitting to any unhappiness will make the whole thing worse. Of *course* you love your children. Of *course* the mate you depend on is the love of your life. People with more flexibility who are looking for even more good things in their life will find it easier to say they're not satisfied.
I refer often to the first season episode of Twilight Zone called "A Nice Place to Visit" whose moral is: getting everything you want is Hell. Literally.
Rabbi Joseph Telushkin's mother: "The only happy people I know are people I don't know well."
"Nonsense. None of my mother, mother-in-law, grandmothers or grandmothers-in-law could possibly be described as "docile"."
So your father, your father-in-law, your grandfathers, and your grandfathers-in-law were all un-suave men of the sort who in today's world would be incels? Yikes!
But you accuse *me* of nonsense? Is that your inherited un-suaveness showing?
Just tell them to calm down.
Ok, that made me laugh out loud.
"What is "Eve's RBF?"
Eve's Resting Bitch Face. Eve was the OG when it comes to shit-testing. She ate of the fruit of the forbidden tree to see who was more 'fit', Adam or God.
Turns out God was actually in charge. God was the winner. But Eve couldn't get with the universe's BMOC so she had to settle with Adam, the ultimate Beta. But Eve never forgave God for making her an alpha-widow, and humanity has been this way ever since.
Thanks Eve.
Glenn is adding "Pyrrhic victory." Women's climb out of subordination is presented as a war
Glenn is hardly introducing the idea. "The battle of the sexes" has been the common way of referring to it for generations. Sometimes spawning pretty good jokes, such as "there will never be a winner in the battle of the sexes because there is too much fraternizing with the enemy."
Anyway...it's such a common way of describing the relations between the sexes that it's not reasonable to take it in any literal sense. Glenn is (happily?) married to a professional woman, as are most of his readers.
Despite occasional platitudes that what is good for women is good for men, the general way of portraying the feminist effort is and has always been, men must surrender their status so we can bath in their tears.
But still, from the woman's point of view, things are bad, not so much because women can't find men worth marrying, but because women entangle themselves with men who don't do an equal share of household work. There's also still inequality in the workplace.
Nonsense. Nonsense on stilts. Ever look at online dating sites? Every women wants a man out of her league--tall, dark, handsome and rich no matter the package she provides. Meanwhile, there has been no valid housework study--one that looks at ALL work done around the house, rather than just the work traditionally done by women while ignoring the work traditionally done by men. The office is fully feminized; the almost uniformly female HR department has seen to that, while men still do the dirty, dangerous jobs women don't want to do.
Men WON the 'war of the sexes', when they were able to fool women into thinking that:
They should be Wildly Promiscuous
They should be on birth control
They should abort any babies that made it past the birth control
They should go to work and make their own money
Men were able to win.. Because women are gullible idiots.. Want Proof? Read this girl's post
Just bought him food, slept with him; and sent him home in an Uber.
Let's see how MEN like it!
Men like it Just fine, you stupid ho
I think people with settled lives and commitments are more likely to say they are happy, because admitting to any unhappiness will make the whole thing worse. [...] People with more flexibility who are looking for even more good things in their life will find it easier to say they're not satisfied.
Or, people with settled lives and commitments actually are happy and people without those things are less so.
Naturally we all want to gravitate to the explanation that makes us feel like the winners. I believe quite sincerely in my own happiness, with my settled life and commitments, and I chalk up my happiness to those things. Perhaps a person without those things, like our dear friend who, in her 20s, wanted only to get married and have four kids but for whom those things never happened, sincerely believes that the reason she's not as happy as I seem to be is because she's spoiled for choice and didn't just settle, the way I did (as she may see it).
I'm perfectly willing to express unhappiness when I feel it - my husband will attest. But the overall tenor of my life is - happy, not the "desperately dancing till I drop" fake-happiness the quoted passage implies.
That's a pretty weak argument for disregarding what people say and substituting your own opinions because you know better. And because your own opinions support what you already believed better than what people said.
The surveys exist. Gonna have to do a better job discrediting them than that.
I think people with settled lives and commitments are more likely to say they are happy, because admitting to any unhappiness will make the whole thing worse. Of *course* you love your children. Of *course* the mate you depend on is the love of your life.
I think some people are happier people.
But this is an interesting statement you've made.
How do you fit In with this statement? Do you actually love your children? Is your mate the love of your life? Or would you just say yes to those things to not make things worse?
Ann Althouse said...So your father, your father-in-law, your grandfathers, and your grandfathers-in-law were all un-suave men of the sort who in today's world would be incels? Yikes!
There's no need to read it that way--incels were described as an extreme subset of the merely un-suave. The reality is, most men are not suave. But if they are decent and kind and hardworking, they can still have happy marriages. Even today.
'But how do women know who the winners and who the winning societies are?'
Money.
I may have told this before: I was in a fancy part of Manhattan once and a 50-something very average looking guy with a dad-bod was walking hand-in-hand with a 30-something woman who looked like she just finished a Victoria Secrets photo shoot...ethereal...absolutely stunning.
I pointed them out to my wife and said, "That guy must be really, really rich." She said, "How do you know?"
: )
Female animals, for billions of years before humans existed, functioned as life-givers and care-givers. This was and is the law of nature and how animal species sustain themselves. Sometimes males play a large role in childrearing (e.g., some fish, some birds) and protection and sometimes they go away to never be seen until the next breeding season (e.g., tigers, orangutans).
What works for a given species is what has worked for a given species over the last 5,000 or 10,000 or 50,000,000 years. Function and sustainability = de facto moral priority.
Female anxiety today likely follows from the strong pop-culture emphasis on careers and ABORTION in an existential conflict with the primal life-giving and care-giving roles of females. Could there be a future ape species where females are careerists and males take care of offspring? Absolutely. But they wouldn't be 'humans' and this recalibration would require thousands of years.
Accept your natural and functional identity and work with reality to make the most of it rather than dwell in denial or fantasy. This is the essence of Jordan Peterson and his 12 rules for life. This was conventional wisdom and proven and non-political prior to the 1960s countercultural movement. Feminism continues to change its focus every few years and struggle per an internal lack of respect for the meat-and-potatoes of a sustainable human future.
"I could have stayed home and baked cookies." -- HRC
Althouse at 9:15 is major cope. Everyone is lying because of expectations!
I can't get no ...
"Glenn is hardly introducing the idea. "The battle of the sexes" has been the common way of referring to it for generations...."
Yeah, thanks. That's something I considered including in the post but I thought it might seem like a gratuitous attack. He's using the old cliché, etc. etc. No need for that. Please don't think I'm not familiar with the "battle of the sexes." I might have commented on how retro it is to use the phrase, which was super-common in the 60s.
"If I was a woman, I'm pretty sure my goal would be to be the best woman I could instead of trying to be a better man than men."
Sorry, Dude, but if you were a woman, you'd be just as crazy as all the rest of them.
Well, not everyone can be Rico Suave. Even Rico Suave.
"The war on..." generally is a figure of speech that is overused and does more work in an argument than it should:
The war on poverty, the war on drugs, the war on women...
"'But still, from the woman's point of view, things are bad, not so much because women can't find men worth marrying, but because women entangle themselves with men who don't do an equal share of household work. There's also still inequality in the workplace." "Nonsense. Nonsense on stilts. Ever look at online dating sites? Every women wants a man out of her league--tall, dark, handsome and rich no matter the package she provides. Meanwhile, there has been no valid housework study--one that looks at ALL work done around the house, rather than just the work traditionally done by women while ignoring the work traditionally done by men. The office is fully feminized; the almost uniformly female HR department has seen to that, while men still do the dirty, dangerous jobs women don't want to do."
Make sure you understand what someone is saying before you attack it as nonsense. You look foolish fighting making what some people have for years called a "straw man."
Please indicate that you get my point. I didn't say women don't have a hard time finding someone good enough. I said something so radical it went right past you.
In the immortal words of Alfred Pennyworth, "Some [women] just want to see the world burn."
Silly women!
Among men, it is often agreed that women don't know what they want, but they know what they don't want. Example:
Man: Where do you want to go to dinner?
Woman: I don't know. You decide.
Man: Let's go to Tong's Tiki Hut for Chinese food.
Woman: No, I don't want Chinese Food.
Man: How about the Blue Sombrero for Mexican food and Margaritas?
Woman: No, I don't want Mexican Food.
Man: Ok. Well how about Mitchell's Fish Market for Seafood?
Woman: No, I don't want seafood.
Man: Pizza?
Woman: No
Man: Sushi?
Woman: No
Man: I'm just going to go get a case of beer and pick up some brats.
Woman: Fine. You're so selfish. It's always about you.
I can tell this is going to be a long thread. It is on the professor's favorite topic and she can not be expected to give an inch (as usual) but will endure repeated and sustained battering.
Or they "got" boring, willfully unattractive, "frigid," and/or lazy women who knew that their husbands didn't have the juice to complain
Yep, that's what we were told - circa 1960. Fat, lazy, petulant, frigid.
Not only that, but the average man could do all of women's housework in under two hours max. So who needs 'em?
Anyway, we're not going back.
Ever heard the men's saying "Happy wife, happy life"?
What's the female equivalent regarding husbands' happiness? Is there one?
Searching for happiness in all the wrong places. Secularists cannot find long-term happiness in things (work, business success, social acclaim) and people (who all move on, die, or disappoint) that are transient. The only source for lasting happiness is through the one constant: God that loves us and wants to support us, and gives us hope beyond mortal death.
"Maybe you're just like my mother, she's never satisfied..."
--- Prince, "When Doves Cry."
Kotkin wrote "The crux of the problem lies in the fact that as women rise, men seem to be falling." Althouse rephrased that as "In the old-fashioned arrangement, those un-suave men got marriages and families and decent jobs and docile women."
Maybe Kotkin believes the women of previous generations were timid or subservient, but he never says that (in this article at least, but I don't remember him saying it in any other article). It's Althouse that uses the word "docile", and it's to that characterization that I object.
We've been watching "Indian Matchmaking" on Netflix. (Great show.) Many of the parents were arranged matches. The "biodata" said they were compatible and they married after mere weeks. Love came later, and they've been together for decades now.
They all look quite happy and fulfilled. The children who are picky and fickle are the least likely to make a match. The young women can't understand why they're still single while all their friends are married. They have great careers, though.
Gahrie said...
If I was a woman, I'm pretty sure my goal would be to be the best woman I could instead of trying to be a better man than men.
Instead, largely due to activist women, we live in a world in which the "best" women are now men.
But think of all the new opportunities you now have. The glass ceiling has been shattered. You can now bring down entire beer companies.
Reasonable expectations and perspective seem to be keys to happiness. And, fulfillment is a different thing.
After reading the post and listening to the song
I took a break to listen to these songs
1) Because I initially thought it was the song Ann had linked to...
I Ain’t Ever Satisfied
Steve Earle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1I0jgtiiyQg
https://genius.com/Steve-earle-i-aint-ever-satisfied-lyrics
2) Then, a song about a strange type of contentment also by Steve Earle
Darling Commit Me
Steve Earle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-C2rH1b5-TA
https://songmeanings.com/songs/view/3530822107859549928/
3) Then, perhaps the most prescriptive, Tradition! Fiddler on the Roof...
"And how do we keep our balance?
That I can tell you in one word... Tradition."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDtabTufxao
https://www.themusicallyrics.com/f/371-fiddler-on-the-roof-the-musical-lyrics/4062-tradition-lyrics-fiddler-on-the-roof.html
Lets just all say we are trans and the problem goes away.
In fact - I am an African American trans. See - no one can touch me now.
Women have won the "war"?
Nah the most aggressive men are disguising themselves as the enemy to sneak behind the lines, where they can use their superior strength and display their uncontrollable lust.
Might makes right eh.
My whole family makes me happy. My grandparents, my parents, my wife, my children and my grandchildren. To me, happiness is much about relationships with other human beings. Could be evolutionary in nature, but without the personal relationships, I doubt that I could be very happy at all.
Being a loyal husband and father and grandfather has given my life a wonderful purpose. Everything else is just fluff to me.
"The battle of the sexes" has been the common way of referring to it for generations...."
Jacob: The war between the sexes is over. We won the second women started doing pole dancing for exercise.
...a NYT op-ed by Jessica Valenti that worries about "a generation of mostly white men are being radicalized into believing that their problems stem from women's progress."
This is common line from the Progressive Movement. 'White men blame women...blame minorities...blame immigrants for all this progressive going on..." Wrong. The target of any ire are the mostly white male leftists enabling it all. Feminists, non-whites, immigrants, BLM, etc. would have almost no influence if they weren't given it by white male progressives, and only because those groups are useful to The Movement.
Question: How many women ID as "feminist"? In 2013, Huffington Post said 23%. In 2020, Pew said "61% of U.S. women say ‘feminist’ describes them well." Something is off, or the Social Justice Movement was more successful than normal people understand.
...a NYT op-ed by Jessica Valenti that worries about "a generation of mostly white men are being radicalized into believing that their problems stem from women's progress."
This is common line from the Progressive Movement. 'White men blame women...blame minorities...blame immigrants for all this progressive going on..." Wrong. The target of any ire are the mostly white male leftists enabling it all. Feminists, non-whites, immigrants, BLM, etc. would have almost no influence if they weren't given it by white male progressives, and only because those groups are useful to The Movement.
Question: How many women ID as "feminist"? In 2013, Huffington Post said 23%. In 2020, Pew said "61% of U.S. women say ‘feminist’ describes them well." Something is off, or the Social Justice Movement was more successful than normal people understand.
In my house, keeping the wife happy is like alcoholism. One day at a time.
"In the old world, if there was war and you lost, the tribe's women got to have sex with your enemies and thus their genetic line didn't die. Consequently the world's women have never needed to evolve a need to care about the conditions that lead to war or social upheaval because mathematically women are benefitting regardless of the outcome of chaos and upheaval (eggs are always valuable)."
Hillary Clinton says women have always been the primary victims of war.
“But still, from the woman's point of view, things are bad, not so much because women can't find men worth marrying, but because women entangle themselves with men who don't do an equal share of household work. There's also still inequality in the workplace. This comic is designed to fire up women to demand true equality. So, yeah, women are "unhappy" about that, but men can read that comic too and feel motivated to live up to a vision of equality.”
I feel motivated to point out that “inequality in the workplace” is simply the fact that not all “work” is equal, and the work men do tends to be valued more highly than the work women do. Men spend more time than women in the workplace and less on housework because that’s the economically rational thing to do. If women spent less time whining about inequality and more time studying to become brain surgeons maybe they’d have less to whine about.
I was quoted as saying: "But still, from the woman's point of view, things are bad, not so much because women can't find men worth marrying, but because women entangle themselves with men who don't do an equal share of household work. There's also still inequality in the workplace."
That was called nonsense by someone who, I said, didn't understand the point. I said "Make sure you understand what someone is saying before you attack it as nonsense. You look foolish fighting... what some people have for years called a "straw man."" (Sorry for the extra word "making" where I put the ellipsis).
I don't know how intentionally deceptive the cutting down of my quote was, but the fuller quote is: "Hirsh is saying that men are not the losers as women have risen. They've gained sexual freedom and escaped from family responsibilities. But still, from the woman's point of view, things are bad, not so much because women can't find men worth marrying, but because women entangle themselves with men who don't do an equal share of household work. There's also still inequality in the workplace. This comic is designed to fire up women to demand true equality. So, yeah, women are "unhappy" about that, but men can read that comic too and feel motivated to live up to a vision of equality. Why wouldn't they? Don't marry a man who wouldn't! And don't have children unless you've got a man you can trust to uphold equality (or you've got a trustworthy man-free arrangement)."
First, I'm describing the comic, but second, I'm not talking about how women want better men than they can realistically hope to find. I didn't even address that. I'm talking about the comic which talks about women who do have men who are not good enough. The person criticizing me seems to think women will have to lower their standards to be able to get a man (and maybe that women who do have men have lowered their standards). I was saying that women are better off without a man who isn't committed to equality. That statement stands whether she can find a good enough man or whether she'll have to do without one. My critic is going on about women having preferences for how the man looks and whether he's rich. I said nothing about that at all and it was not the subject matter of the comic. The cartoonist and I were discussing equality in male/female relationships.
"If I was a woman, I'm pretty sure my goal would be to be the best woman I could instead of trying to be a better man than men. Instead, largely due to activist women, we live in a world in which the "best" women are now men."
Why does "the best woman" have any meaning to you? What is a "good woman" in your view that is something you'd try to be if you have a female body but is something you don't try to do because you have a male body.
I think you're demonstrating a worse problem then the problem you're trying to ascribe to transwomen. What are you talking about? What is "the best woman"? It seems to have a lot in common with the mindset of a transperson. You think there's some mental element that's essentially female? What are the components? Subordination? Submissiveness? Caring for others? What?!
I guess my biggest concern with all this is what is in store for my 23-year-old daughter?
Getting married or being in a committed relationship seems a rarity for young people. Although I am now divorced, my ex and I had it financially easier right after college. We were living together before we got married. Dual income, no kids. We bought our first house within four years of graduation, and didn't have our first child until two years after that. I was 30, she was 28.
And now, there are so many single mothers who get ZERO help from the father. I guess the feminist point of view is "you should have had and abortion".
It's a shame what liberals, feminists, and the education establishment have done to Generation Z. Now they are doing worse to Generation Alpha (born between 2010 and 2023).
"Geez. I sound like an incel myself. I can't seem to help it - I absolutely hate...."
You sound like a misogynist. What do you think you should do about that?
What percentage of women in America take daily psychiatric medication, today? The best number I can find is around 26%, but that's pre-pandemic and several articles discuss an increase in prescriptions of 10-15% in most states.
What's the percentage in young women, say under 25? Looks like it's somewhere between a third and half.
If more than one in three young women today require psychiatric medication and other regular mental health interventions doesn't that suggest that something's not really working for women, as a group?
Must be those darn men!
From what I’ve witnessed, women when they turn 40 or so completely lose it. They were told they could have it all, but you have children, lost any sex drive, get more hormonal you find out that life is different. Spouses resent you, kids are rebellious and even if career wise you make it there are golden handcuffs. I don’t like the term Karen, but women 35-55, especially white affluent women are the most over privileged and awful people in the world
If Althouse's opinions on husbands are formed from lived experience then her first one must have been a real dipshit. Or not. Who knows.
When Meade gets through vacuuming maybe he'll chime in.
As a thought experiment: how would we think about our situation if we had no framework from the social sciences and no recent surveys? No "Darwinian" sorting, no hunter-gatherer theory, no General Field Theory of Misogyny, no pop-up social groups based on internet chat boards. We would, I think, see a decline in religion over the last three generations, a decline in stable marriages and a decline in births. That is, all of us would see that in our families. And we all have an explanation for what we see in our own families. Is there a way for the children to be happy? or rather- what is the way? This is a flowing current underlying eddies of explanation from the social sciences.
The social sciences, feminism, civil rights, socialism and communism used to have a sort glow about them: "here, then at last is the true way to the happy life." The glow is gone; the assertions seem rather dated. The people who have achieved a measure of justice in their own life due to civil rights or feminism or whatever have no intention of giving it up just because the promise of the Big Rock Candy Mountain of Pure Earthly Happiness hasn't at all been realized.
But people are looking again. Trouble is, for reasons that philosophy can explain, nothing but philosophy can really get down analytically to the question: What is human happiness? Or where is it? Or is it? And if the way out of our mess is for Americans is take philosophy seriously, then there is no way out. Anyhow, the French love philosophy and it hasn't helped them a bit.
Another way exists, maybe, and it is deep in our history. The Puritan response to the emptiness of the confused philosophy and corrupt religion of their times was to by-pass them in an direct appeal to God based on his written Word and to live by that Word, not the corruptions of law and society. That's what they came here to do. We can't go back but we can do more than look behind.
Maybe we can use history. New England is wrecked. It won't carry us forward any more; it's dragging us under. But what has been wrecked? Can we salvage stuff we need, like the Swiss Family Robinson? We can read such documents as Bradford's History of Plymouth Plantation, or the Mayflower Compact, or an early history of the US by John Quincy Adams, say, or a history of a New England regiment in the Civil War, or maybe even the Gospel that inspires them, with an open mind. We have to get beyond the late 19C mild disbelief in everything except a stereotyping of races and classes as US history; and get back to Plymouth rock and Plymouth's Rock. And make up our own minds what it means.
The kids reach some kind of happiness if they try - what?
The issue is framed entirely improperly.
It's not a "win/loss" situation. It's a question of "what works". Period. Happiness ain't in it, at all, ever, in any way.
Does your society successfully propagate itself across time? Does it last?
Yes? You've found a working solution. Yay. You'll survive as a social structure.
No? You've lost. Period. You'll die out within a generation or two.
Ask yourself this: Which answer is being given for our "modern society"?
I'd submit that the tale is told in our fertility rates. You can't get the kids to have babies? You've failed, and all your fine "social theories" are functionally failing the "Does it work?" test of real life.
That's all you need to know. The old, supposedly "patriarchal" societies of the past that gave outward power and control to the males, while the females maintained the secret, background control over who got laid and whose babies lived? Those societies worked, else we wouldn't be here. Fairness and equity didn't matter; they worked.
Can we say the same for today's brilliant reworking of the cultural commons?
Give it another few generations, or so. I think all y'all are in for a bit of a wake-up call, and you're not going to like what morning looks like in the brave, new world your fantastic imaginations have wrought for us all.
Blogger Kate said...
We've been watching "Indian Matchmaking" on Netflix. (Great show.) Many of the parents were arranged matches. The "biodata" said they were compatible and they married after mere weeks. Love came later, and they've been together for decades now.
Probably the most intelligent medical student I've ever had or even met was a beautiful Indian American girl who was in a special program for MD engineers. She told me her parents met on an Indian dating site. Her mother told her that she chose her father because he was the only man who posted a color photo of himself.
Caddishness has been a growth industry for more than a half-century now. People respond to incentives. What are the incentives for men to behave honorably?
These dissatisfied women, why do we care so much about their expressions of frustration and unhappiness?
Why aren't we "laug[hing] in [their] scrunched up crying little face[s]?"
Sure they want to be free, to have options, to have their pick of high-value spouses who'll afford them the lifestyle and opportunities they've been told since childhood that they have a natural right to. Why is it my job, or society's job, to provide that for them? What benefit does their self-fulfillment provide to me, or to society at large, especially when much of their desire is apparently not to have and spend effort raising many children?
Are these women "the backbone of society?" If not why would we, as a society, have any "reason to facilitate their choices?"
"You sound like a misogynist. What do you think you should do about that?"
Given that most of the women I know hate other women with a passion of a thousand suns, I think I'll just follow their lead.
They know best, after all.
Pretty sure that Jamie is of the distaff persuasion, but I could be wrong.
“I was a better man with you, as a woman... than I ever was with a woman, as a man.” - Tootsie
Althouse seems to be communing with herself in this thread. Obviously, the Insty post hit a chord. Kind of matches the trend I've seen here for months.
Althouse asked...What is a "good woman" in your view
To answer that is like punching the tar baby. It's a trap, because any answer can be met with accusations of sexism and misogyny.
What is a "good man" is easy to answer:
A good man pays for a supports any children he sired, married or unmarried.
A good man works and pays bills on time.
A good man supports people he loves, both financially and emotionally.
A good man treats children with kindness.
A good man corrects children when correction is needed.
A good man does not hit women.
A good man does not steal.
A good man does not make sexual advances on young people.
A good man does not go on line and search for kiddy porn.
A good man shows respect towards Mothers, Aunts, Grandparents etc...
A good man is a good Father.
A good man is a good Uncle.
A good man protects his daughter when it is necessary.
...the list can easily go on.
Turn each of those statements around to their antitheses, and ask yourself if that then constitutes a good man. It's not a mystery. Perhaps even feminists would agree.
But today I am learning we cannot define what makes a woman, or a "good woman".
I don’t see why men opting out of relationships is any business of feminism. It’s “deal or no deal,” and lots of young men are saying “no deal.” 🤷♂️
Whatever happened to eudaimonia?
Ann Althouse said...First, I'm describing the comic, but second, I'm not talking about how women want better men than they can realistically hope to find.
What you are really doing is getting carried away with your own defensiveness. So what if you're describing a comic? Wrong is wrong. I don't name you in my criticism. If you saw yourself there, then that's on you. And if you don't want to stand by it, then don't.
My critic is going on about women having preferences for how the man looks and whether he's rich.
Curious definition of "going on." I made a statement. One (accurate) sentence.
You're getting carried away with exasperation at people for disagreeing with you and not stopping to consider when they have a point (even as you criticize us for not understanding you). It's not a good look.
Next up, desegregation a pyrrhic victory, followed by increasing life expectancy a pyrrhic victory.
Our Professor apparently said (i'm losing track of WHAT (or WHO) she is arguing with)..
I was saying that women are better off without a man who isn't committed to equality.
So, just to be clear, our Professor (is apparently) DICTATING..
that women are "better off without a man who isn't committed to equality" than being happy?
I'm not sure that's HER decision to make for them.. I KNOW it's Not mine to make for them.
Women that seem to be following the Professors dictates, seem Sad and Unhappy.
Althouse said...I was saying that women are better off without a man who isn't committed to equality.
My ex-wife stayed home with our two children for fourteen years. I said, if you want to work...work. If you want to stay home with the kids, do that, either way I will make it work. She chose the latter and I delivered on that promise.
But I didn't have that choice. I HAD to work. I wanted to provide. She expected me to provide. Does that make her not committed to equality?
Does that make me not committed to "equality"?? I wasn't trying to create June Cleaver, but a smile when I got home from work would have been nice. Does the want of a comforting smile make me not committed to equality?
It's kind like how Karl from Caddyshack said, "Hey, Lama, how about something for the effort"?
Mason G said...
“Ever heard the men's saying ‘Happy wife, happy life’?
What's the female equivalent regarding husbands' happiness? Is there one?”
The female equivalent is: “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.”
BTW, is “Happy wife, happy life” an admonishment to the man to make sure his wife is happy or is it advice on how to choose a wife? In other words choosing a good natured partner is more important than selecting for other attributes. Because if you marry a woman who by nature is a happy person, you will have a happy life. And if she’s also a good cook, you got it made - according to the traditional point of view.
Gator @ 10:40 -- substitute "man" for "woman" and your post still makes sense. Middle age sucks for us all. Getting past the mid-life crisis is a triumph.
"somebody else's dick"
,
Who, said what?
I'm shocked, shocked I tell you...
Jamie is indeed a woman, a very beautiful, smart and talented one.
Men, women, and "our Posterity" are from Earth. Feminists are from Venus. Masculinists are from Mars. Social progressives are from Uranus. #WarOfTheWorlds
tim in vermont said:
"I don’t see why men opting out of relationships is any business of feminism. It’s “deal or no deal,” and lots of young men are saying “no deal.” "
Yeah... See, here's the deal: Observationally? Women want to control men. Period. In traditional societies, they do so through access to sex and children. In modern societies, following the latest trends, women are finding that control absent actually rewarding men with the things that they can provide doesn't work.
Here's a way to think about it: Traditional society required the domestication and putting to the yoke of young males, such that instead of going out and having their jollies doing fun stuff, they went to work in socially productive ways.
Doing the domestication was the job of young women. That was their purpose, their role. They provided the incentive for the young male tear-offs to put their noses to the grindstone of life, and do socially productive things. This was the female purpose.
There are some spin-offs with this: Older women had the job of yoking younger women to this job, which was why all the old biddies were so nose-in-the-air about the younger women being profligate with their charms. The old biddies damn well knew that those charms were a wasting asset, and if they weren't put to good purpose, then a there were going to be males out there with no female supervision/domestication, which would overall be deleterious to society as a whole. Which was why prostitution and easy access to that which lies between a young lady's thighs were frowned upon; it was all about market share, so to speak.
Somewhere along the line, a bunch of idiot creatures that didn't understand how all this worked, and who happened to be female, got together and decided that they didn't want that job, so they started agitating for "change". Now that their descendants have that "change", they mostly don't like it, although they truly don't understand what happened.
This is all a near-perfect illustration of the principles laid out in Chesterton's essays about his Fence.
It ain't about justice. It ain't about fairness. It ain't about "self-actualization". It ain't about what we want. It's about what works for a society, over the long haul measured in centuries and millennia.
Our social situation ain't likely to last past about 2075 before the whole thing blows up. It's already blown up across a lot of the world, looking at the fertility rates. The lag time for the implications of those far-below-replacement rates is measured in decades; the crash and burn of the whole thing ain't far off, in purely historical terms. Certainly, the population implosion will be visible before the next turn of the century. How many of you will have descendent children to see those days, I have to wonder? What are they going to think about all the brilliant changes you wrought upon the cultural commons? What are they going to revert to, do you suppose? And, what lessons will they take into the future?
'If I was a woman, I'm pretty sure my goal would be to be the best woman I could instead of trying to be a better man than men.'
Some (male) comedian once said something like, "If I was a woman, I'd just stay home and play with my tits all day."
Food for thought...
All of this angst, for what? Simply put, women are not trying to replace men (that Great Replacement theory again. As women become more equal in worth in society in general, men don’t fall in worth, it’s possible to maintain a balance. You know who causes unhappiness? People who don’t want to work at equality.
The focus on feminism as some malign force that wants to destroy society is indicative of weak, paranoid, insecure, selfish thinking. If people, men or women seek love, happiness and fulfillment, they need to put down the sword and be willing to recognize when their partner needs help, encouragement, moral support. If the work load inside or outside the house is unequal chances are one of the partners in the union will become resentful. If the partners are willing to work out any issue that presents itself, then the happiness quotient will probably be maintained. Sacrifice by either partner will be required at different times in life. If the partners are sensitive to each others emotions and care enough about each other, the sacrifices in the relationship/marriage will naturally be equal.
Being good decent human beings takes some intention for most people, for some it comes naturally it almost seems. And no one is perfect. Again, IMO men would be happier if they stopped worrying that they are becoming subordinate if women elevate themselves to equal status. Stop being paranoid and insecure. Women would be happier if they picked men that displayed qualities that they could be lived with down the road. Same goes for men. Life lived with intention and purpose seems to bring stability and happiness, it’s not easy, but it’s possible. Women and men need to try harder.
Why does "the best woman" have any meaning to you?
Because they keep awarding "woman of the year" and "best female X" awards to people all of the time, and it attracts my attention.
What is a "good woman" in your view that is something you'd try to be if you have a female body but is something you don't try to do because you have a male body.
Give birth, feed, and raise my children.
I think you're demonstrating a worse problem then the problem you're trying to ascribe to transwomen. What are you talking about? What is "the best woman"? It seems to have a lot in common with the mindset of a transperson. You think there's some mental element that's essentially female?
I believe there are fundamental physical, mental and emotional differences between men and women.
What are the components? Subordination? Submissiveness? Caring for others? What?!
Well I do think that in general people should subordinate their desires to the interests of their children, family and community in that order. But that applies to men and women. I reject submissiveness, and personally find it unattractive in men and women. I do think women are more emphatic and compassionate than men, which is both good and bad in today's society.
“Given that most of the women I know hate other women with a passion of a thousand suns, I think I'll just follow their lead.”
This is untrue, or maybe you know women who are pandering to you because they recognize the misogyny in you. Most of the women I know want to help each other and don’t hate other women.
There are men I don't like, and there are women I don't like. Rather than disliking all of humanity, I've decided it's just those individual people I don't like.
If you are married, it's best to listen to your spouse no matter how irrational or out of the norm you think they are. You aren't the arbiter of reality or what's normal. You don't live with the norm, you didn't commit to the norm (unless your spouse is named Norman). Obviously, they need to listen to you, too. There are limits to behavior. What matters is what your spouse thinks, period. Make it work, or if you can't it should be because of your own principles, not some idea of norms. No one else has your marriage.
"Hillary Clinton says women have always been the primary victims of war."
Of course the talentless harridan who's greatest claim to fame was marrying her husband would say that.
Of course she would.
“I was saying that women are better off without a man who isn't committed to equality.”
Since over the entirety of human history until the last century there were no men “committed to equality” you’re saying that women would be better off not existing.
Gusty you KNOW the answer: "Your wife was docile" and by implication you oppressed her. I know, it sounds crazy, but that's feminism, demonstrating absurdity by being crazy for over 50 years now! Just show some appreciation, Dude.
My meager contribution to this hit parade of fascinating comments is that it's been my observation that women and men differ a great deal, not just between the sexes, but also within their sexes. Generalizations about this or that half of the human race are likely to be either blandly obvious, or wrong.
"The war on poverty, the war on drugs, the war on women..."
Yeah. As a society we lost all of those.
Mason G said...
“Ever heard the men's saying ‘Happy wife, happy life’?
What's the female equivalent regarding husbands' happiness? Is there one?”
No. You're expected to do your duty without complaining.
You get the lifeboat ready. You don't get in the lifeboat.
You go checkout the noise downstairs. It's why you were woken up.
The snow shovel is for you. The snow blower is for your wife.
In time of war, men first.
Women get the hair in the drain. You get the hair out of the drain.
If it is difficult and dangerous. You do it.
they need to put down the sword and be willing to recognize when their partner needs help
Why the violent eliminationist imagery over a disagreement of opinion? Can't you handle talking it through? Is your sentence an actual cry for help?
"If you are married, it's best to listen to your spouse no matter how irrational or out of the norm you think they are."
Absolutely, positively, categorically, NO. It is precisely that kind of doom-loop thinking which prepares her battlespace for her.
Your woman is not your daughter. She's a big girl and unacceptable behavior is doubly so if it's coming from an adult. Always call her on it. What do you think she does if the roles are reversed? Do you think she thinks it's "best to listen to your spouse no matter how irrational or out of the norm they think you are"?
Where is this mystery woman you speak of, the one who doesn't do that?
"Most of the women I know want to help each other and don’t hate other women."
Another data point...
When this producer launched a women-only TV company she thought she'd kissed goodbye to conflict...
Working in TV is notoriously difficult for women. There is a powerful old boys' network, robust glass ceiling and the majority of bosses are misogynistic males.
Gradually, what had started out as a daydream - wouldn't it be great if there were no men where I worked? - turned into an exciting concept. I decided to create the first all-female production company where smart, intelligent, career-orientated women could work harmoniously, free from the bravado of the opposite sex.
...
And while I stand by my initial reason for excluding male employees - because they have an easy ride in TV - if I were to do it again, I'd definitely employ men. In fact, I'd probably employ only men.
Though I will not absolve myself of all guilt, I believe the business was ruined by the destructive jealousy and in-fighting of an allfemale staff. Their selfishness and insecurities led to my company's demise. When I needed the socalled 'Sisterhood', believe me, it just wasn't there.
"When Meade gets through vacuuming maybe he'll chime in."
Don't bet on it. Meade is no fool.
"Did you ask ChatBot why women are unhappy?"
Comedy gold.
@Inga,
I have to laugh at you, because you've demonstrated enough delusion that I halfway suspect you're probably a man masquerading as a woman on here.
Let's be honest... I have been around enough women who were speaking candidly about other women to have heard exactly what the hell they thought about those other women, and on more than a few occasions, they had no idea that they were speaking loudly enough that I could hear them. Hell, a lot of the time, I couldn't have not heard them. There ain't no "sisterhood", and if there was, it'd spend all of its time talking about how to make girls in the "out-group" miserable...
Women hate other women. Period. That's why they're so catty, so snide, and why the "mean girl" thing strikes so true. They don't have real friends, most of them; it's an ever-changing constellation of competitors and constant social put-downs. Women are the main causes of stress for other women; why do you think so many of them go after the husbands and boyfriends of other women, even when they don't like the men in question?
Women insist that all the things they do for "body image" and "fashion" are for the men in their lives, they have to do it to please them. This, when most of those men don't even notice a new haircut, or a new outfit at all, unless the woman in question browbeats him for not noticing it. All those things aren't "done for men", they are done for other women with who they are competing. The men don't even notice that crap, quite literally.
It ain't all women, just the majority. The female sex is it's own worst enemy, and I say that from a lifetime of observation. I don't hate women; I just don't want anything at all to do with the vast majority of them, who're catty, snide little bitches without a single redeeming feature to compensate for who and what they are. I've watched what you do to each other, and I've never, ever seen men do that to other men, outside the gay community. Most male bullying begins and ends with a fight for physical dominance; once decided, that's it.
Women never stop until their enemy is ruined or has committed suicide.
In my experience and observation? Most of the "feminine mystique" is resident in trying to figure out how and why you haven't all killed each other off, and why so much feminine BS is tolerated generally in society. Men tried doing things on the daily, that women routinely get away with? They'd be getting their asses beaten in by other men. Multiple times a day.
Frankly, if most modern women had to live on a truly egalitarian plane, in a truly just society? Most of them would be locked up as f*cking sociopaths. They only get away with what they get away with because "pussy", and that's a fact. Take that tool away, and most women would be in the same place the average swimmer going up against Liea Thomas is: On the loser's block of life. They're that unpleasant to be around.
Plainly put, the fewer interactions with modern women I have, the happier I am. I've never tolerated the general run of feminine manipulative bullshit, and I won't put up with the constant "urge for control" the majority of today's women demonstrate. There isn't a goddamn thing that some woman doesn't feel like she has a need and a right to tell me to do, even when they themselves can't manage their own lives. So, basically... Good riddance to the lot of them. The fleeting pleasure of sex just isn't worth it, not when it's coupled with the constant whinging, lies, and game-playing.
It ain't no accident that all the women I've met that I feel like I could actually live with are either already in committed relationships or butch lesbians. Sad fact of life, but true nonetheless.
I wonder if the issue is less about feminism and more about the general disconnectedness of modern society. There are probably more women living alone than at any time in history. Even if a woman eschews all male relationships and lives a feminist focused life, not being able to create a community of women around you would leave one lonely. Reddit must host dozens of "How do you make friends in this city?" a day in the various city subreddits.
Plain old, garden variety loneliness.
"I would say in general, whenever we hear "what X group wants", it is not indicative of what members of that so-called group want, but instead indicative of what some vocal portion of the so-called group want."
Exactly. Here in Minneapolis they say we must teach kids about ethnicities in school. For the diversity. Well, Ethiopia has 90 distinct, government recognized ethnic groups. It would take years to teach about them all. And that's just one county. There are over 200 more.
So when they say they have to teach the kids about ethnicities, what they really mean is that they will be kowtowing to the ethnic groups in our city who have the loudest voices. And you can bet that despite having Ethiopians living here, with their 90 ethnicities, not a one of them will be part of the curriculum. But they will be teaching about slavery and the white devil.
“Plainly put, the fewer interactions with modern women I have, the happier I am.”
Spoken like a proud incel.
"Women never stop until their enemy is ruined or has committed suicide."
Elaine: (on boys giving wedgies, etc.) Boys are sick.
Jerry: What do girls do?
Elaine: We just tease someone 'til they develop an eating disorder.
I enjoy seeing Althouse having fun with the commenters. Better bring your A game if you're going to debate with a seasoned lawyer.
Another thing that could make anyone’s life happier, choose your friends and lovers very carefully. They may end up being your spouse and your co parent. Don’t hook up with negative people, look for positivity.
If people see only negative qualities in large groups of people, maybe they need to try harder to find better people. People who see only hate and division might be seeking it.
@Ann: But still, from the woman's point of view, things are bad, not so much because women can't find men worth marrying, but because women entangle themselves with men who don't do an equal share of household work. There's also still inequality in the workplace. This comic is designed to fire up women to demand true equality.
That word, "equality", is doing a great deal of work here that you aren't acknowledging.
Someone up above noted that every study showing men don't do an equal amount of household work excludes all the time and effort spent doing non-domestic work supporting the household. That work is substantial, often physically difficult, sometimes painful, and frequently requires extensive technical knowledge. It is work that women either cannot, or will not, do.
For those men who do half the household work, plus all the non-domestic work supporting the household, how "equal" is that?
The whole basis is unequal. Save for two things, one of which men have made optional, men can do everything a woman can. There is a nearly endless list of things that women cannot do, which feminism has put on disregard. (Any activists trying to increase female representation among roofers?)
This is where feminism has gone off the rails: it has, at least in its last two iterations, deprecated masculinity. At the same time, men have created technological changes that make what women previously provided to the household easily replaced by machines.
Read Marry Harrington's Feminism Against Progress.
@Inga: The focus on feminism as some malign force that wants to destroy society is indicative of weak, paranoid, insecure, selfish thinking.
No, it is a conclusion based upon feminism predicating its demands upon the assertion that evolution stopped at the neckline. Men and women are not interchangeable human units. We are not blank slates. Try telling that to Jessica Valenti.
Re: the housework issue. Yawn. Eyeroll. Every time I encounter another woman bitching about her male partner not doing 50% of the housework I ask them this: if you want the work to be split 50/50, certainly you are willing to compromise on the standard to which you clean - finding middle ground between your standards and his, right?
Blank stare.
Compromise for thee, but not for me.
Guy De Maupassant, the French writer, once said, "A man needs a woman when he is young as a lover. He needs one in his middle years as a companion. And he needs one when he is old as a nurse."
[Quoted from memory and via a translation anyway. But you get the gist.]
ALP said:
"I wonder if the issue is less about feminism and more about the general disconnectedness of modern society. There are probably more women living alone than at any time in history. Even if a woman eschews all male relationships and lives a feminist focused life, not being able to create a community of women around you would leave one lonely. Reddit must host dozens of "How do you make friends in this city?" a day in the various city subreddits."
Contemplate this: This is the world those women wanted, and the one they've built for themselves.
Maybe they didn't realize what they were doing as they did it, but they did it nonetheless. The reason they're lonely, bitter, and unhappy? Self-inflicted wounds, all of them.
Could say the same for men, but most single men at that point are, more or less, happy in their solitude. It might be that they just don't know any better, without a woman around to tell them how miserable they really are, but all the "old bachelors" I know are far happier than the spinsters, who're mostly bitter and nasty people to be around and interact with.
Someone said that I'm a misogynist. I just think I happen to be telling people the truth, and that's perceived as misogyny, but the fact is, I've met women. They're why I say these things. I think what pisses them off is the mirror being held up, and the ugly features being pointed out to them.
And, it ain't like I'm saying men are any better, any more virtuous. Hell, the majority of us are perfectly happy in admitting we're cads, fools, and bounders. What women really loathe, above all? As a group? Having their virtuousness questioned, or having the natural consequence of their choices and lifestyles pointed out to them. You do that, and you're a monster, beyond redemption.
I started out as your garden-variety dumbass cuck, fully invested in all the "right things to think" of the liberal left. After encountering the contradictions of reality enough times? I'm now what I would have termed then a "racist" and a "misogynist".
Honestly, though? I think the better term would be "pragmatic realist" about people in the world around me, based on their own behavior that they've demonstrated in front of me.
Inga said:
"Spoken like a proud incel."
Ain't nothing involuntary about it. I've met women like you in person; you're the reason I swore off putting up with your bullshit. It's purely voluntary, and it really did wonders for my mental health and peace of mind.
Y'all think you're essential. You're not. What you really are is f*cking intolerable, and a blight on the world. There isn't a thing about you that is worth putting up with the accompanying bullshit, and I frankly wish I'd have realized that in my teens. Would have made the rest of my life a hell of a lot happier.
Feminism is the nagging instinct. It's part of a marriage that turns up as quest-sending.
The part after quest-sending is the woman showing the man that she's satisfied with him. This is regardless of the success of the quest.
With no man in particular in mind, feminism has no way to do that last step and so is stuck on nagging, of men in general.
Unfortunately this is still true:
“A husband is almost always only a substitute for the beloved man, and not this man himself” — Sigmund Freud
In the past, a woman would accept her compromise and set to making her family, but today, that beloved or one like him is seen as still possible, so she just has to cut her anchor free. That possibility will always cause unhappiness as it is discontent.
Men on the other hand, from my teen years in the 1970s, have been freed from the expectation of getting married, or "almighty dollar chasing". Of course, if they get married, all bets are off and it is to the grindstone with his nose. But men need little to live on if they avoid wives and children. The much lamented men 25-54 not in the workforce is causing panic. Denigration as them being layabouts and video gaming all day is manipulation by those realizing they were depending on these men working without complaint to provide the tax base.
Of course, now women still want a man who is more educated and makes more money than them with a socially-acceptable job, i.e., plumbers and electricians need not apply. Granted that last is again more the upper middle class college-credentialed who wouldn't deign to speak to a man with callouses on his hands. But men can do quite well without suffering the abuse of the modern college campus.
Women won the "battle of the sexes" but then discovered they still wanted to marry a winner but now the men realize the only way to win is not to play.
@Inga: The focus on feminism as some malign force that wants to destroy society is indicative of weak, paranoid, insecure, selfish thinking.
I forgot to add this: For decades, feminism has thoroughly rubbished stay at home motherhood, and the women who choose it.
Sounds pretty malignant to me.
“ These dissatisfied women, why do we care so much about their expressions of frustration and unhappiness?”
Because you had a mother
A pertinent piece on the idiocy of some women's expectations.
https://stuartschneiderman.blogspot.com/2023/05/worklife-balance-at-goldman-sachs.html
Mason G said...
Ever heard the men's saying ‘Happy wife, happy life’?
What's the female equivalent regarding husbands' happiness? Is there one?
Of COURSE there is one!
The female equivalent regarding husbands is: ‘Happy wife, happy life’
Men and Women/Husbands and Wives can ALL AGREE: The key to a successful Marriage is the Wife's Happiness
You sound like a misogynist. What do you think you should do about that?
Looks like Ann is trolling her comment section yet again. Place yer bets...!
"Every time I encounter another woman bitching about her male partner not doing 50% of the housework I ask them this: if you want the work to be split 50/50, certainly you are willing to compromise on the standard to which you clean - finding middle ground between your standards and his, right?"
TV newsmagazine show (about 25 years ago), doing a story on how men and women deal with housework. When the women did the work, the response of the men was basically "Cool- I don't have to do it myself" and that was the end of it. When the men did the same work, the women's response was "You didn't do it right, so now I'll have to do it all over again" and that wasn't the end of it- the men got to endure being bitched at for their performance.
Personal observation: I have in the past ignored chores I was supposed to do because it was a certainty I would be criticized for "not doing it right" and I figured if I was going to get blamed for something that was just going to be redone, I might as well not bother doing it in the first place.
Because you had a mother
Still have, thankfully. And a father who wasn't a splooge stooge, too!
But I'll ask again in a more-obvious way: why are we expected to care so very much about these specific people but not care about unhappy/dissatisfied men of the same age? The idea that we should care about men who feel like they've been treated unfairly/gotten a bad deal is mocked and the angrier they get about the unfairness they feel the more you laugh in their faces. With women, though, it's a matter of empathy and care and after all didn't you have a mother!
Just a bit incongruous, Professor, especially when done in the name of equality.
Young men have lower educational attainment, lower rates of continuous employment (especially in white collar positions), higher rates of alcoholism, death by overdose, and on and on--by many objective measures, young men are doing very poorly when compared to young women as a group. In material terms they're worse off, but what we spend a lot of time talking about is how oppressed and downtrodden women feel lately.
I have a father but the concerns of his cohort don't move you; men after all are supposed to suck it up, be a man, stop whining, etc. One gets the impression that feminism in practice may not be all that concerned with equality.
Because you had a mother
...and her wants and desires are far more important than your father's.
“Men and women are not interchangeable human units.”
Who said they were? Equality doesn’t mean making men and women interchangeable, this is simplistic. Equality as worthy human beings is what is precious.
One would think the increasing unhappiness of American women would be an existential crisis among feminists. One would expect a torrent of soul-searching journalism, such as former Cosmo writer, Sue Ellen Browder's mea culpa in 2020, which the corrupt media buried for three years. But soul-searching is the furthest thing from the hive mind. Instead, the news of persistent and growing unhappiness is either denied or ignored entirely.
That's hard to understand unless one first understands feminism was never about women's happiness, except as a tactical objective to be destroyed along the way to the strategic objective, the balkanization of American society. Then it all makes sense.
Because you had a mother
I learned pretty young that things I did (or especially things my wife did) would never make Mom happy.
Do not expect other people to do things that make you happy.
With respect to ALP's comment about standards, interesting point. I find I can usually hold my own on cleaning standards. However, when WE are working on a project that involves building or fixing something, my standards are higher than hers and she often tries to get me to reduce those standards. Here's the thing, I am willing to do the project myself (in fact it is usually my preference). All I want is for it to "count" as part of my contribution to the household. Alas, because I made it take longer than it should have (thanks a lot edited youtube videos!) I'll get nothing and like it. :)
Because you had a mother
Do you think Joseph or Penelope Buttigieg will care about their mother’s expressions of frustration and unhappiness? Does anyone care about the frustration and unhappiness of Navy Joan Roberts mother?
Feminism is misogynistic, a platform for feminist leaders. So is masculinism. And as both men and women are discovering, so is social progress under diversity doctrines (i.e. class-disordered ideologies): racism, sexism, ageism, etc.
Yet another predictable column in which many of Althouse's commenters make reasonable points but they are subsequently attacked by the hostess. It's all part of the great Althousian drama.
Because you had a mother
I have a mother and father, a sister, an aunt... three aunts and two uncles, one has since passed. I had two grandmothers and two grandfathers. Oh, and the cousins. What am I? Who am I?
“Men and women are not interchangeable human units.”
"Who said they were?"
Dylan Mulvaney for one, along with all the supposedly smart university academics who've been shrieking putting on a bra makes you a woman for the last 10 years. But you being you Inga, I can understand why you just sorta tune that noise out.
@Inga: “ Who said [men and women are interchangeable human units]? Equality doesn’t mean making men and women interchangeable, this is simplistic. Equality as worthy human beings is what is precious.”
All post-second wave feminists, that’s who. To them, because gender is a social construct, all disparate outcomes are down to male patriarchy and misogyny. They aren’t demanding equality, but rather equity. Two entirely different things.
Equity demands, by definition, require that men and women be interchangeable. This is why I said Ann was placing more weight on “equality” than it could bear. Even the simple example of domestic distribution of labor shows equity is impossible, and the equality she expects anything but.
And now the claim that gender is merely a social construct — Creationism on stilts — is turning around and attacking women themselves.
Seriously, read Harrington’s book.
Matthew 7:16; "by their actions ye shall know them." This verse warns against false prophets who come in sheep's clothing but have their own selfish motives to fulfill. Chrysostom suggests that the verse may have aimed at those who, while their life is corrupt, yet wear an outward face of virtuousness.
https://nypost.com/2023/05/23/nyc-college-professor-shellyne-rodriguez-who-threatened-post-reporter-with-machete-is-fired/
This is the face I have become accustomed to seeing, whenever encountering either doctrinaire "feminism" or most of the women working in academia above primary grades.
Any wonder why they're mostly miserable and alone, late in life, and that nearly all of the men who know them shudder delicately and talk about the bullet they dodged when they got her out of their lives?
This, my friends, is the realized future of all that theory and practice from suffragism on. Women wanted the fruits they saw growing over on the male side of the social fence, but did not notice all of the thorns and prickles of duty and obligation that went with them. What we have today is the result of untrammeled, unrestrained license in search of unearned and entirely undeserved privilege.
We still don't have women registering for the draft. Sort of a telling point, that. Personally, I think the entire proposition comes into focus, when you consider the implications of that going forward. You have never, ever seen women "fighting for the right to be drafted", and you never, ever will.
Not until the majority of them actually grow the f*ck up and grasp that with privilege, comes obligation and duty.
Just to pile on the Shellyne Rodriguez thing...
Note the clear female privilege at play here. A black male doing that? Dead, after the cops got called. Hell, imagine me trying that crap here in rural western America; the Sheriff's department would be beating my door down and taking me away, and if I were to resist them? I'd be dead in very short order.
Only women in our society get to act out like this, and get away with it. All while whinging about how "oppressed" they are, and how some man is at fault, "making her do it".
Lovely world you've built for us, ladies. What's your next trick?
Frankly, I'd love to be able to take a bunch of the old-school suffragettes forward in time to see what y'all have done with the place. If I were able to return them to their old lives, having seen "today", and then let them make some changes? I wonder what they'd do.
Kinda doubt things would turn out entirely the same. I can about guarantee you that if I were to run the same experiment with the old-timey bigoted patriarchists, all y'all would likely be barefoot, pregnant, and living in permanent purdah.
It's darkly ironic to go back and read all the things those men said about women and the right to vote, look at their bleakest projections... And, realize that all y'all have far surpassed the worst of them.
Overall? Good job, on you; the wreckage of the civilization we inherited lays all around us. Aren't you proud?
Have to say, this post/comments is impossible to follow and is basically ridiculous.
This whole thread of comments needs a tag: Misogyny 101. I say this as the son of a white, college educated mother, and the husband of a white, college educated wife who has earned 3 college degrees, who is fluent in 6 languages, and who lived underground in a bomb shelter for 6 months during her country's civil war just to be able to get to America and live freely. You guys need to fucking grow up.
"Have to say, this post/comments is impossible to follow and is basically ridiculous."
How would you know that it's ridiculous if you can't follow it?
“Men and women are not interchangeable human units.”
Diversity: racism (e.g. "people of color"), sexism (e.g. feminists vs women), ageism (e.g. abortion/human rites), trans/genderism (e.g. homosexuals vs others in the spectrum), socially distanced under the nominally "secular" Pro-Choice ("ethical") religion.
Have to say, this post/comments is impossible to follow and is basically ridiculous.
Once you assume diversity to socialize human rites, clinical cannibalism, grooming, mutilation, etc., it's a progressive path and grade.
"Have to say, this post/comments is impossible to follow and is basically ridiculous."
Aren't they all. You should've seen this place before active content moderation, what a zoo.
My father who was a mental health professional told me that most of the unhappiness he dealt with (excluding severe mental illness and drug/alcohol abuse) was due to the difference between what people expected would make them happy and what would actually make them happy. I think a lot of middle class women find themselves on a conveyor belt to college and post college careers.
Because you had a mother
Not me...I have a birthing person.
You know where I've seen true equality between hub and and wife? Homesteading. Maybe farming.
You want to be happy? Have children.
Blogger chickelit said...
Yet another predictable column in which many of Althouse's commenters make reasonable points but they are subsequently attacked by the hostess. It's all part of the great Althousian drama.
Bingo !
Althouse: "Because you had a mother."
My mother was born in 1898 and died in 2001. She had a great life in the 1920s. She spent 3 years in California and loved it. She danced with Victor Mclaglen and had a wonderful time. She returned to Chicago and married my father when she was 39 and had me at age 40. She was 3 years older than he was and he never learned that. She would laugh at feminists but, in many ways she was one. She went back to work when I was in 8th grade because she did not want to ask my father for money. In later years, my kids would fly back to Chicago to spend a week with her. She finally gave up her apartment when she was 100.
Oh lonejustice, you're my hero...can I train to become a White Knight just like you?
Blogger lonejustice said...
“This whole thread of comments needs a tag: Misogyny 101. I say this as the son of a white, college educated mother, and the husband of a white, college educated wife who has earned 3 college degrees, who is fluent in 6 languages, and who lived underground in a bomb shelter for 6 months during her country's civil war just to be able to get to America and live freely. You guys need to fucking grow up.”
Sorry, I don’t follow your logic. Are you implying that most women are as saintly as as your wife and mother?
Getting back to the housework gripe, if women are upset because they're doing (in their opinion) too much, there's nothing stopping them from doing less.
Is there?
c"Because you had a mother"
Not me...I have a birthing person.
Socially progressive. Perhaps a modern family: two men and a womb? Take pride and hold a parade to celebrate womb-an's day.
You know where I've seen true equality between hub and and wife? Homesteading.
By necessity, yes. Elsewhere, men and women reconcile as adults do, and even children attempt with an underdeveloped perspective.
I deleted my comments because it's no longer clear that we live in a society where open discussion of ideas is tolerated. Obviously Canada geese only fly north in the summer because they have been culturally conditioned to do so. There is no such thing as instinctive behavior, either that or humans have become entirely divorced from the animal kingdom; apparently one or both of those things is true.
Lizards pop out of their eggs with all the instinctive knowledge needed to survive? No, the mother must teach the embryos somehow while they are still in the eggs. What abut the turtle who lays the eggs on a beach, buries them, and abandons them, and still the baby turtles know what they need to know when then outgrow the eggshell? Shut up, they explained, instinct has no place in human behavior!
@RideSpaceMountain
My ex-wife didn't listen.
My second wife does.
There's your answer. Why'd you assume I was only talking about men?
Because you had a mother
Mine was a bitch who beat me regularly. She had issues and she knew I wouldn’t hit back.
You know, some women bitch just to bitch. Case in point, one of my old friends — sadly passing before his time due to cancer — had gourmet cooking for a hobby. He also has a small consulting firm, and when he’d had a stressful day, which was pretty often, he would insist on preparing a gourmet meal for his family as his way of working off the stress. But he made enough to pay for a housecleaning service to clean their house every other week. She was a stay-at-home wife and her only chores were laundry and loading the dishwasher (yes, he cleaned up after cooking the meals). And still she bitched about the unfairness of her life.
"“Plainly put, the fewer interactions with modern women I have, the happier I am.”
Spoken like a proud incel."
The way I read the comment, the operative word was modern, not women.
"Asking people if they're "happy" doesn't really get at who's happiest. You've got a lot of liars and delusional people in there, and nearly everyone believes what they want to believe. I think people with settled lives and commitments are more likely to say they are happy, because admitting to any unhappiness will make the whole thing worse. Of *course* you love your children. Of *course* the mate you depend on is the love of your life. People with more flexibility who are looking for even more good things in their life will find it easier to say they're not satisfied."
That is just stupid. Happiness is always subjective- there really isn't another way to assess relative happiness between groups of people other than to ask those people if they are happy with their lives and what it is about their lives that makes them happy. To second guess the responses of the self-proclaimed happiest is just fucking silly, and then you proceed to second guess the self-proclaimed unhappiest.
"The key to a successful Marriage is the Wife's Happiness"
Heard a comedian say, "My wife and I have a great marriage. The secret to a great marriage is treating marriage like a democracy. When faced with making important decisions, we each have an equal vote. Of course she has the power of the veto."
In case anybody's still on this thread ...
I do all the housework. And all the cooking. She does her own laundry. I won't even let her touch mine. I don't need all of my clothes with a pinkish hue.
I was raised by a perfectionist, over-bearing mother. Her mother did everything for her.
My wife never learned to do the basics. Learned that early on when we were dating.
If she did the cleaning, cooking, etc? I'd have to redo it.
I also do the manly stuff outdoors, landscaping, house repairs, painting, etc.
And it bothers me not one bit.
She more than brings her talent$ to the table.
It works for the both of us.
We don't spend our time measuring tasks and doing equality checklists.
25 years in September.
This whole thread of comments needs a tag: Misogyny 101. - AltChuck
Your white knight schtick couldn't be more tedious if you tried.
"Mine was a bitch who beat me regularly. She had issues and she knew I wouldn’t hit back."
Yep. Because if I did?
I'm beaten to a pulp by my old man.
Promote women at the expense men. Have you even SEEN a TV commercial lately.
Stupid man.
Awesome woman
It works for the both of us. We don't spend our time measuring tasks and doing equality checklists.
Diversity (individual, not color), Equity, and Inclusion through reconciliation as adults do. Or equal in rights and complementary in Nature.
Some people are sadistic, some are masochistic, some are sadomasochistic. #AnalogHate #LovesAbortion #NoJudgment #NoLabels
I'm beaten to a pulp by my old man.
@Jim at, that too.
Plus she was great at whining and she’d have whined all over town how her son hit her — and it would have been “hit her for no reason at all.”
Women lie reflexively.
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