157 Comments

1. JR Dogman:

You make some valid points, but you act as if there was (or is now) no middle ground to be found between the world of Mad Men and that of Sex in the City. That’s crazy. Many, many older women will tell you if you ask, they wish they’d had the chance to work and experience the rewards of being a doctor or a businessperson or a lawyer — or even working at some less illustrious job.

Most jobs are tedious at times, and many jobs are just flat-out tedious all the time. But to suggest that’s all that working entails is wrong. To work is get things done, to help people, and to experience pride in having done a good job. We all like to think that we’re above what other people think of us, but the feeling of having our good work acknowledged and praised, and, for that matter, rewarded, is quite a good one.

Other developments you address in your article are accurate: we have indeed as a society blurred the line too much between the sexes’ basic natures, and feminism is much to blame for this. But that’s not all the feminism did, and one would hope that we — again as a society — might be able to shift back some from the extreme place where we now find ourselves.

Some would argue such a shift is happening as we speak. If so, having experienced both cultural extremes — both Mad Men and Sex in the City — we should be able to position ourselves better now, to arrive at a more happy medium.

Nov 30, 2009 - 2:37 am 2. Francis W. Porretto:

Brilliantly done. The age of gender combat can easily be seen in this light, even though at several points men did put up some moderate resistance to the changes you describe.

To me, the amazing thing is how supposedly intelligent women can fail to recognize their concession. It’s as if there were some conditioned-in blindness toward this particular default that literally prevents them from realizing what they’ve surrendered.

Expect it to go on in that direction. There are sufficient feminist harridans operating to ensure that men are encouraged to continue their guerrilla war against woman-as-responsibility-and protectee.

Nov 30, 2009 - 2:45 am 3. RightwingHippyChick:

+1

Very true indeed…

Nov 30, 2009 - 2:55 am 4. Emma:

So basically, you feel that women would be a lot better off if we had all decided to stay home, stay pure, and depend on men to provide things like food and shelter.

I’m about ready to give up on this site.

Nov 30, 2009 - 3:01 am 5. Old School:

Well said, Mr Patterson, well said.

Nov 30, 2009 - 3:01 am 6. zeonxavier:

*sigh* From my point of view, women are the root of civilization. Traditionally, our mothers train us until we meet some kind of reasonably cultured standard. Also traditionally, a fathers’ labor and support enables mom to have enough time, energy and resources to accomplish her task. These days, single working mothers really have their work cut out for them. No matter how well they manage, it’s never going to be quite enough.

Look at any historical boomtown, or even a modern Forward Operating Base if you need an example of what life looks like without women. Whatever it is, it is not civilization.

I’m afraid I can’t celebrate your “victory.” I’m a traditionally minded kind of guy, lonely and single. If I can’t find a woman with her head on straight (they’re rare, but out there) I’m better off living a solitary monk-like existence.

Nov 30, 2009 - 3:36 am 7. Mm:

4. Emma:

Nobody said anything of the sort, just that the ‘Feminit’ movement should have tried walking before running.

Nov 30, 2009 - 3:57 am 8. Old School:

4. Emma:

I’m about ready to give up on this site.

Why Emma? Is it because it’s actually making you think?

Nov 30, 2009 - 3:59 am 9. pelaut:

No, Emma, they might be better off under the Taliban.

Nov 30, 2009 - 4:14 am 10. Anonymous:

Re: 4 Emma,

No, it is not Mr Patterson who feels that women are happier at home and pure, it is women who feel that way. As he correctly points out, women are less happy now than before. Other studies show that “pure” christian women have happier intimate lives with their spouses.
Are their exceptions? Sure, and on both sides. However, exceptions are a straw man. The big picture is that woman’s lib is an oversold bill of goods, and society is worse for it.
You express distaste for being dependent on men. Do you feel that dependence on the state is more palatable? Single women are predominately liberal, while married women are usually conservative. One’s husband may not be perfect, but do you really think your friendly neighborhood bureaucrat is better?

Nov 30, 2009 - 4:22 am 11. Robert F:

Re: 4 Emma,

No, it is not Mr Patterson who feels that women are happier at home and pure, it is women who feel that way. As he correctly points out, women are less happy now than before. Other studies show that “pure” christian women have happier intimate lives with their spouses.
Are their exceptions? Sure, and on both sides. However, exceptions are a straw man. The big picture is that woman’s lib is an oversold bill of goods, and society is worse for it.
You express distaste for being dependent on men. Do you feel that dependence on the state is more palatable? Single women are predominately liberal, while married women are usually conservative. One’s husband may not be perfect, but do you really think your friendly neighborhood bureaucrat is better?

Nov 30, 2009 - 4:22 am 12. jeff:

@Emma, I think a lot of this is tongue in cheek-but the author makes a very good point. I have two teen age daughters. Boys do not date anymore. They don’t have to. Girls have become the aggressors. Because all “normal” societal conventions have been thrown out the window, men have thrown out all sense of decorum as well. I have heard stories of men playing cards with a women in the bedroom to see who gets her. Girls asked to kiss each other, being photographed doing it, just to get into a college party. Deviant sex becoming the norm (who hasn’t had anal sex?).

The “street” culture is becoming more mainstream. African-American women have had all kinds of trouble finding a lifelong mate. White women are now having the same problems.

There is a loss of respect. While I would agree that the Victorian era was too prudish, we ought to at least have some sense of decorum. Women have the power to take it back. They ought to. It was much more civilized.

Nov 30, 2009 - 4:23 am 13. Alex Bensky:

Damn, we’ve won the gender wars and here I’ve been desperately trying to surrender to the enemy.

Nov 30, 2009 - 4:35 am 14. Tolbert:

“So basically, you feel that women would be a lot better off if we had all decided to stay home, stay pure, and depend on men to provide things like food and shelter”

The Feminist Movement is a Faustian Bargain, of couse we all know how the play begins…

Enter Mephistopheles

Nov 30, 2009 - 4:38 am 15. new utopian:

Brilliant!

Nov 30, 2009 - 4:44 am 16. new utopian:

Sorry, Emma, you lose both ways.

Nov 30, 2009 - 4:51 am 17. AnalogMan:

#4 Emma, the short answer is yes.

For the definitive answer,I once again highly recommend Sexual Utopia in Power. It’s a longish article, 35 pages, but excellent. Download it. Read it.

Nov 30, 2009 - 4:54 am 18. RKV:

I’d add that women have voted to increase the size of the state, so that they can tax men for food and protection, rather than actually having to engage a human male, show them love and affection, commit to them for a lifetime, and so on. They’re driving men down the road to serfdom, and haven’t figured out they’ll have to come along too. Of course some persons WANT security, not liberty. Like Franklin said, they’ll end up with neither.

Nov 30, 2009 - 5:30 am 19. vic:

I’m on Emma’s side here. Never mind the economical need for most women to work outside the home they must now shoulder the blame for everything wrong in the workforce, in courtship and in not being appreciated in marriage and courtship if they don’t play by “The Rules”. You remember that little gem of a book. How old is this writer anyway? And as portrayed in Mad Men, people have been having affairs in offices forever. It just used to be with subordinates like the secretary, file clerk, or my favorite gal Friday. There’s nothing new here but a neanderthal pining for the good old days.

Nov 30, 2009 - 5:30 am 20. BCT:

Not mentioned specifically is that women are still the primary caregivers of children and elderly parents. So men still just go to work as they always have while women have added work, kept all the traditional caregiving responsibilities and are now doing so increasingly with no mate. Men have been asked to step up to provide more hands on care with children but elderly parents are still cared for almost exclusively by women, sometimes at the same time as they are raising children, with no negative repercussions for men. And with people living longer lives, that is no small task. The feminist movement was about increasing choices and independence for women which really should have been about women having more of their own money but they threw the baby out with the bath water when they shunned the value of men and went all out for a sexual free for all.

Nov 30, 2009 - 5:31 am 21. Kate:

Exactly.

Betty Friedan= Commie.

What women gave up so gladly so weakened the underpinnings of our society that we find ourselves where we are today.

Nov 30, 2009 - 5:53 am 22. Bill:

Maybe we should think about the fact that this so-called victory is actually a lost for both men and women. Yes, surveys are showing that the modern woman is less happy than that of years past. But I wonder if the same survey of men was taken would we see that same decrease in happiness.

To me, “that the accumulated history of our species speaks to the deep and abiding difference between the sexes, a difference which has benefited both sides from time immemorial” is the money quote of this article. Both men and women are doing things that they were never designed to do. Any anything used outside of its design is bound to fail. We are failing.

Nov 30, 2009 - 6:23 am 23. Same old Song:

I’m so tired of these gender pieces. Yes we all know that the work world is tedious. And that for many Men back breaking hard. My hat is off to them truly.
Many of us women were also a part of the workforce before we decided to get married and have children. I myself have worked mny 8 hour mind-numbing days, before I decided to become a stay at home Mom. But let me tell you sir about real tedious work. Hours and hours of house work – cleaning up spills, laundry that must be washed, folded and put away again and again, little noses and arses that must be wiped, meals that must be prepared, constant shuttling children to and fro, tending to fevers and colds, mediating little spats among siblings or a grumpy spouse. Every day over and over again with very little thanks from the little ones or any recognition. There are no coffee breaks, there isn’t a lunch hour. And it’s 24 hours not 8. Who do you think wakes up with little Timmy at 3am when he has a fever?

Do I regret it? No. My children are the joy of my life. This does not mean that I wouldn’t mind having the recognition or rewards that come from working outside the home. And when my children are more independent, then I will be able to work outside the home, where I can finally catch a break.
So in mny ways as a woman, I feel blessed that I can experience both worlds.

This grass is always greener business between the genders is just that. So tiresome really.

Nov 30, 2009 - 6:29 am 24. Thomas_L......:

Emma@4: That’s right! And yes, anyone who struggles with satire might want to think twice before participating.

Nov 30, 2009 - 6:36 am 25. CharlieSays:

A gentle chide for Emma & vic:

Why don’t y’all brush up on your Jonathan Swift & Mark Twain and then come back and reread the article, kay?

Nov 30, 2009 - 6:42 am 26. Fantom:

4. Emma:

Look around in a non-selfish way Emma and consider one thing. Was the world better then or now. Womens lib has come at a terrible cost to families , society and our children.

Just as there is a natural biological order, so too there is a natural societal order. Not to say women have to stay home , barefoot and pregnant…. although,come to think of it, such sure produced a better society than today.

As for mens rights. Looks like we have a way to go. If a woman can choose to murder a baby, a man surly can choose not to pay for one. If a woman can get a man fired for making an unwanted sexual advance, men should be able to get a woman fired for allowing/accepting a wanted sexual advance. Speaking of which.. why is it men whop have to change their behavior at work if it is the women wanting the equal rights? Is that not in itself sexual discrimination?

Nov 30, 2009 - 6:43 am 27. Bilgeman:

Mr. Patterson:
“Is it any wonder that, according to recent research, women these days are “becoming less happy relative to men” across all age, income, and marital levels? No, this shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, although the unhappiness of the modern woman seems to be taking many of them by surprise. After all, don’t they “have it all”?”

Of course they don’t have it all…and the idea that they ever could was the bait that was wrapped around the hook.

Now that the shiny lure has been shown to be naught but a lump of craftily made indigestible metal, many women realize that they were sold a bill of goods.

From what I’ve long observed, Feminism was used to induce women to serve as lower-wage scabs against their husbands, brothers, and sons by one set of parties.
And by another set as a mechanism through which to remove competition for the finite amount of marriageable men.

In many ways, the product of 40 years of Feminist philosophy is the 45 year-old single or divorced college-educated mid-level career woman spending thousands of dollars at a fertility clinic trying to conceive.

It’s not a great secret that all too many of them are wondering, too late, what might have been.
The grass may always be greener, but a woman with nothing to look forward to in her autumn years but the company of her pets and other family-less women just like herself may have real regrets about the path she chose.

They’d be worthy of pity, had they not been so self-righteous and arrogant in their foolish decisions.

Nov 30, 2009 - 6:56 am 28. Fantom:

23. Same old Song:

Here here, well said, well said indeed.

As a independent Dad(divorced), and a Mr Mom(Got custody of my son), who is self employed, I too know just what you are talking about. Coaching my sons ten and under soccer team, scouting(son is an Eagle scout), … it all passes too quickly. Enjoy it while you got it, you will miss it soon enough.

Nov 30, 2009 - 7:06 am 29. Bob Miller:

Regardless of what theory or mock-theory we use to explain why, our society has regressed in the direction of barbarism.

Nov 30, 2009 - 7:54 am 30. Mary Madigan:

Such pyrotechnics are no longer necessary to impress women, which, really, was the only reason we bothered. High culture seems a small price to pay, though, for the loosening of morals and duties which has brought our present Sex and the City-fueled bounty.

I guess the guys who recently shot at the moon and built the Haldron collider didn’t hear the news. Or maybe they just can’t help themselves (I was certainly impressed).

Feminism is basically another attempt to reach the very American goal of equal opportunity for all people. Some gender activists (and political types) use the-personal-is-political arguments for and against feminism, but these irrational arguments don’t change the facts – everyone wants equal opportunity. No rational person wants the state to make laws that give them less opportunity.

If some men think that current laws discriminate against them, don’t complain to women. You’ll just start another one of these never-ending gender arguments. Instead, complain to the legal system.

Nov 30, 2009 - 7:58 am 31. Paul of Alexandria:

Thank you Screwtape!

Nov 30, 2009 - 8:25 am 32. Paul of Alexandria:

4. Emma:

So basically, you feel that women would be a lot better off if we had all decided to stay home, stay pure, and depend on men to provide things like food and shelter.

Once upon a time, society realized that caring for a household is work; valid, hard, essential work. That’s why, traditionally, the wife holds the checkbook, gets equal share in the husband’s salary, is covered by his health insurance, is assumed to be his primary heir, etc, etc. It’s a modern myth that wives don’t get paid or appreciated for what they do.

Of course, since before the Roman Empire women have been working outside of the home; however if you look carefully at the jobs that were traditionally held by women they are jobs that one can relatively easily drop in and out of depending on the demands of the children: nursing, teaching, secretarial work.

Ask yourself this question, Emma: who’s taking care of the kids (or even who’s having them)? How does a mother bond with a child that she sees only a few hours per day? How do you pass on your values and traditions when the nanny probably comes from a totally different culture? Why even have children when your fulfillment comes from your job and friends? It’s no wonder that the population levels in Western civilization are crashing.

Nov 30, 2009 - 8:34 am 33. Paul of Alexandria:

Mary Madigan (30):

…
Feminism is basically another attempt to reach the very American goal of equal opportunity for all people.

No, Feminism is basically another attempt to reach the goal of equal results for all people. Men and women are NOT equal, physically, psychologically, emotionally, or in any other way (except in rights under the law and in salvation before God). Not to say that one or the other is inferior, but they are not the same.

Nov 30, 2009 - 8:37 am 34. bonnie_:

I am a stay-at-home mom and my neighbor is a working mom. She does everything I do, and also provides half the income for the family. She’s exhausted all the time. He comes home and kicks off his shoes and expects a meal. She resents his lack of help. He doesn’t understand why she doesn’t do everything his mom used to do, and then complains if she has to work longer hours to pay the bills.

You’re right, Mr. Patterson. The gender battle has been won in some women’s hearts, but not in mine. Not in my daughter’s. Not in many Christian households. There’s no free milk here….but there’s a brimming over of joy and support and love. Anyone who wants to live like an animal can skulk in the wastelands of America. Anyone who doesn’t, there’s a home and hearth waiting for you.

Nov 30, 2009 - 8:39 am 35. Heather:

This does not mean that I wouldn’t mind having the recognition or rewards that come from working outside the home.

What are you talking about? Since I left high school, I’ve been nothing but belittled and ostracized for “working outside the home” instead of remaining totally dependent on a man or the government for my subsistence. Our culture does not “recognize” or “admire” women who work for income, and listening to women who don’t HAVE to do so whine about some non-existent lack of status is tedious and disgusting.

Nov 30, 2009 - 9:02 am 36. Gina:

Good points from JR Dogman @ #1.

Nov 30, 2009 - 9:11 am 37. Mary Madigan:

Feminism is basically another attempt to reach the goal of equal results for all people

Some feminists play the identity politics game – those are the annoying feminists. They’re not the only feminists out there, they’re just the loudest.

Nov 30, 2009 - 9:22 am 38. greenberry:

Lame article. Really lame.

You think it was better when men lost their kids on a divorce and had to pay a listless, work-averse ex spouse for 25 years? You think so little of your parenting contribution that you are ready to go back to that? Not me.

You really prefer women with no ambition? A workplace with fewer women than now? Do you have daughters or do you just wish for them some padded oblivion once they leave high school with a Home Ec concentration? I don’t want that for my daughters.

You really think its unfair to expect women to pull their weight in a marriage beyond light cooking and bossing a maid?

Bonnie at 34: for every woman pulling equal money, there are 10 wives at home demanding that their working husband help with hosuework when he gets home (needless to say they don’t do any part of his job).

News flash for you: women aren’t just unhappy now. They were unhappy in the 60’s (“mother’s little helper”) and in the 50’s (have a peek at the first feminist screed in the US in the 50’s, whining about the padded suburbs being a “prison”). Deservedly so since it was an enforced idleness. An excluded idleness. An unfair idleness.

Full rights are a good thing not a bad thing. Women deserve a choice. Kids are not worse off with a lawyer as a mom.

If you really think women in the workplace is a bad thing, do submit this screed as a campaign platform for one of the party’s and see what happens.

PS: if you were more active supporting balanced budgets, lower taxes and insisting on qualified GOP candidates instead of social meddling and half-term governors from Alaska, the GOP might have won the last election.

Nov 30, 2009 - 9:32 am 39. Same Old Song:

To Fantom: Thnk you I will and do enjoy it. I cherish every moment and memory I have with my children. You are right those days do go by too fast – they grow so quickly. And on some trying days they don’t go by quick enough…

Parenthood is a choice. One I went into 110%. I chose not to pay to have someone else raise my child. However, I’m blesed and have had the means to do that. Not all women are that fortunate. My whole point of my earlier post is that Men and Women hve equally very difficult jobs that can be full of monotony and at moments great joy. It’s what you make with what you got. To continuously argue over who has it better is really defeating in the end. Not to mention boring…

To Heather,

I’m sorry you feel belittled and ostracized. Contrary to what you say, I do not feel I lack status. I am a Mother and first and foremost and many of my friends who are working Mom’s will tell you that as well. I work just as hard if not harder than many “working” women. I think a women is admired for whatever she chooses to do with her life because she demnds respect. Good for you for supporting yourself. Now stop whining and playing the victim.

Nov 30, 2009 - 9:43 am 40. Mike T:

No — it is men who now have it all.

Spoken like someone who has never watched a man get put through a sausage grinder in a divorce court.

Nov 30, 2009 - 9:44 am 41. Mari:

I just don’t understand the whining from unwilling stay at home moms about how grueling and tedious housework is. In this society, we wear clothes, which results in dirty clothes, we eat (thankfully) which necessitates making a meal and results in dirty dishes. This is true for single or married people, with or without children. Do you think that if you worked instead of stayed home, there would miraculously be no piles of dirty laundry, dishes, floors to be vaccuumed (and how cool is it that we have vaccuums, instead of dirt floors or just brooms?)

Nov 30, 2009 - 9:56 am 42. wancow:

1. JR Dogman: You make some valid points, but you act as if there was (or is now) no middle ground to be found between the world of Mad Men and that of Sex in the City. That’s crazy. Many, many older women will tell you if you ask…

Many children, if you asked, will tell you they wished they’d had two parents growing up…

But, you can’t have everything, now can you!

Thank you very much, Gloria S, Andrea D et al…

Nov 30, 2009 - 10:24 am 43. Conservative1:

This just depresses me even more. I dream of finding a woman to marry and have a family with. Unfortunately, I seem to not be an ideal candidate with a job, a house, and empathy. Honestly, it doesn’t surprise me. Not. One. Bit.

Nov 30, 2009 - 10:27 am 44. JustWriting:

As a divorced guy in my mid 40’s, I have to admit that going down of losing my marriage, getting my heart broke, and losing half my assets to another woman is something I think about long and hard. Honestly, sex and physical interaction is incredibly important, and I definitely love it. I love the chase, the courtship, the romance. But, I don’t care for the sort of commitment that results in me having to enter into another legal transaction for which I’m at a distinct disadvantage. Courts favor the woman in divorce and the reasons for filing for divorce are trending towards shallow, based on expectations with foundations on moving standards and shifting sand. Divorces tend to run like a plague through networks of friends or communities, as catchy as cold if the environment is right. It all just seems so shaky, my personal opinion. Day in and day out, the thing that I find that I can’t replace is the sexual, the physical. The friend who is also a lover, the lover who is also a friend. But a wife? Meh… I’ll not rush in to that with a great deal of thought and soul searching.

Thanks to a lot of women who divorced THEIR husbands and are now hopelessly trapped in the dating cycle, AND the realities related to the article above, my sexual life since divorce has been pretty damn good. Mostly what I find is that women desperately want to be married again and men desperately want everything BUT marriage. Woman compromise in that they give men most of what they want with the hope that he’ll give her what she wants. But commitment while the statistically the best thing in the long run for a man (for a longer life), doesn’t have a great track record in the mind of men who have told by the feminist movement, “We don’t need you, you are less valuable than you think”. So, fine… In the long run you don’t need us, but we need you… but only for awhile.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have it all, and I would rather be and be with a friend and lover I will spend the rest of my days and nights with. But the “I can have it all” independence women are armed with makes them less than ideal candidates for marriage in my opinion. They tend to divorce for shallow reasons and that takes a huge economic and emotional toll on a guy. Yeah, I know some guys are complete tools and deserve the curb, but most aren’t. We’re decent guys fighting mundane lives in suburbia, we don’t feel ALL that important in this big bad world, the last thing we want is to be told that by the women that we share our world with.

But once you do cut us loose, we aren’t going to go running back with any sort of gusto, trust me on this.

Nov 30, 2009 - 10:30 am 45. mariecurie:

#30: Thank you, Mary Madigan, for providing the only sensible, worthwhile posting in this comments section.

I highly resent the following dichotomy that is shoved down our throats at this and other Conservative sites:

1. Anti-feminist, stay-at-home mom = Good, “pure” Christian family, full of love
2. Feminist, working woman = Bad, liberal, morally degenerate society

There are many shades of gray inbetween, and families do what works best for them and their circumstances. I firmly believe that for about 90% of the population living in 2009, these discussions about Feminism and gender roles are irrelevant. They are only relevant to academics, activists, politicians, and women of a certain educational and social status. Most women (and men) are just trying to make ends meet.

Moreover, if the archetypal Feminist and working woman has ruined society, then what about Sarah Palin? She is my idol–she uses her talents in the public sector and she has a beautiful family and a religious faith. She is also a member of “Feminists for Life.” I bet the men on this site who are complaining about Feminism absolutely adore Sarah.

Oh, the irony . . .

Nov 30, 2009 - 10:39 am 46. Marc Malone:

Hilarious satire! I had to look again ad again. I thought it had been written by Fleming. Don’t take it all so seriously, folks. He was poking fun at the flaws of the current system, putting a completely different spin on them. Great writing!

I’d like to add to it. Now, with 3/4 of the people losing their jobs being men, we get to sit home while the wife works. Being men, we still get to slough off the housework. We are now pampered pets. Not only do we get some at home, but we can also get some on the side while the wife works to feed our lazy butts. Lets hear it for the new economy! Let’s hear it for Stimulus!

Nov 30, 2009 - 11:00 am 47. ricpic:

It may be better for Alphas but Betas have it even worse than they did in the bad old days.

Nov 30, 2009 - 11:02 am 48. myth buster:

38. Used to be that a woman had to prove her husband was scum in order to get a divorce (adulterer, abuser, alcoholic, bum, etc.). If you’re scum like that, paying alimony for life is just reaping what you’ve sown.

Nov 30, 2009 - 11:17 am 49. Rob:

Excellent article.

Nov 30, 2009 - 11:32 am 50. bubblehead:

Here’s a catalog of what we’ve supposedly “won”:

– Prospective mates of dubious provenance
– If we’re successful, the need for “prenup” agreements
– Children who raise themselves, or who are raised by TV while both parents work
– Schools that owe more to the federal government than parents, because they never see the working professional parents
– Meals that are works of convenience, rather than works of love and are perfunctory
– Families scattered across the country as parents are left behind by adult children chasing prosperity
– Our elderly are abandoned because it is not convenient to care for them
– Sexual dysfunction on multiple levels due mainly to a lack of emotional intimacy by married couples who are unwilling to invest the work in their marriages.
– Broken marriages and shattered family members resulting from too-easy divorce
– Selfishness all around as all parties pursue their own interests instead of the family interest
– A lack of true commitment to marriage, especially first marriages by the under-thirty set
– Mental and emotional breakdowns due to the stress and strain
– The substitution of materialism for emotional commitment

And the government marches on, gobbling up more and more of our personal liberties we have cast aside along with our personal responsibilities.

So much for “winning”!

Nov 30, 2009 - 11:33 am 51. Real Deal:

So basically, you feel that women would be a lot better off if we had all decided to stay home, stay pure, and depend on men to provide things like food and shelter.

Ever heard of sarcasm or satire?

There should be equal protection under the law, equal pay (all other things like experience & education being equal) for equal work, and equal opportunity for work. Women should not be a protected or “victim group” that receives largess based solely upon the accident of birth. Nor should any other group for that matter.

It is the feminists that have belittled a woman’s contribution to the family not men, they are the ones who view a woman as inadequate if they don’t have a career. In today’s society most women need to work just to make ends meet for their family, however this has always been true for many people. They weren’t doctors, lawyers, or business executives but they did work. My grandmother for example cleaned other people’s houses, worked in the school system, took in sewing, sold baked goods, and other assorted things to add to their income. Real men have always known and valued their wife’s contribution to the family even if they weren’t highly paid white collar career women.

A woman should approach life so as to be independent and to be able to contribute financially to a marriage. This means that she should go to college or learn a trade to support herself while she is single, contribute financially while married without children, and after the children are old enough that they no longer need a parent at home full time. This will allow the family to be financially better off as they can put away more in preparation for having the child and then later the additional income will be helpful too.

I’m sure someone will label me sexist for this statement but I really don’t care, in general the woman should be the one who stays home with the kids because in general they are better care givers. You don’t call an electrician to fix your plumbing, they lack the expertise, why would you have a man raise the kids? Yes there are exceptions, when making generalizations there are ALWAYS exceptions, some men are good at nurturing and some women are terrible at it. Also, if the woman makes more than the man it makes financial sense for the man to be the one who stays home with the kids.

Men and women ARE different, no matter how much Femi-Nazis claim otherwise, difference doesn’t mean lesser or better. Even homosexual relationships have a “male” and “female” persona in them, though when used as evidence that that is how things (male & female) are intended to be they will deny it. We should celebrate those differences between man and woman, they compliment one another to make the sum greater than he parts.

The flip side of this is the emasculation of men, the loss of gentlemanly behavior, and men no longer behaving like a man. Males are stuck in some unending adolescence and women are treated more like sex objects than ever. Look at the styles for young women and girls, the way most boys and young men treat and refer to them, the hook up culture, and many other things. Women/girls nowadays are to be used for sex and then discarded, basically females have become like condoms. Its pathetic and truly disgusting. Sure, I had my share of sexual partners before marriage but I never treated them the way I see the kids today acting and we weren’t nearly as sexually advanced. Now you hear of 13 year old and even younger girls having oral and anal sex with multiple partners like it was nothing.

@ #35

Heather I don’t know where you live but where I live women who don’t work are looked at askance by other women. Those that stay home with the kids but had careers often get the same treatment.

Nov 30, 2009 - 12:15 pm 52. jodetoad:

Perhaps the biggest losses are moral training and family cohesion. A couple generations now have received their moral training from schools. Jobs, income, and position are more important than family.

Nov 30, 2009 - 12:31 pm 53. pointciana:

Youre right Jeff no12 I also have a teenage daughter and i see the problem; the boys dont generally have to have the courage to try to date; also,if you happen to listen for what goes on for popular music lyrics today, the GIRLS are singing to the BOYS instead of the other way arund and the males (i dont call these singers men) are singing what i call BOOTYCALL SONGS it doesnt matter how pretty the girl is pretty girls are a dime a dozen and very needy of male attention

Nov 30, 2009 - 12:34 pm 54. AreaMan:

I highly resent the following dichotomy that is shoved down our throats at this and other Conservative sites:

1. Anti-feminist, stay-at-home mom = Good, “pure” Christian family, full of love
2. Feminist, working woman = Bad, liberal, morally degenerate society

Nice try with the false dichotomy.

No, not all men on this site adore Sarah Palin.

Nov 30, 2009 - 12:54 pm 55. jenn:

As a woman, I couldn’t agree more… put me back up on the pedestal and let me stay home and bake cookies!!

Nov 30, 2009 - 1:10 pm 56. octogalore:

The article seems to be only partially tongue in cheek.

I both agree and disagree. To the extent that women aren’t (yet, and maybe we never will be) as economically powerful as men, it doesn’t make sense for the sexual revolution to have suggested this asset should be traded as freely as it is. In theory, there should be no difference between how sex is employed by men or women. But we don’t live in theory.

I strongly disagree with the suggestion, whether tongue in cheek or serious, that women’s strides in the job market are somehow not a positive development for us. When women cannot get the assistantce on the household front that men do, of course, things will be stressful. Where the husband/dad pulls his weight, as mine does, it’s great. If anything, he is a better caretaker than I am. But it all evens out, as I am doing more of the breadwinning.

Just because the second shift hasn’t evened out, doesn’t mean equality on the first shift isn’t a good thing. Just google Terry Hekker.

Nov 30, 2009 - 2:17 pm 57. myth buster:

The ideal wife is described in Proverbs 31, and while no one ever lives up to the ideal, there are plenty of women who get very close. For those who haven’t read it, it is not misogynist by any rational standard; rather, it praises a hard working, morally upright woman as a treasure beyond price to her family. Her husband and children revere her saying, “Many are the women of proven worth, but you have exceeded them all.” A man with a sound head on his shoulders would much rather marry a Proverbs 31 woman than bounce around a hundred beds, if only because the Proverbs 31 woman will stand by him through thick and through thin; she’s in it for the long haul, while the whores are gone as soon as they get what they want. Of course, such a woman would not marry an unworthy man- she wants a hardworking, faithful man, who will treat her the way she deserves to be treated. The sex is also bound to be better.

Nov 30, 2009 - 2:33 pm 58. TStro:

My wife used to be a feminist. Insisted it was her right to get out of the house, and earn the same money (working jobs that were much less strenuous and dangerous). Now, she’s middle aged, and stays home and watches TV and plays with the dog while I work to support her. Shouldn’t I be the one who stays home? Statistically, she will outlive me by 7 years. Revolt, men! We should be able to retire early while the women support us in our golden years!

Nov 30, 2009 - 2:41 pm 59. scythe:

Just wayyyy brilliant. You nailed it bro. You forgot to mention all those diseases women now get just like their menfolk. The lifestyle ailments that go with all those other responsibities. I always said the feminist movement was started by women who hated women. Sure looks that way.

Nov 30, 2009 - 2:43 pm 60. Tristan Yates:

It’s a funny article that raises a few insightful points – let’s not take it too seriously or to extremes. There are no legal remedies here – we’re not going to ban women from the workplace, and we’re not going to criminalize sex outside of marriage. It’s just a Murphy Brown cultural divide that we can take a stance on within our own families.

Nov 30, 2009 - 2:49 pm 61. newscaper:

Good god, some of you people need a satire transplant stat!!

For many years now I’ve wondered why the Cosmo Girl take on sex as empowerment has, in the end, been virtually indistinguishable from a ruse set up young women for

That said, I am NOT some neanderthal traditionalist. My wife has a career and, trust me, I’m glad to have two breadwinners in times of uncertainty.

I’d also add the above satire isn’t accurate.
If you’re married, the state ensures your wife can abort your child without you even being notified so you can discuss it.
OTOH if you’re *not* married, and the woman is supposedly acting as a responsible free agent, she can decide to keep it and still make you pay thru the nose for child support.

Nov 30, 2009 - 3:50 pm 62. newscaper:

oops — correction:

For many years now I’ve wondered why the Cosmo Girl take on sex as empowerment has, in the end, been virtually indistinguishable from a ruse to set up young women for exploitation by men who don’t respect them.

Nov 30, 2009 - 3:52 pm 63. Bobbytime:

Spot on. Been saying this for years. “Bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, and never, ever let you forget you’re a man” was a crock from the beginning. Finally, someone as poltically incorrect as me willing to put it in print.

Nov 30, 2009 - 4:01 pm 64. newscaper:

Mari,

The biggest whiny offenders are the affluent yuppie women who went to college and worked for a few years then started a family and took the bargain of staying home instead of trying to juggle both. Many of them consider themselves fairly ‘liberated’ — they made a choice.

But the whining is BS — the yuppie mom with her 2.1 kids, who never misses a day at the gym once her kids are in school, has all the modern day home conveniences even if she doesn’t have a maid or nanny.

Thy are nothing like my totally traditional grandmother born in 1904 — she cooked *three* meals a day from scratch (including killing the chicken), did all the chores the hard way, and worked every bit as hard as my grandfather (to a great extent ruling the roost within the 4 walls), just in a way that feminists would sneer at because it was inside the home.

The modern spoiled upper-middle class women, to add insult to injury, after having a cushy decade or two, are the first to decide they are bored, need to ‘find themselves’ and break up the family. I read somewhere that, in non-adultery cases, it is by far the women who are much more likely to file for divorce.

Yet you would blame men for that?

Nov 30, 2009 - 4:04 pm 65. dan:

it is interesting that, despite other conflicts, the ones with teenage daughters agree with eachother and confirm the author’s picture. i would like to hear more stories about this, since they are the ones – the daughters of babyboomers and especially *their* daughters – who are in the position to confirm or deny, and from a perspective of genuine concern, without the taint of egotism. so let’s have more reports from the front please! that’s where the intelligence is.

Nov 30, 2009 - 5:03 pm 66. Ronnie Schreiber:

Same old Song:

My children are the joy of my life.

I cherish every moment and memory I have with my children.

Wonderful sentiments indeed, but in your two comments you never mentioned if you are married or if your children’s father lives with you.

I chose not to pay to have someone else raise my child.

Again, no mention of a husband or father to your children. If you’re now a stay at home mom, I suspect that there’s a man who’s paying the bills, so perhaps it is you who is choosing to pay but it is your husband’s money that is being paid. The same man with whom you raise “your” child.

Nov 30, 2009 - 5:11 pm 67. alaskan:

It is interesting to read this article and get a laugh out of it….but at the same time realize that Western women are the largest group converting to Islam.
And these Western women state that ‘it is the rigid rules’ that make the convertion most attractive.

Nov 30, 2009 - 6:24 pm 68. ReNae:

I hesitate to state the obvious (to me) but here it is. When we abandon and revile the standards and morals that made us great as a nation and a people the law of unintended consequences kicks in. Another way to put it is this. History has proved that when people behave morally they get the rewards that come from moral behavior: happiness, health, personal and family success, and even wealth. Departing from moral behavior results in the opposite. Check history if you don’t believe me.

Nov 30, 2009 - 6:25 pm 69. Naif Mabat:

Can you believe the way things used to be? Remember when our fathers and grandfathers would drag themselves to mind-numbing jobs every day, having the sole responsibility for the feeding, clothing, and housing of their entire family?

And they were real men in the way that most of us will probably never be.

Nov 30, 2009 - 6:38 pm 70. ReNae:

PS
Happiness does not mean things are always easy or that everything goes your way. When I say happiness I mean the happiness that comes with the journey. Runners, mountain climbers etc. know the happiness of the journey is not because it’s easy, but because it’s worth it.

Nov 30, 2009 - 6:42 pm 71. Lynn B:

Good grief! Under my carpenters clothes I wear Victoria’s Secret. I love my job and work right along with my husband. I have kids (joy of my life), am a great cook, and have no regrets. This feminist runs a crew, loves men to death and enjoys their company. If you feel you’ve won, so do I. I won’t join you in the beer (maybe rum and coke or a nice zinfandel) but will toast your success because it’s mine too. LOL

Nov 30, 2009 - 7:03 pm 72. Lynn B:

#62 newscaper
In my humble opinion Cosmo is pure garbage.

Nov 30, 2009 - 7:10 pm 73. Steve007:

welllll..there is s downside such as the destruction of Western civilization,but the upside is I was single post-divorce for 33 years,and boys, I gotta tell ya…dating is not quite like it was in high school!If these ladies like you, even the absolute best of them (and that is very good indeed) are fully prepared to show it.

Nov 30, 2009 - 7:18 pm 74. Same Old Song:

To Ronnie: Yes I have a husband who is the money maker now. I worked full time as a profesional and paid the bills while he finished off his Masters in Enginering 10 years ago. It was my choice to put my career aside while I raise our children. We are true a team and make these decisions together. What exactly is the point of your question?

Regarding my botched earlier posts. I really need to take the time to check my writing for typos and other erors before sending. This keyboard needs replacing after my youngest dumped a class of grapejuice on it.

To Lynn – nicely put.

Nov 30, 2009 - 8:46 pm 75. hall monitor:

In the twisted spirit of the stage drama “Comeback Little Sheba”, “Emma Where are You”, sister I identify with you. Thus I long for you and all your pearls. The pearls are missing.

Nov 30, 2009 - 9:02 pm 76. REDBALL6:

Emma: So basically, you feel that women would be a lot better off if we had all decided to stay home, stay pure, and depend on men to provide things like food and shelter. I’m about ready to give up on this site. Emma, now wait who said anything about staying pure? Staying home does not guarantee your purity? aah just look at the Tiger Woody case? oops slipped up there!
cheers
Redball6

Nov 30, 2009 - 9:03 pm 77. Carol:

Much of this is moot since economic realities demand that both the man and the woman work outside the home.

And, more power to Emma who dared to cross the conservative PC line. Yeah, we seem to have our own PC going on and if anyone utters a peep that seems to go against the party line, as one can see from the comments directed to Emma, they will get called out for it.

Nov 30, 2009 - 9:23 pm 78. Marty:

Well, glad to know y’all are getting your screws, which seems to be the most important part of life to you. Sad.

But you’re forgetting this has always been the case. Adultery was condoned for men; women could be stoned to death. So the happy homemaker baking cookies could be abandoned at whim for a younger or merely different woman.

Now at last she has the chance of stepping out on her own. And the companionship of cats is infinitely preferable. The cats, at least, are loyal.

Nov 30, 2009 - 10:21 pm 79. Emma:

Wow, I’ve never gotten even close to this many replies to a post. Ok, lesson learned: Conservatives believe that women should live quietly with their parents until a man comes along who’s willing to marry them and provide them with a home and a life. And you wonder why you lost the last election.

@ greenberry

very well put.

@ mariecurie:

——–quote—–

“I highly resent the following dichotomy that is shoved down our throats at this and other Conservative sites:

1. Anti-feminist, stay-at-home mom = Good, “pure” Christian family, full of love.

2. Feminist, working woman = Bad, liberal, morally degenerate society.”

———end quote———–

That is an excellent summary of the attitude I’ve come across on this site, over and over again. And how anyone ever manages to rope women into believing this crap is beyond me.

It reminds me of an article awhile back in which women talked about why they actually loved wearing their burqas. It gave them freedom! It made them feel protected! They had fewer worries! Oh, and if they took them off they’d be stoned to death but that was just a technicality because really – they loved them!

Dec 1, 2009 - 4:07 am 80. Emma:

@ Carol:

Hey, thanks! And good point on the Conservative PC. I decided a few weeks ago (based on the commentary on PJM) that I’m not actually a Conservative after all. I’m not willing to go along with the premise that equality for women is a bunch of liberal claptrap in order to call myself a Republican.

Dec 1, 2009 - 4:14 am 81. Bilgeman:

#4 Emma:
“So basically, you feel that women would be a lot better off if we had all decided to stay home, stay pure, and depend on men to provide things like food and shelter.”

And here you demonstrate exactly what’s the major problem with Feminism today:

Everything is NOT all about you and your reproductive system ALL the time.
Mr. Patterson wasn’t talking to you.

“I’m about ready to give up on this site”

So go, already. The site will get along quite nicely without you, thanks.
I don’t recall PJM sending out engraved invitations soliciting readership and commentariat.

Take a bit of sound advice from a guy who has sailed the world for over twenty years and has been married to the same woman for over ten years:

Do yourself a favor and shut the heck up for 45 minutes of every hour. You just AIN’T all that and a bag o’ chips…none of us is THAT interesting.
Toby Keith has some wisdom for you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYrlzEUuBIM

Dec 1, 2009 - 4:42 am 82. Bilgeman:

#79 Emma:
“Conservatives believe that women should live quietly with their parents until a man comes along who’s willing to marry them and provide them with a home and a life.”

Is that what Conservatives believe? Or is that something that you’re projecting onto them?

I would assert that the nuclear “Ozzie and Harriet”-style family is an ideal to aspire to, and one that has proven highly succesful for creaqting and maintaining civilized societies,(you know, places where not every “date” turns into a rape and where the concept of private property is respected), from China to the Hebrews to the late Industrial Age in the West.

If you know of a civilization that was able to get it up and keep it going based on some other model of “family”, I’d like to hear it.

“Wow, I’ve never gotten even close to this many replies to a post. Ok, lesson learned”

No…you manifestly haven’t learned a blessed thing.
You have a sh!tty attitude towards the idea of fulfilling the traditional matriarchal role in a family. And folks don’t much care for it.
You’re bing conned, kiddo.

Hey, feel free to make your choices, but I warn you that you get older every single day. And that means that the window of opportunity to become a wife and a mother will one day close on you forever.
If things stay the way they are, you can expect to live into your late 80’s…40 years beyond your menopause on average.

That’s a long, long time to be alone.

But it’s your life. Just don’t inflict yourself on the rest of us when you realize waaaay down the road what the cost REALLY was for the choices you make today.

Most of us are, and will be too busy with our families to concern ourselves with an embittered and lonely old harridan blaming the public world so that she doesn’t have to live with her private regrets. OUR children will be the inheritors, while you will be an evolutionary dead-end…a living fossil of a soon-to-be-extinct species.

Dec 1, 2009 - 6:25 am 83. mariecurie:

@ Emma,

Yes, I’ve decided that I really can’t consider myself to be a “Conservative” because of my views on many issues. But I’m definitly a Republican. I wonder if that makes me the dreaded RINO. Ha!

@57 myth buster,

I’ve always liked the image of the Proverbs 31 woman. She runs a successful business while also taking care of the home. Her husband respects her, and he is, likewise, a respected member of the community. She is an intelligent, hard working, “Rennaissance” woman (and most likely well educated for her time). Definitely not the 1950s housewife stereotype.

Dec 1, 2009 - 7:09 am 84. Paul -Indiana:

#4 Emma; So basically, you feel that women would be a lot better off if we had all decided to stay home, stay pure, and depend on men to provide things like food and shelter. ========
Well … two out of three isn’t bad.

Dec 1, 2009 - 8:53 am 85. bonnie_:

Actually, Emma, feminists are idiots. Anyone can see that. All you have to do is follow the trail of abortions, wrecked marriages, STDS, daycare kids raised like Lord of the Flies animals, desperate cougar behavior, and a lonely and embittered spinsterhood followed by a short Terry Shiavo Nursing Home visit.

Women have always had the capability to live productive, astonishing, creative lives. Marie Curie. Queen Elizabeth. Esther Hobart Morris, first woman judge in Wyoming. My mom, who stayed at home until we were raised and then started a construction company at the age of 52 with my dad. They retired this year with a net worth over ten million. And she sewed all our costumes for the school plays and made homemade soups to die for. My grandmother, who founded a charity hospital in Kentucky. I could go on, buy why bother? In your feminist-poisoned mind, only when women had the right to an abortion and contraceptives were they equal.

Feminists are the dupes of men who want free sex and no responsibilities. This is why feminists care nothing about the Taliban or the sharia laws that enslave women around the world. They don’t care because they’re not really about women, they’re all about bad men. Yep, you can take feminism and shove it on the ash heap of history as one more Bad Idea.

Dec 1, 2009 - 9:05 am 86. octogalore:

Emma — I have similar frustrations to yours. Men on both the right and left don’t get that the problem isn’t that feminism didn’t work, but that it didn’t (or couldn’t) address the second shift issues. Because women aren’t happier doing two shifts doesn’t mean we aren’t happier that we have the workplace opportunities that feminism opened up.

I do hear newscaper’s frustration with “The biggest whiny offenders are the affluent yuppie women who went to college and worked for a few years then started a family and took the bargain of staying home instead of trying to juggle both. Many of them consider themselves fairly ‘liberated’ — they made a choice.” I wouldn’t put it exactly that way, and I think both men and women have the right to change their minds, but the more women who take advantage of pricy education that they don’t use, or get jobs that they don’t stick around in, it enables employers to look askance at investing in women. And it also perpetuates the economic disparities between men and women. Marriage isn’t the solution when you’re not earning your own money — see: Terry Hekker.

I don’t think the solution is to not be a conservative, though. As a conservative in most ways (exceptions being choice and gay marriage), I have never seen a conservative manifesto talking about female subordination. I think the issue isn’t politics but men (and some women) being sexist — that’s not a problem that can be solved by picking political teams. There are individual men, and women, on both sides who get it. For me, allying with the side with the basic economic principles that will allow for women to move up — irrespective of how deficient their sense of humor might be — is the best solution.

Dec 1, 2009 - 9:15 am 87. NMSC:

What a stupid, clueless article.

Dec 1, 2009 - 9:17 am 88. mariecurie:

I think a huge problem with this overall discussion is that Feminism is defined in terms of the 1960s-80s version, and, therefore, Feminism is seen as responsible for those things deemed to evil by the conservative crowd: abortion, kids in daycare, broken marriages, men taken for a ride in divorce court, promiscuity, etc. My response is: was it Feminism that was entirely responsible for the social decay that began in the late 60s? Didn’t men have some role too in wanting a liberation from social norms? There were many things that went into creating these social changes.

I am a Feminist, but I am not pro-choice. I am a Feminist, but I am committed to working at my marriage and at the creation of a peaceful home life. I am a Feminist, but I have never taken the pill or embraced sexual liberation. Why does “Feminism” have to be so narrowly defined? What about the pre-1960s brand of feminism which had different goals: equal rights, education of women, etc.? (Again, I mention Sarah Palin).

Actually, I think both men and women are the winners here. Women are allowed to achieve their full potential, while men get life companions who are educated and interesting.

Dec 1, 2009 - 9:47 am 89. Naif Mabat:

Maybe for the more educated/affluent classes, there was some kind of tolerable tradeoff.

But for those less so, the semblance of the two-parent family, however imperfectly realized, was sort of the thin red line this side of what an earlier commenter described as “Lord of the Flies”.

Dec 1, 2009 - 10:44 am 90. ellen:

Oh come on 35 Heather don’t pretend you do not understand recognition or rewards that come from working outside the home.

Have you ever heard of a salary or a job title?

I don’t know what you do for a living, but even low paying service jobs put up signs for employee of the week or month.

Oh course, our children may give us a hug, but usually they just expect to receive and out of love for neighbor they should. But don’t insult Same Old Song, by acting like you don’t have clue.

Everyone is unhappy because in this fallen sinful world we must constantly make trade-offs. At the end of everyday I know I have disappointed someone; usually my Lord and Savior and myself top the list.

I certainly never blame feminism for the state we find ourselves in.

Dec 1, 2009 - 11:14 am 91. ellen:

54. AreaMan:

“Nice try with the false dichotomy.”

Would that be because you declare it so? Or, do you have something more to add to prove or at least demonstrate it falsification.

Dec 1, 2009 - 11:40 am 92. ellen:

I have to admit there is a disconnect between the article and the comments. But, I enjoyed both.

Dec 1, 2009 - 12:22 pm 93. Emma:

Some of you seem to infer that I have something against women staying home and raising children. No, I think women should do what they want to do. But staying home and raising children should be a DECISION – not the only option we’ve got because we’re unable to fend for ourselves.

As for the patronizing/rude comments from those who are desperately trying to put me in my place … dream on. You’re just people on a message board. You have no power over me.

Dec 1, 2009 - 1:29 pm 94. Conservative1:

Emma,
Please relax. You seem to have a huge chip on your shoulder. An inferiority complex as well. I personally don’t give a damn what you do in life, but I am quite despondent with the likes of feminism that continue to demonize me just because I am a man. Get over yourself. I am just looking for a woman who has not forgot how to be a woman.

Love,
J

Dec 1, 2009 - 2:22 pm 95. Naif Mabat:

I once saw a cartoon I thought summed this up pretty well, but I can’t seem to find it online.

It consisted of two similar panels labelled “THEN” and “NOW”.

In the first panel, a woman and 4 or 5 kids, all impeccably dressed, are standing on a doorstep, smiling ecstatically and waving goodbye to a pompous looking man in a big black suit who is walking towards a big black Lincoln Continental that has a bumper sticker on it reading “father knows best.”

In the second panel, a flustered looking woman is hurrying towards a beatup sub-compact and a lone bedraggled boy is standing on the doorstep asking “Will I ever know my father?”

Dec 1, 2009 - 2:28 pm 96. Carol:

What’s with all the oversimplifying of complex choices? Humans (women and men) are suffering in all sorts of ways under the weight of cultural expectations. Why can’t we each try to work out what’s best for ourselves and our families and stop with the cartoonish characterizations? The left is full of ****, and so is the right for seeming to feel compelled to be a backlash against every single notion the left comes up with. The result is that the right winds up sounding as absurd as the left, but in their own way, such as when conservatives seem proud of being anti-women’s rights (at least for women here in America).

Dec 1, 2009 - 2:48 pm 97. Olivia:

This stuff has been going around in my mind for 50 years. I would get so angry. Do you all realize how close to the surface your anger is? Watch out, it will kill you,and cheat y ou of your happiness.
Kids are ungrateful, you guys, and men are too. so are women. Life is what you make it, and it takes grit.
The article was fun. The comments revealing.

Dec 1, 2009 - 2:54 pm 98. Carol:

#97 Olivia – I agree that this piece and the comments (my own included) reveal how much anger and resentment there is in men and women on issues relating to our roles in society and how things have or have not changed for the better and/or the worse. It’s a curious thing how so many of us harbor so much frustration. Your comment is a great remind that life is short and we’d all better be careful about how we may cheat ourselves out of happiness, as you put it.

Dec 1, 2009 - 4:25 pm 99. Conservababe:

Here’s something else the guys won in — women are now convinced that if they are in the “sex industry” (or dress like it), show cleavage in everyday situations, and “enjoy” porn, that they are “empowering” themselves. Woh,, how’d you guys ever get that one over?

Dec 1, 2009 - 4:26 pm 100. Conservababe:

Also: Yes, it is greatly appreciated that people in Western culture are still having babies and raising them — the demographic take-over by the third world is frighteningly real —

However, anyone who has worked in the home or outside of it knows there’s no comparision when it comes to psysic payoffs. At home, you have no boss breathing down your throat, no incompetents telling you what to do and “evaluating” you, and no cliques, power-plays, and office politics.

Much of the reason women are unhappy these days is that they no longer have that “kingdom” (a woman’s home is her castle, too), where she rules. Having no control over your (work) situation (and no matter how high up you go, there’s always someone unpleasant who’s higher) is the number one cause of stress. Too bad we gave up providing in-home work in order to join the men, who have had to deal with the sturm-and-drang of the workday world mostly by themselves up until a few decades ago.

Dec 1, 2009 - 4:38 pm 101. Buckwheat:

No WONDER nobody’s getting laid.

Dec 1, 2009 - 7:56 pm 102. Robert:

So in short, in the old days a man could be expected to work himself to an early grave while married to a shrill b*tch who gave lousy head (assuming she gave any at all) while stuck with a screaming brood of ingrateful brats and now a dude can do half the work, live twice as long, have fewer screaming brats while, thanks to the whole teenage hook-up culture started in the 90s, have a woman that does the kinda things they only ever used to do in porn?

Hell yeah, baby, God bless America!

Dec 1, 2009 - 11:13 pm 103. Julie:

Wow, you people are funny! As several commenters noted, some of you really need to settle down and figure out this whole satire thing.

Incidentally, the second shift referenced by some of the victims of the patriarchy above is not supported by good data. When you analyze how Americans actually spend their 24/7, women do less housework and childcare now than they did 20 years ago, and men do somewhat more of both. Women complain bitterly about having actually to do housework after a long day working, but I do not see how it is anything other than the product of choices they made. Kids must be cared for; houses must be cleaned; people must be fed. Your husband, if you are lucky enough to have one, is probably doing a lot more of those things than you recognize or are willing to give him credit for. If you find yourself too exhausted to do it all, then, by all means, scale back on something. Selling the kids off to some family who has time to care for them uncomplainingly might help.

Dec 2, 2009 - 2:25 am 104. Mary Jackson:

The same men who advocate a return to Stepford-wifery often bleat about gold diggers. So they don’t approve of women earning their own money, and they don’t approve of women leeching off them. Perhaps they don’t like women. Maybe they’re gay.

Dec 2, 2009 - 3:26 am 105. Lynn B:

emma;
Take it from me, be who you are, don’t let anyone tell you what you are. Feminism isn’t about right or left, it’s about what you want to do and what you choose for yourself. Being a stay at home mom is every bit a part of feminism as being a 10 hour a day working banker. Feminism is women supporting other women in the roles they choose for themselves. Even Plato (The Republic) believed in feminism.

Dec 2, 2009 - 7:22 pm 106. Edith:

Check out Pioneer Woman’s blog for a “house wife” of a more modern kind.

Dec 2, 2009 - 7:40 pm 107. JTHC75:

I think it may be better for society in general if men and women fell back into somewhat more traditional family roles (not to mention a return to more closely linked extended families), but it’s difficult to argue that legal protections for gender equality in the workplace are a bad thing. The opportunity for career-minded women to choose work over family is a good thing, but not enough women know what they want at this point. If you think about it, feminism, the sexual revolution, etc., are still relatively recent events, as far as human sexual relations go. I don’t think modern people, especially women, have quite figured out the right balance between work and family. They opened up the gates and women came flooding in without thinking about whether it was the right choice for them. I think you’ll see in coming decades a boomerang effect as large numbers of young women become more and more disenchanted with the fanciful notion of “Having it all.”

Dec 2, 2009 - 7:45 pm 108. Pat:

S A T I R E

look it up on Wiki …

I love all the strawwomen (see we can be equal) some of the commenters have written in their humorless overreaction … if we were taking this article seriously I would have to say that some of these reactions kind of prove his point …

I especially like the “Perhaps they don’t like women. Maybe they’re gay” …
Have you actually ever met a gay guy ? women haters ??? wow …

Dec 2, 2009 - 7:56 pm 109. Toads:

The problem with this article is that women have decided to take immoral and unconstitutional steps to steal money from men.

Divorce laws are extremely biased against the man, where children are used as pawns to that the woman can extract a huge settlement. The basic unfairness of the MAN having to pay if the WOMAN CHOSE divorce is absurd (and 90% of divorces are initiated by women).

So feminism was not just a failure, but also a charade, for equality was never their goal, enslavement was.

Dec 2, 2009 - 8:02 pm 110. Toads:

Mary Jackson,

Except women don’t earn their own money. They use the state to steal it from men in the form of welfare, divorce laws are are extremely biased in favor of the woman, and all sorts of other programs.

In a free market, women would not be able to hack it on their own. And you know it.

Dec 2, 2009 - 8:04 pm 111. Curmudgeon:

Of course, some do the right thing- get married, make the commitments, and faithfully support the home, watch kids, the whole shooting match.

And feel cheated because they “bought the cow” only to find that now that it is secure and has what it wanted, it doesn’t have to give milk at all except for those twice a year events when the moon is full and the mood strikes.

Dec 2, 2009 - 8:06 pm 112. mac:

You know, Mary has hit on something, which isn’t surprising since even a blind squirrel will find an acorn occasionally. Lots of men now actually don’t particularly care for women. Before, they might not have taken them seriously but they were looked on as weaker creatures who decent men had an obligation to help.

That’s gone. Now, it’s equality all the way, babe. You wanted it, you got it. Box too heavy? Should have packed it lighter, shouldn’t you? Car broken? Guess you’d better get a mechanic? Want a guy to help you with something? Yeah, you can get that, no problem. Just reach for your wallet or his zipper.

Women, particularly American women, now feel the only thing they are obligated to do in marriage is have sex, and then only when they want to. Most women have no more idea of domestic economics than they have of quantum physics. What is more, they have absolutely no interest in knowing about the subject. Really, why should princesses have to know how to cook, clean or sew on buttons, eh?

Once married, they’ve got their hand on the rip-cord from the moment the nuptials are finished and haven’t the slightest qualm about bailing, which they do at an 80%-20% ratio compared to men. The laws are rigged in their favor so for a while it was a sweet deal, if one didn’t mind stepping around the wreckage left behind in shattered families and damaged children.

However, as this article shows, the marks have wised up. Where it was once wine, roses, wedding rings and lifelong commitment, you womyn now have dirty sanchezes, donkey punches and pump-and-dump to look forward to, plus cats in your old age. Like that trade, do you? Really think it was to your benefit, do you?

Gloria, Betty and Andrea led you down a road toward a true, visceral hatred of men, and most of you happily followed right along. Well, the hatred generally isn’t mutual but on the male side there’s an awful lot of contempt where there once was respect. I listen to my 30 year old sister-in-law lament how she can’t find a good man and think, you did it to yourselves, babes. You got just what you SAID you wanted. Deal with it.

Dec 2, 2009 - 8:09 pm 113. Sidney Raphael:

I have been making the same points as this article makes on several comments published on the American Thinker blog. I go even further:

It used to be that our fathers and/or grandfather worked not only to support children and wife as children grew, but to support wife after children grew to insure that never during her lifetime will wife have to work.

Some people have noted that during the present economic troubles more men have lost jobs than women. If the recession lasts longer let’s see if the number of divorces changes. If a wife who works wants to divorce a hubby who does not work she may wind up paying him alimony/maintenance. Then she will have to support not only herself and her former hubby but also the kids and the kids’ college bills.

But hey she’ll be liberated.

Dec 2, 2009 - 8:16 pm 114. dedicated_dad:

No chance of returning to a saner nation any time soon, the best we could hope for IMHO is a blunting of the damage.

One MAJOR help would be genuine equality for men – starting with “choice.”

Equal protection under the law DEMANDS men be entitled to the same right to absolve himself of the consequences of an ill-conceived sexual union as that granted to women.

Men should be entitled to 60 days after notification of pregnancy to sign a legal document absolving himself of all right or responsibility to an unwanted child.

This would INSTANTLY eliminate most “unplanned” pregnancies by eliminating the paycheck that comes along with them.

A woman’s reaction to this proposal will also tell you everything you need to know about her belief in “equality” — odds are what she wants is all the rights and none of the responsibility.

PS: Men wanting a real “Proverbs” wife needs to look to asian or south-american cultures. They’re still women…

DD

Dec 2, 2009 - 8:17 pm 115. Toads:

Women don’t have much ability to understand cause and effect.

In their mad attempt to punish ‘misogyny’, they created misogyny where there was none. In their obsession with a victim status, they justify great evil against innocent men.

Here is a superb article about the age-old contract between the sexes, and how women have broken it, and will suffer due to their own actions :

http://www.inmalafide.com/2009/08/06/george-sodini-and-the-contract-between-the-sexes/

Dec 2, 2009 - 8:21 pm 116. Toads:

Has anyone noticed how Islam has stopped their suicide bombing strategy, and is now undertaking a passive outbreeding strategy?

And frankly, given how US feminism is just as unfair to men as Islam is to women, US men have no reason to protect our women from Islamic encroachment. Let’s step aside, I say.

Dec 2, 2009 - 8:30 pm 117. davidt:

If I recall correctly, one of the early battlegrounds in the gender wars was the terminology used to descibe individuals. Whether the person was male or female, ‘chairman’ had to be changed to ‘chairperson’, ’spokesman’ to ’spokesperson’, etc. Feminists have made a pretty big deal out of this sort of thing.

If feminists actually want gender equality, why don’t they use a gender neutral term to describe themselves instead of the gender specific ‘feminist’?

Maybe feminists are less interested in equality than they are in attempting to dominate.

Dec 2, 2009 - 8:31 pm 118. frosty:

Screwtape? Is that you?

Dec 2, 2009 - 8:48 pm 119. Toads:

It is funny that Emma is so worried about ‘conservatives’ but not about Muslims.

Dec 2, 2009 - 8:59 pm 120. DK:

Well, done. I’m a stay at home mom with four children and I love it. The feminist movement is a lie.

Dec 2, 2009 - 9:09 pm 121. Syl:

I don’t care what anyone says, I think this was a bloody brilliant piece.

LOL

Dec 2, 2009 - 9:54 pm 122. Dan:

Inner city culture has gone main stream.

One of the disasters of the 60’s civil rights era was the road to the main streaming of barrio and black ghetto culture.

It’s here, it’s now and it’s a fixture of our society.

Single moms, irresponsible fathers, dozens of sex partners and crass behavior.

You gotta take the good with the bad.

Enjoy America!

Dec 2, 2009 - 10:54 pm 123. Pete:

Great article and comments. Another horrific aspect of the feminization of our culture is the destruction or weaking of societal institutions that once molded our boys and teens into responsible men, everything from the Boy Scouts to team sports to the military. The central conceit of feminism is that men and women are alike, that sex (they say “gender”, which is a neologism invented by feminists)is a social construct. Thus, the lie of political correctness is that men and women are interchangeable. This has given us women in the army who cannot throw a grenade far enough to escape its blast cone, or cycle the bolt back on a MG, or pick up a wounded comrade and drag/carry him to safety. It has also given us a society in which alpha males, the warriors, increasingly by-pass military service, because they increasingly see it as feminized, water-down and crippled by political correctness. The ones that join, gravitate to the combat arms, submarines, and the other few remaining male preserves within the armed forces. Force females into those units, and watch the men leave them also. I am in favor of women being allowed into many roles in the military, but not on the terms of feminism, as exists now, but on the terms of what used to be a male institution, whose concern was winning wars and accomplishing missions, not giving sexual harassment workshops, sponsoring birthing clinics and running childcare centers. And Hollywood has given us the fiction of “GI Jane,” the female soldier who can kick men’s butts and outdo them at their own game.

I am not a mysogenist, and have been happily married for 18 years to a women who has strong traditonal values, but also a successful career. However, no society that wants responsible men willing to take their place in society should support what feminism has done and is doing to our institutions.

As our forebearers knew, motherhood and the family were the wellsprings of civilzation. The most destructive impulses of young men used to be civilized by marriage, and before that union, they were molded by the strong men around them, coaches, fathers, older brothers, drill sergeants, scoutmasters, or similar figures. These prepared a young man for his role in society. Now that the left and radical feminists have thrown this system out, or vastly weakened it, can they really be surprised that we are surrounded by man-children whose sole desire is to get laid and party with their friends after work, if they have a job at all?

An equally important role for mothers and fathers was to teach a young woman the sanctity of her bodies, and instill in her a sense of worth as a women and person. No father worth the name teaches his daughter to “hook up,” just as no worthwhle mother should allow her daughter to dress like a hooker. Feminists may deride all day those women from traditonal backgrounds, who save it ’til marriage (or try to), but study after study by doctors and scientists confirms that such women report greater life and marital satisfaction than their feminist counterparts.

Choices have consequences, and people – males included – do respond to behavioral incentives. Incentivize the right behaviors, ones that elevate the sacred union of marriage and its benefits to society, and you’ll get them. Disincentivize them, and you’ll get what we have today.

Am I the only one who has noticed that feminism has given us a courser, more barbaric society, and not the male-female utopia the feminists promised? Men who treat women like tramps, and run away and hide when a female conpanion is attacked or abused, etc. The traditonal men of my father or grandfather’s generations most likely would not have done such a thing, and if they had, they’d have been ostracized by the community.

Dec 2, 2009 - 11:00 pm 124. sestamibi:

Meh. Nothing new here to see folks, keep moving.

Women critics of feminism have been saying the same thing. From Katie Roiphe, Wendy Shalit, and Cathy Young more recently to Midge Decter as far back as 1972 in “The New Chastity and Other Arguments Against Women’s Liberation” (as it was then called). ALL of them have said feminism was a great deal for men because it gave them plenty of opportunities to screw around.

Yeah right. I came of age right around then and let me assure you I was never a beneficiary. In addition to long dry spells I also had to endure the competition from women for jobs that was unknown in my parents’ generation, and I have no doubt that my periods of unemployment were longer because of that competition. When I was under-employed I was not considered marriage/relationship material. When I was unemployed my primary concern was survival, not dating. Feminism cost me plenty in both monetary and emotional terms.

For the alpha males at the top, on the other hand, feminism was a GREAT deal. It gave them access to lots of women to whom they needed to make no commitment. As the author points out, those women in their new environments could screw around free from the prying eyes and disapproval of family and friends, and even then the culture had changed to the point that it was no longer PC to observe those old taboos. Those men, in turn, got independent women who could support themselves and had access to easy abortion to correct any mistakes. As for the rest of us, it has long been adopted public policy to try to starve us.

If one surveys men’s blogs such as Roissy in DC, In Mala Fide, Seasons of Turmoil and Discord, The Obsidian Files, etc. one will find frequent reference to the “Four Sirens” of feminism that made this happen:

1. Anonymous urban living (addressed above).
2. Women’s enhanced educational and economic opportunities.
3. State support (VAWA, IMBRA, Title IX, obscene definitions of sexual harassment, “feminist jurisprudence”, etc.)
4. The Pill and easy access to legal abortion.

In contrast, those observers also foresee the advent of the “Four Horsemen of Male Vengeance”:

1. Sexbots
2. Expatriation and/or cooperative male efforts at resistance
3. Islam
4. Game (ref. websites above)

Too bad I won’t be around to see it, but twenty years from now things ought to be quite interesting. Maybe then we’ll be able to say Matt Patterson was right.

Dec 3, 2009 - 12:23 am 125. Lynn B:

Victorian Age is over, get a grip. I had to start my own business to get a job. Took my last two hundred dollars, purchased a contractors license and zeroed in on a niche.
Women homeowners love to see me show up. A lot had already been ripped off by male contractors because they told them not to worry their pretty little heads about the work being done. It is particularly usettling for an older woman who has lost her husband to have to deal with home repairs. Another thing, my husband loves the fact I am able and willing to help with our own home repairs and upgrades. Guys, there is a huge difference between Liberal Feminism and real feminism, a HUGE difference.

Dec 3, 2009 - 4:40 am 126. Big Bad Jack:

Whichever side of this stuff you are on, here are a few thoughts for you to chew on:
1) Everything is a trade-off. Everything.
2) The law of unintended consequences always rears its head. Always.
3) Murphy will show up. Never forget Murphy’s Final Law: “I was an optimist!”
4) God is not mocked. Ever.
5) Merry Christmas to all. All.

Dec 3, 2009 - 6:04 am 127. datechguy:

This post is all about the thing my father used to drum into me.

Everything costs something.

It’s up to society in general and individuals in particular to decide if the price is right.

Dec 3, 2009 - 6:19 am 128. KR:

These comments are fantastic. Yes, of course the author thinks women should only stay home and not have a job! I also heard Jonathan Swift advocated eating babies.

Dec 3, 2009 - 6:22 am 129. novaseeker:

The truth behind the satire in the article is simply this: most men do not care that women have advanced in the world, and are actually quite content with the fact that they have. Why? Because it takes the pressure off of us, that’s why. As women have advanced, and become more independent, this has opened up different lifestyle choices for men — choices that do not revolve around being a provider-type for some woman. Couple that with the relatively easy access to sex in the wake of the sexual revolution, and you have a recipe for contentment for many men. This is why men are *happier* than they were 40 years ago, per surveys, and also happier than women are now.

The men who are not happy — a minority of men — are the ones who have gotten burned in divorces and the ones who are frozen out of the mating game. Both understandable. But most men have never been happier — because we can now finally kick back and enjoy life without the pressure of being providers and protectors and so on. And still have access to sex, for the most part!

So actually I think most guys don’t want to turn the clock back at all — why would we do that? That just creates more obligations for us. No, I think most of us are quite happy to see women doing what they want to do — more power to them. The kicker is, though — women can’t really force men to do what women want them to do, either. We’re free now, too, which means we can also choose paths that are at wide variance from what we were told to do in the past. And since sex outside of marriage is now easy to obtain, the incentive we have to marry and do any of that stuff is just much less than it was before, even leaving aside things like family law imbalances and the like. So, I fail to see what the problem is, really: women get to do what they want, and we get to do what we want. There shouldn’t be anyone who has a problem with that, right?

Dec 3, 2009 - 6:44 am 130. sestamibi:

Nova, I think your numbers are waaaaay off.

Dec 3, 2009 - 9:17 am 131. C4Cypher:

I was born in the early 80’s … I grew up in the prosperity of the 90’s in what seems to me now as an unusually tight nuclear family. My family growing up was far from perfect, but I survived to adulthood with my familial relationships intact. I’m one of the lucky ones.

I don’t know what the feminist movements of the 70’s were like. I don’t know what gender roles were really like before I became sexually mature. I entered emotional adolecence late into my physical one.

I am a male who has spent his childhood and adolecence learning that relationships only work through brutal honestey. I have spent my early adulthood discovering that whatever gender roles and values my parents had are gone in my generation, wiped clean, there are no rules anymore.

I think I’m just starting to graduate the ‘young dumb’ phase of early adulthood, and it has been one of the most difficult brutal periods of my life. I’ve gotten hurt. I’ve hurt people. And I come out of it now numbed as a result. I am no longer interested in any kind of intimate relationships with the opposite gender.

I am exausted, I cannot justify with my own self-chosen standard of integrity, participate any further with the twisted mess of confused gender roles and pitfalls that is the relational landscape of my generation.

I admit that I have little incentive to enter into a relationship outside physical gratification. I refuse to enter into a relationship in which I know I would not be able to meet my partner’s emotional needs.

Do I have emotional needs? Sure. I was raised by a generation that consistently taught the male role suppress those needs, refuse they exist. Females, are allowed to acknowledge those needs, and many place them over physical ones as a priority in a relationship.

To top this all off, I have little way of knowing if I can trust any person I meet, much less what thier needs will be or if they will be capable of communicating those needs. I know that I’m not good at communicating them, even when I try to.

I probably sound bitter. I want to share my perspective as a male member of the younger adult male population who tries to keep his eyes open and be honest with himself.

I don’t see any winners or losers in this ‘Gender War’, only casualties and victims. With the old gender roles, these problems were hidden under the surface behind a white picket fence. Now they’re out in the middle of the street for everyone to see. It’s chaos.

I don’t know if the old ways were better or worse, and things may get better in the future. I may meet somone beautiful in mind and body who I may learn to trust, and whose trust I may eventually earn. Actively searching for such a person has only gotten me hurt, and I’ve done things I deeply regret along the way.

I choose to carry on. I still choose to respect people until they loose it, but I no longer trust anyone until I they earn it. It hurts deeply to force myself to bury my kindhearted nature and desire to do well for those around me. I continue to learn, contuine to mature. One day may find me in a better place than I am. I do not give up.

I pity the generation who has just started to enter puberty … as the future for them is even less clear and more confusing than mine.

I’m sorry to say that despite whatever insights I may have grasped up until this point, I lack answers. I refuse to stumble in the dark any further until I mature emotionally and find those answers.

I don’t blame the older generation, as they seem stuck in the same boat I am … yet this is thier world that is crumbling down around them. That has to be disorienting and frightening.

It’s never easy, but anything of value will probably take a lot of work and a lot of pain to acheive. I hope this helps shed light on how one young, bitter, cynical, yet well meaning person sees all of this.

Dec 3, 2009 - 9:24 am 132. CommonSense:

Same argument could be made for slavery. No offices to report to. No rent. No responsibilities. Apparently they didn’t know how good they had it either. I’d love to hear your conservative “satire” on that one.

And, not that the fans of this site would have much exposure to it, but a lot of couples relate to each other as equals. In many cases the woman is the primary breadwinner and the man is the primary caretaker and it works out just fine. Those guys don’t see relationships as antagonistic power plays. They don’t have to. It’s only the insecure guys that try to derive power from “being a man.”

Oh, and that study about women and happiness you all keep citing is totally invalid:

http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175118/tomgram%3A_barbara_ehrenreich%2C_do_women_have_the_blues

But this one isn’t:

http://poq.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/53/3/285

It shows a correlation between education levels and liberal values, which at least 10 studies in the past 50 years have confirmed.

Maybe you should try writing less and reading more.

Dec 3, 2009 - 10:00 am 133. novaseeker:

@132 LiberalSense –

As I wrote above, the satire actually is mostly true. Most of us, even conservative men, don’t want to impede female advancement at all, really. It’s better for us — it lets us kick back, finally, as the article expresses. Not necessarily to be a caretaker for a careerist woman, although some may choose that if they are so inclined. Thanks to women assuming our old roles, we are now free to do what we want — whether that involves becoming like women used to be in terms of becoming househusbands or doing something completely of our own devising. That’s the fact. It may make women happy, and it may not. I suspect it does not, but I also accept that arguments will be made either way. Hard to measure “happiness” after all.

As for the rest of your typically condescending liberal nonsense, of course, we know that people like you think that people who do not accept liberal views are stupid and uneducated. We know that’s what liberals think, because the majority of educated people have been brainwashed by the cultural Marxist thought police in the academy, while only a minority of us — those who are more robust in their independence of thought — escaped free from that tyranny of unfree expression.

Maybe you should try to escape from thinking in lockstep with the liberal cabal in the academy and try to think for yourself? Or maybe you’re just not up to that.

Dec 3, 2009 - 10:27 am 134. CommonSense:

novaseeker, it’s hard to reason with someone who sees himself as having “escaped” the opportunity to further his education. By your logic, illiterates are the real independent thinkers.

The problem with “liberal nonsense” is that it gets you thinking that all people are equal, regardless of race, gender, sexuality or religion.

And suddenly, perhaps terrifyingly, being a heterosexual white guy doesn’t make you and better than anyone else. Maybe *you’re* not up to the challenge of finding out what does.

Dec 3, 2009 - 10:53 am 135. C4Cypher:

How can all people be equal when no two people are the same?

I draw the line by trying to judge every single person I meet by the same standards, same expectations, and knowing that I’m no better or worse than them, despite the differences. It’s insane to ignore the differences. At the same time, close minded bigotry begins when we start assigning arbitrary values, even subconciously about different aspects of a person.

I try to meet every new person as a blank slate. There are first impressions, and the human mind works in such a way that it’s impossible to repress certain impressions and prejudices. I try to give a little benefit of the doubt as a result.

The OP was making a snarky, cynical rebuttal to the idea that the modern feminist movement has worked overwelmingly in favor of the female gender. It was very tounge in cheek.

Why am I supposed to be overjoyed at the newfound ‘freedoms’ of a specific section of my society when I am also expected to not distinguish or judge between those sections, be it by race, sex, age or whatever?

I’ve gotten to the point to where I’m willing to question ’scientific studies’ or any other metrics used in an ideological or political debate. What I do know is what I can see around me, and it isn’t pretty.

Things were bad before, we tried to fix it. We got some things right, and we broke a lot of other things. It’s better in that the status quo has been broken, females are no longer the mandatory housewife, the male no longer the mandatory breadwinner. No more white picket fence, no more Pleasantville self deception. But nothing there to take it’s place.

It bears repeating, both sides, male and female are suffering over this, some things are better, some things are worth for both sides. We’re never going to reach a point where evything is fair and everyone is happy. The world doesn’t work that way. We can work to make the best of it.

And please, with the whole conservative vs liberal thing … it’s offtopic, get a room.

Dec 3, 2009 - 11:33 am 136. UncommonSkepticism:

Re: >>novaseeker, it’s hard to reason with someone who sees himself as having “escaped” the opportunity to further his education

CommonSense, you have not shown any attempts at reasoning yourself.

>>The problem with “liberal nonsense” is that it gets you thinking that all people are equal, regardless of race, gender, sexuality or religion.
The problem is different: “liberal nonsense” leads to direct discrimination of “a heterosexual white guy”, but, please, do not presume it has any strength to make any independent thinker to “get thinking”.

People are born equal, but “race, gender, sexuality, religion”, and most importantly, free choices they make, lead to inequality later in life.

As far as “illiterates are the real independent thinkers”. Strange but true sometimes, because “illiterate” is a concept, relative to current cultural fads.
I, for one, am glad to be illiterate in your liberal “studies”. I have a real education instead — Homer, Plato, Descartes, etc…

Dec 3, 2009 - 11:46 am 137. ken in sc:

When I retired from the Air Force, I agreed to do the laundry and grocery shopping, both of which my wife hated to do. I had been doing both of them for most of my life before marrying her and it was no big sacrifice to me. However, she disapproved of the way I washed her underwear. After several heated discussions, I asked her to confer with her female co-workers about how poorly her husband folded her panties. After that, I never had any more complaints. BTW, I enjoy not working and she is passionate in bed. I have no complaints either.

Dec 3, 2009 - 12:45 pm 138. CommonSense:

I can’t say I’m shocked that your “real education” consists exclusively of books by white men.

Here’s a different book list for you:

Zami: A New Spelling of My Name – Audre Lorde
The Bluest Eye – Toni Morrison
The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood

Hardly a comprehensive list of books written by women and people of color, but it’s a start. You’d be surprised at how protective you start to feel of people who are culturally dissimilar to you when you realize how fundamentally similar we are.

Dec 3, 2009 - 12:52 pm 139. Greenverry:

138 Comon Sense: thanks: I’ll stick with Kipling or Gibbon, who still beat the tired screeds pushed on kids and adults nowdays. Do tell: is reading up or down among the population generally? Who do you suspect reads more as a group? (of non-fiction, not PEOPLE or the “iwasoppressed,becamealesbiananda revolutionaryandwhitemenare mean” theme. Do kids like reading more or less today? Do you think the mush pushed on them in school might have somehting to do with it?

Dec 3, 2009 - 3:05 pm 140. Francesca:

A very thought provoking article. One that stimulated a lot of debate – I call that successful. Not every word should be taken seriously, but overall, I think a counter article in the same tone could be written addressed to women. I think Emma and 44. JustWriting should write it.. I thought Justwriting made some great insightful comments. was surprised not to see further discussion of them.

One point I’d like to make. In ages past, women WORKED in the home! When do you all think dish washers and washing machines were invented? There was plenty of things to do, that took up enormous time that are now replaced with shops that do them and technology that makes the jobs faster. Now, it’s hard because there are some things to do at home: raise kids, especially under school aged ones, make dinner. But not enough to keep an adult occupied the entire day. With the age of the computer, working from home and working for mothers I think has greater potential to find a balance. A full time job for both adults in the family with kids is a big burden because they both have to wear a lot of hats. But no second job for the second adult is hard because our economy no longer expects the one income to support two adults and children. So men have also lost out in the income department.

Dec 4, 2009 - 7:18 am 141. Ronnie Schreiber:

The people most responsible for “liberating” women were Elias Howe, Tom Edison, Melville Bissel, W.H. Hoover, Charles Kettering and the like. Men who invented the sewing machine, the washing machine, the vacuum cleaner and other household appliances truly liberated women. Before all those inventions, most women spent most of their time doing manual labor in the home. The invention of all those labor saving devices actually made it possible, for the first time, for women to have leisure time or choose to work outside the home in large numbers, since they didn’t have to spend as much time sewing and washing and cleaning. Kettering’s invention of the electric self-starter gave women personal mobility that they had never known before.

As for today, there’s no question that women have the advantage.

Imagine what would happen today if the husband of a celebrity violated his wife’s privacy and went through her cell phone, discovered evidence of her possible infidelity, then beat her with a golf club, and then leveraged the possible PR fallout into a more advantageous financial settlement.

Funny how Elin Nordegren Woods is a more sympathetic figure than Chris Brown. One is an aggrieved spouse and the other a batterer, eh?

Dec 4, 2009 - 9:27 am 142. Tulsa Jack:

Good grief, so many people unable to recognize a simple parody! Must be Obama voters. The point here, it seems to me, is that so-called Feminists have created a world exactly the opposite of what any mature man wants: a stable, happy home life filled with love, mutual respect, and the joy of children. That is what I, as a man, am willing to work and sacrifice for, becoming the strong, wise husband and father who looks back and sees his life well spent. My family is my pride and hope for the future, starting with my wife. Feminists attack every one of these age-old foundations of our existence. Such women, and the men who humor them, are enemies of good in the world.

Surely women, being human, want the same thing as men. What is wrong with creating a cozy home, nurturing little bright-eyes, and building community spirit? Make a man feel loved and wanted, and you can have it all. But most women don’t dare, or haven’t thought, to question the so-called “liberal” propagandists, those ugly, frigid harpies whose warped misogany turns their foolish acolytes into sex objects and wage slaves.

Abortion and the Pill have unleashed man’s primal sex drive without the natural safeguards that used to protect society from casual infidelity, legions of indigent women, and packs of angry, rootless men-children. But surely most of us want something better than mere animal promiscuity. The good news is that man-hating Feminists breed themselves out of the population, and that we are not helpless. The destructive pathologies that these phonies foster have well-known causes, and we can correct them.

Sex is great, yet true love is better. I am old, with many regrets but more to be thankful for. Please believe Grandpa when I say that a loving family is our highest aspiration, and that if you are fortunate enough to find a soul-mate and create one then happiness and fulfillment will bless your days. There is no other way.

Dec 4, 2009 - 1:27 pm 143. bed whistle:

Wow. What a great article! I couldn’t have put it better myself, but I admit to hashing the concept in my mind.

BTW – RightWingHippyChick – Where have you been all of my life?

Dec 4, 2009 - 1:46 pm 144. blt:

Still, could men live without women? NOPE, you guys couldn’t even survive! Neither could we but heck, we do have some of you going head over heals for us so i say cut the crap and find someone to love, maybe if you give it a try she’ll change your mind a bit and help you grow a pair

God bless y’all! And sorry but yeh, that is what I think

Dec 4, 2009 - 9:40 pm 145. Max:

“maybe if you give it a try she’ll change your mind a bit and help you grow a pair”

Comments like this really irk me, which IMO are part of the problem with society in the first place. Someone posts about how things are going to pot between the genders and men are simply told to ‘man up’, the issue is with us.

Ridiculous! This article was a satire, but as quite a few people already know (and if you don’t read up or simply look out your window) see that gender relations are on a continued downward spiral with no end in sight and society is paying a hefy price. Single mothers are increasing, men as role models are decreasing, and the benefits to men getting married are being completely irradicated by the many very serious and permanent drawbacks which can and will be enforced whether they choose to leave the marriage or not.

I’m actually glad that Feminism came along and gave women more choices, heck, if woman is married to a jackass, I’m happy that she can divorce him and still maintain her lifestyle. However, not every man who gets pilloried at the divorce courts is a jackass and some are billed into oblivion by huge alimony and child support payments which they can no longer afford. More and more nowadays Men are vilified and held responsible for all sorts of issues now, I don’t need to get into it, there are more than enough people here like Toad and Francis Poretto who can enducate the non believer or cynic. This is not a joke, we aren’t simply bitching about run of the mill stuff here.

Mary Madigan had mentioned that maybe men should complain about the ‘apparent’ (it isn’t apparent only to the blind) lack of rights to their closest member of jurisprudence. This is probably a good idea and one we should address, however, I have to wonder how this would go down. As an example, I wonder how many minority interests groups would get their tails in a not if white people started to complain about ‘unfair’ treatment? I’m a minority in North America, I will say this right now, but dollars to donuts says that MANY people would be all over that and this group standing for the rights of whites would be dismissed as negative and worthless. “They are on top, they don’t need help.” is the attitude I’m sure they would be met with. I’m sure men would be viewed the very same way, men are in power, they are never victims, so they don’t need help. Look at women, THEY really have it bad, right?

I’m not saying that women don’t still have a rough go at things in North America, they do, but a woman can cheat on her husband, divorce him, and they STILL have him pay for her lifestyle after the fact. How does this incetivize marriage. Oh yeah, that’s right, guys are simply suppsoed to ’suck it up’ my bad.

This is the problem; there are only two genders on the planet. Just two, and one is saying Hey, we got a problem here, and for the most part it seems to be ignored by the other. As I had seen on a blog from Toad, ladies, it may be a good idea to start listening. Men aren’t simply whistling dixie when they talk about the ‘apparent’ unfairness between the genders. Telling us to ’suck it up’ won’t make the issues go away.

I am completely behind any woman when they say that anything a man can do, a woman can do it better as this was the motto to compete with men in thr workforce, a necessary mantra to be able to get their foot in the door and maintain their position over time. However, women will never be men, and they will never be able to replace the roles fathers provide. Men already know that we can never be women, or replace mothers and we don’t want to. We already know and acknowledge the importance of the role women have, maybe it’s time for women to reciprocate? Why would we ‘man up’ and be role models when you don’t give a tinkers damn and we get judged or punished for it? MEN ARE JUST AS NECESSARY AS WOMEN AND AREN’T INHERENTLY EVIL. This thinking is destroying soceity, if you doubt me, look at the levels of crime associated in single parent households, facts don’t lie.

The lack of good male role models and father’s is crippling this continent and it will not stop until this prevailing attitude that ‘men aren’t necessary, men are evil’ ends. Now we have men who are scared to even coach little league soccer because of the hair tigger fear people harbour about men being sexual deviants.

Good job.

So instead of stepping up to take action, men will stay indiffernt to play it safe. Why ‘man up’ to lose everything you hold dear? This article said that we men won. It’s obviously a joke, we lost, both genders have, and so have our children.

A sign of the times; due to the hair trigger system, there was a man in britain who had driven past a 5 year old girl walking alone on the street. He knew he should have pulled over and found out what was going on, but the fear of what COULD happen to him if he did intervene kept him driving. This 5 year old girl had wandered from her daycare and was found hours later, drown in a nearby body of water. She died becaues a man was too afraid to intervene because he may have been labelled something he wasn’t, and an innocent life was taken due to this ridiculous prevailing attitude we are fostering about men and women.

Sound like fun, don’t worry, I promise you more is on the way.

‘;[ppppppppppppppppp788888888888888888888

Society is in trouble, BIG TROUBLE, and men simply MANNING UP, isn’t going to solve the problem.

Dec 5, 2009 - 12:38 pm 146. UncommonSkepticism:

Re: Max: Society is in trouble, BIG TROUBLE, and men simply MANNING UP, isn’t going to solve the problem.

It actually might solve the problem, if enough men “MAN UP” and just create a new society with new rules. But for this to happen things should get much much worse.
But so far the Hamlet of American Man is still contemplating “To be or not to be…”…

Dec 5, 2009 - 5:36 pm 147. myth buster:

Simple solution- don’t marry a feminist. Let them stew in their anger; I don’t want anything to do with them.

Dec 5, 2009 - 6:37 pm 148. What are you thinking:

Seriously… you all speak of angry and depressed women. Yet I see that you all have some serious issues of your own and do a fare amount of projecting… but as a fellow dude, i can say I am nothing like the rest of you. holy hell…

Dec 5, 2009 - 9:41 pm 149. Jon:

No way have men won the gender war. Things are wildly out of balance.

CHOICE
Although women have far more contraceptive choices than men (men have condoms, abstinence, or invasive surgery), men are deemed at least as responsible as women are when an unwanted pregnancy occurs. However, women have the entire say in whether to get an abortion and have much easier access to adoption or safe-haven abandonment. As a result, when unwanted pregnancies occur, either by accident or when men are lied to about birth control or fertility, women can surrender their parental rights and responsibilities, but men cannot. Choice For Men, as a matter of gender equity and to reduce unwanted births by removing some of the financial incentives for having them, would give men a limited time after being notified of a pregnancy to surrender their parental rights and responsibilities.

PATERNITY FRAUD
Paternity fraud is the false identification of a man as a child’s biological father. The American Association of Blood Banks reports that, out of 300,000 DNA paternity tests performed annually, 30% exclude the man as the biological dad. Over 70% of paternity judgments in L.A. County are obtained by default. (“Examining Child Support Arrears in California; The Collectibility Study,” 3/03, p. 16.) Many of these men are inadequately served or respond late due to language barriers, mental disabilities, fear, or mistaken belief that they do not have to respond because the child is not theirs. They often first learn of a paternity judgment when their wages are attached or their driving privileges are suspended. By then it can be too late. Even if DNA excludes them, they can still be forced to pay support, despite having families of their own to feed. Military men are particular targets of paternity fraud because of the benefits they carry.

In 2004, we helped pass a law to protect paternity fraud victims (AB 252, enacting Family Code § 7646 et seq.). While this law is helpful, it is not enough. Judges still have discretion to force a man to pay even after DNA excludes him as the biological father, and many men still find themselves trapped by the existing two-year deadline to challenge a paternity judgment from the time they “knew or should have known” of it. If they are late by one day, they are locked in with no escape, and courts have no discretion to relieve them. Stronger laws and more public education are needed to combat this problem.

http://www.ncfm.org/?p=247

Dec 6, 2009 - 8:56 pm 150. David:

Am I the only man who finds it deeply demoralizing that of all the things that are open to dispute in the gender wars, the one supposition that rarely suffers the light of criticism is the idea that the only thing men really value is sex? Admittedly, there are plenty of men out there who pursue sex without taking into consideration anything else that makes life worth living, like God, personal integrity, a good family life, the moral fiber of society, the health and well-being of one’s (intended or unintended) children, the whole person of one’s sexual partner. These men do an appalling disservice to the reputation of our sex and are partly responsible for the decline of male credibility and authority in public society. Yet there are men out there who perceive sex as one value among many – more to the point, a value that ought to be considered in light of superior values. There are men out there who understand that just as it is not children who should rule the home, but their parents, it is not one’s sex drive, nor his passions generally, that should rule his person, but one’s reason and will – for these are the rightful “parents” of his internal “household”. (Incidentally, notice that the condition of the internal households of many persons reflects the condition of the homes in which they live or from which they have been estranged.) In other words, there are men out there who seek self-mastery, virtue, integrity – they desire and pursue not wanton sexual pleasure but *chastity* and the proper understanding of one’s sexuality in relation to his whole person. Remember that the Latin word “virtus,” from which we derive our English word “virtue,” meant “manliness.” But we act as though virtuous men don’t exist, or perhaps we don’t know they exist. Instead there is this idea that the whole potential of any man is this: he wants sex, and only sex, and left to his own devices will let the whole rest of the world go to hell – short of opportunities to have more sex. And of course we take it a step further: given that the entire orientation and focus of the masculine person is, without exception, to pursue sex, and that all of his other activities are only ordered to that end, we must arrange the society, in particular the institution of marriage, such that men are required to actively participate in the building of said society before they go to bed with a woman. There’s the argument. And to the extent that we men allow ourselves to be less than what we ought to be, we necessitate the argument’s conclusion. What shocks me is how infrequently men challenge its first premise – namely, that men pretty much just want sex. But we’re better than that. We’re more than brainless hedonists. We are capable of being what we are supposed to be – wholly integrated persons, men of good character, trustworthy and dedicated to the good. We don’t require a rearrangement of the social order to make us act the way we ought. We can and should choose the good of our own volition, of our own *desire*, because women are not the only ones who can truly desire the good. We can be men who understand that sex is dwarfed in its importance by so many other good things, so much so that a man who chose never to have sex could nevertheless be said to have lived a good and worthwhile life. So what I’m saying, in probably too wordy a way, is that we’ve got to stop putting men down, implicitly and explicitly, stop saying in so many ways hidden and exposed that men are moral degenerates who require an elaborate system of positive and negative reinforcements to behave properly. As a man, I’m tired of hearing it, and you, my brothers, should be, too.

Dec 10, 2009 - 12:47 pm 151. UncommonSkepticism:

David: …the idea that the only thing men really value is sex…

David, could this idea be promoted so heavily because the ideology of second and third waves of feminism put a women into position where sex is the only thing she really can offer to a man?

Dec 10, 2009 - 8:41 pm 152. David:

@151

I hadn’t thought of it that way, but I would suggest the second- and third-wave feminists never quite convinced the West that the human person is actually androgynous prior to social conditioning. Methinks most people are fairly comfortable with the idea, for example, that men are innately more aggressive than women, or the idea that women are innately more empathic than men.

Dec 11, 2009 - 10:13 am 153. JohKen:

Oh puh-leeeeezee… just another hackneyed, gender-biased, poke-the-sleeping-giant piece sloppily written behind the safety of a glowing monitor that can’t look you in the eye. In order for us to survive the coming years we have to join together, not point out the line in the sand that was drawn 50 years ago. Trite fodder for a salivating audience. ***yawwwnnnnn***

Dec 12, 2009 - 7:36 am 154. Flake:

This truely is incredible. This is such a ridiculas notion. For a start feminism grew out of a larger movement for working class emancipation.

The gender roles you describe are also more socially installed than biologically. Women can perform equally as well as men in almost every modern career though male domination often prevents them doing so. In many ways women are the superior sex; they judge men on value wheras men judge women on fertility which roughly translates to personality and appearence respectively.

Feminism has been a victory for both genders. And if you think men have ‘won’ you should try talking to the millions of socially inadequate single men in dead-end jobs.

Dec 12, 2009 - 10:00 am 155. Brian:

@154
Flake you are so right about feminism. Thanks to feminism, the Pill, and Game, I can get all the sex I want from women without the penitentiary of marriage. This never would have been possible before feminism. In order to have sex, you had to get married, but thanks to feminism, I can get all the milk for free without buying the cow. Believe it or not, women do turn into cows when they get married.

And Nelson went “HAHAW!”

Feminism is good for so many things because it taught women to act more slutty and to be less discriminating with their womanly wares. 40 years ago, that never would have been possible because they wouldn’t put out as readily as they do now. Thanks to feminism the divorce rate is now at 50%, and with that, boys are now being raised by pathetic, single mothers who tell their wimpy sons to be “nice to girls.” Nothing wrong with that, but when they grow up to be “socially inadequate” wussy beta males who cant attract a feminine woman, they will have to settle for either (barf!) bedraggled cougars, career women, or fatties. This eliminates my competition significantly to get more hotties. And I do.
So I agree with you. Feminism was good. But it was more of a victory for guys like me.

ADDENDUM

Marriage is for losers. If you’re a guy who is thinking about it, I suggest moving to eastern or central Europe where women are more feminine, slim and traditional. Getting married to a western women particularly to an American constitutes a raw deal for men and makes no sense unless you want to lose your house, hair, wallet and sanity. The choice is yours.

Dec 12, 2009 - 3:05 pm 156. Toads:

The article is correct. We stepped aside and convinced them that joining the workforce was glamorous, and that being promiscuous was good.

We actually convinced them that trying to act like men was better than trying to act like women. And women were dumb enough to get duped.

Now, I say we take it to the next level. Since Islam is outbreeded the West, let’s convice women once again that THEY have it bad under ‘right-wing Christian patriarchy’. They are already too PC to say anything about Islam. Let’s get them to agree to total male dominance, much like we got them to agree to all this already.

Dec 27, 2009 - 1:40 am 157. Gabriel:

@Brian
You are absolutely right. I married a beautiful South American woman who is comfortable with a man expressing his masculinity. All of my friends have divorced but us! Only the ones married to (stunningly gorgeous) foreign women are still married. Enough said.

@ blt
Men have been the main force moving all civilizations forward. If it was left only to women, we would still be in the Neolithic.

And this article (apart from carefully crafted) is great! I wish I had 20 years again, too much sex to have nowadays

Jan 8, 2010 - 4:49 am