Women today don’t understand femininity very well. It’s a dirty secret from the patriarchal past, and it’s been mostly successfully scrubbed from our consciousness by gender-bending feminists. This loss is mourned by men, who desperately seek feminine women. At the same time, the denial of biological sex differences has affected them as well, as male behavior and nature is routinely shamed in our culture. The end result of this disastrous social experiment is a masculinized female population and a feminized male population. This is not conducive to happy mating.
Recently, reader Sai expressed her bafflement at what femininity is supposed to look like:
When I spent way too long Googling “how do girls act”/”what are girls like” I knew I had a problem.
I don’t want to completely morph into a touchy-feely mother to all living things. I’m honestly still not sure what I’ll gain from this -the visual component is seriously lacking, which is why I saw no point in being that sort of girl -or even where to start. But I am curious, and I often see gals who don’t like how the sexes currently interact being exhorted to act more girly.
Susan Brownmiller, in her 1984 book Femininity, described it as “whimsy, unpredicability, emotional patterns of thinking and behavior, including tearful expressions of sentiment and fear.” She noted that all of these behaviors lie “outside the established route to success.”
Laura Kipnis wrote in Slate that “Femininity is a system that tries to secure advantages for women, primarily by enhancing their sexual attractiveness to men. It also shores up masculinity through displays of feminine helplessness or deference. But femininity depends on a sense of female inadequacy to perpetuate itself.”
This is what the French call “la difference.” What’s important to note is that both sexes are happiest when women are feminine and men are masculine. Previously, I’ve attempted to describe femininity in all its aspects, but today I want to focus on just one part of it – perhaps the most important part. It has nothing to do with appearance, tone of voice, or mannerisms. We need to shift our way of thinking to acknowledge sex differences, and how the sexes, though different, can complement one another perfectly when we’re honest about the different wants and needs of men and women. In my opinion, this complementarity is a key part of successful relationships and, ultimately, marriage.
Principle #1
Women need men, and men need to be needed.
This is heresy to feminists. In that orthodoxy, the most shameful thing a woman can do is need or become dependent on a man. However, in the ancestral period women could not survive without men. Men provided food, shelter and protection, as well as strategic alliances and genes for offspring. Women were attracted to men who could provide these things, and sought qualities in mates that signaled the ability to accumulate resources and the temperament to share them.
Today, women don’t really need men to provide food and shelter. In large cities, 20-something women make 120% of what their male peers earn. This trend will continue as women represent 60% of college graduates in this country, even though many of those women will not enter high-paying professions.
We do still need men to protect us, however. Despite an increased number of females in the police force and military, there’s a reason why Navy SEALS are male, why men do most of the heavy lifting and building of construction projects, and why men perform the most dangerous jobs in our economy.
Taking it to the personal level, what woman does not love being enveloped by strong male arms in a protective embrace? I rely on my husband to be stoic, strong and efficient in all manner of mini domestic crises. When there’s a hurricane coming, a bat in the house, or strange sounds in the night, he embraces the risk. He mans the grill. He is a rock during the emotional upheavals that occur in all families. He provides for our family.
Not surprisingly, when he acts out his male role in this way, I feel attracted to him. I communicate appreciation, my comfort in depending on him, and express physical affection. Both parties are rewarded, both win. That can’t happen if I refuse to need a man, or refuse to accomodate his need to be needed.
Principle #2
Women want to nurture, and men want to be nurtured.
This too is heresy to feminists, as it supposes that women live to serve men. In fact, women serve male needs for nurturance in the same way that men serve female needs for provisioning. Men and women are happiest when we gladly give and receive what the other has to offer.
If men evolved to provide shelter and food, then women evolved to make that shelter and food experience as pleasing and comfortable as possible. (If you don’t want to cook for a man, you’re missing a great opportunity to nurture your partner and your relationship.) Of course, there are many other ways to do this as well. Caring about a man’s feelings, demonstrating loyalty, and expressing love and desire are all excellent ways to nurture a man.
Female nurturance does not preclude male nurturance, nor does needing a man mean he won’t need you back. Just the opposite is true. When we need and nurture our partners, we become stronger, and we invite them to need and nurture us back.
Long live sex differences.
Needing and nurturing, embraced by women, and freely welcomed by men. That’s one thing we can all do right now to improve our dysfunctional SMP.
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This post really resonated with me.
Question is, since you can’t put that genie back in the bottle, how do you proceed forward?
One enlightened woman at a time. We don’t need to return to pre-feminism. I wrote directly about the way my own marriage functions right now. And I would call it an egalitarian marriage, for the record.
Love the cartoon. Where did you get it?
@ Susan
I have mixed feelings with this post. Frankly, I think the sex differences exist on a spectrum. There are plenty of relatively “masculine” women that many of us men find attractive and prefer.
Basically, you’re correct that women need men and men need women, and that women want to nurture and men want to be nurtured. But the key point is that as you stated, “Female nurturance does not preclude male nurturance, nor does needing a man mean he won’t need you back. Just the opposite is true. When we need and nurture our partners, we become stronger, and we invite them to need and nurture us back.”
The bottom line is that when men we complain about “unfeminine” women, many of us are complaining about the “I don’t need a man” attitude, and the “nurturing is for slaves” attitude that women hold. But when you think about it, feminism has blinded us by making these seem like stereotypical feminine attributes. Needing the opposite sex and wanting to nurture your partner really is something that all human beings should do, regardless of their gender.
Ironically, attempts to promote MGTOW notwithstanding, most men need women, and most men are nurturing to their partners (or unrequited love interests). I don’t think this was any different before feminism.
I dont think that we need to return to prefeminsm either, but as long as women are able to provide for themselves they won’t really need men on an individual level. Men have become more of a want for many women as we can nurture children.
I think I’m going to shoot myself.
True.
This is the part of the problem i tried to mention with the genie being out. Women who don’t depend on a man and can discard him at a whim because the state will give them money or give them government jobs to support themselves will not view men as anything but an accessory to add like a a gucci coach or handbag.
Until the baby rabies kick in.
But just as a lifetime of learning to not depend on (directly) a man and treat them as utility can’t be undone in a day, neither will it be undone the lifetime of being ignored or passed over for decades and choosing to go ones own way and ignore the system and the gnashing of teeth to man up.
It will absolutely be ‘one at a time’ from the ground up. But a whole generation has been lost, with many unseen consequences yet to come.
I dont think that we need to return to prefeminsm either, but as long as women are able to provide for themselves they won’t really need men on an individual level. Men have become more of a want for many women as we can nurture children.
Very true. But this situation is transient because the hooligans that result from most single parent households are the very barbarians that will destroy this society. If it lasts long enough for them to grow up.
The genie is going back into the bottle. The coming financial apocalypse will end the government’s taking over the role as daddy and husband. Men are going to want something in return if they assume the role.
Yes, women do need men. But now its is implied that men must accept how women have changed before the need is dished out. The need has been commodified and men will pander…but only up to a point. For example, a man will forfeit a woman’s desire for slut acceptance and be quite alright with her not delivering a need for marriage
“Today, women don’t really need men to provide food and shelter. In large cities, 20-something women make 120% of what their male peers earn.”
“I dont think that we need to return to prefeminsm either, but as long as women are able to provide for themselves they won’t really need men on an individual level. Men have become more of a want for many women as we can nurture children.”
I think both of these statements miss the basic function of male-female relationships for practically all of human history: efficient reproduction and child-rearing. The current state of technology and the economy enables single women to earn money as easily as single men, but that dynamic changes dramatically when you look at having children. Child-bearing is an enormous bio-economic disadvantage for women, and that disadvantage is further amplified by the female desire to spend time with her children.
The only way that single mothers are able to continue working anywhere close to on par with single men is through state subsidization (i.e. husband replacement): mandatory maternity leave, welfare, food stamps, government sponsored daycare, etc.
So it’s not that women don’t need men to provide anymore–at least to the extent that women are interested in children, as most are–it’s that the government is stealing or prohibiting male bargaining power through taxation or regulation and substituting itself in that role. The MGTOW movement serves a few roles, but one of them is as the natural response of men who are waking up to this injustice and reacting by rejecting the life-sucking, soul-crushing work required to make enormous amounts of money to become an attractive mate, and living more simply and cheaply. Not that all MGTOWs live on the cheap, but a great example of this is the soushoku danshi phenomenon in Japan.
What Ransom saw at that moment was the real meaning of gender.
Everyone must sometimes have wondered why in nearly all tongues certain inanimate objects are masculine and others feminine. What is masculine about a mountain or feminine about certain trees? Ransom has cured me of believing that this is a purely morphological phenomenon, depending on the form of the word.
Still less is gender an imaginative extension of sex. Our ancestors did not make mountains masculine because they projected male characteristics into them. The real process is the reverse. Gender is a reality, and a more fundamental reality than sex. Sex is, in fact, merely the organic adaptation to organic life of a fundamental polarity which divides all created beings.
Female sex is simply one of the things that have feminine gender; there are many others, and Masculine and Feminine meet us on planes of reality where male and female would be simply meaningless. Masculine is not attenuated male, nor feminine attenuated female. On the contrary, the male and female of organic creatures are rather faint and blurred reflections of masculine and feminine. Their reproductive functions, their differences in strength and size, partly exhibit, but partly also confuse and misrepresent, the real polarity.
CS Lewis Perelandra
Mark me down as a gender essentialist, (and a Platonist to boot, if you like). I for one am tired beyond reason of trying to stretch to include more and more distant outliers; non-cis-women, butch sissyboys, lesbians in male bodies, what have you. I’m sorry you’re so fvcked up, but it isn’t my fault.
“state subsidization (i.e. husband replacement)”
Its merely a dependency shift that takes away a man’s financial agency and his ability to directly influence the next generation
“I’m sorry you’re so fvcked up, but it isn’t my fault.”
that’s the basic issue I think. Men (MRAs, MGTOW, PUAs) are getting tired of the endless wave of blame for every single thing wrong with society; men bad, women good – we get the frigging message.
We just don’t believe that BS any more, because feminists have pushed it too far, they just wouldn’t / couldn’t stop the female-victim bus when it stopped being true (decades ago).
The level of lies about some fabled ‘patriarchy’ / ‘rape culture’ that exists and screws all women over, but you just can’t show any evidence of it…it just isn’t credible any more. Lies about women earning 77 cents on the dollar were debunked decades ago, but we still hear that carp. Same as 1 in 4 women being raped – BS.
And the internet is passing the red-pill round at an unprecedented rate. Add in the economy and the party is over radfems. Let’s get back to men and women being what they are (and there are masculine women and feminine men – that’s fine, just be yourself) enough with the BS.
That’s what MGTOW (c.f. soushoku danshi) is; do what you want society, but count me out as far as I can make possible. I don’t care about ‘man up’ and ‘male duties’ or funding BS with my taxes…enough.
It’s spreading, as are MRA memes (and I don’t care if you believe me, check out AVFM (AVoiceForMen) then (a year ago at most) and now for the change in optimisim, tone and reports on reality). E.g. Vladek Filler’s prosecuter being up for unprofessional behaviour for allegations of persecuting him for D.V. beyond all the evidence and reality, is a fine example. The wife has documented mental issues, he was given custody of the children, and still Mary Kellett is trying to lock him up.
Great post aimed at freeing men and women from feminist defined roles and lies Susan (IMHO).
This “women don’t need men” movement is taking us in a very, very dangerous place. Because the logical response for men is then to walk away from any out-of-wedlock or unwanted kids. If women claim they don’t need us to raise kids, why invest the time and effort to do so? It’s tit for tat. Look at the statistics, however, and it becomes clear that single moms aren’t exactly crushing it these days.
@ Starviolet:
“I dont think that we need to return to prefeminsm either, but as long as women are able to provide for themselves they won’t really need men on an individual level. Men have become more of a want for many women as we can nurture children.”
If you don’t need a man . . . don’t worry. You won’t get one.
That’s the truth. My MIL is a hypercompetent woman, a success in business and her social life . . . and she’s utterly incapable of having a functioning heterosexual relationship because her hypercompetence and “I don’t need a man!” attitude destroy every relationship she’s ever been in.
Which means that no matter how much she wants a man, she can’t have one because she doesn’t need one. And she’d be mortified if she actually needed one.
Also, I think it’s HY-sterical that feminism is so quick to abandon masculinity and femininity, when the very economic process that makes feminism even possible — industrialization — was created by and is sustained by men. Women CANNOT sustain the world without us — everything from taxes to tampon delivery requires the assistance of men, or civilization falls back to the Agricultural Age.
Y’know . . . where we got the Patriarchy?
You can’t put the genie back in the bottle, true. But you can loudly and clearly insist that you won’t knock the genie up and let her emotionally abuse you. If American women don’t need men, then the logical answer (for men) is to not marry them in preference for bachelorhood or foreign brides. When the whole world is your feminine oyster, why the hell would you settle for what an American corporate drone has to offer . . . when there are millions of Latin and Asian girls (not to mention East Europeans) who are happy to put up with the tepid sexual demands of American men as the price for enjoying American civilization and benefits.
Let the feminist spinsters spin themselves into obscurity — strong, independent, and alone.
I found a few passages in Hannah Rosin’s new book that cover themes that are no doubt familiar to HUS readers:
“These days, the problem in the mating market is caused not by women’s eternal frailty but by their new dominance. In a world where women are better educated than men and outearning them in their twenties, dating becomes complicated. Men are divided into what the college girls call the players (a smaller group) and the losers (a much larger group), and the women are left fighting for small spoils. The players are in high demand and hard to pin down. The losers are not all that enticing…
“…Now women no longer need men for financial security and social influence. They can achieve those things by themselves. So they have no urgent incentive to keep the price of sex high. The result is that sex, by the terms of sexual economics, is cheap, bargain-basement cheap, and a lot more people can have it…
“…(re: Guttentag-Secord) In societies with more women, men have a candy-store attitude. They want the Twizzlers and the Jujubes. They become promiscuous, and can’t be relied on to settle down…when sex is cheap, something funny happens to men. More of them turn into what Mark Regnerus calls ‘free agents.’ They sleep with as many women as possible, essentially because they can. They become allergic to monogamy. ‘What motivation exists for men to be anything besides the stereotypic ”take what you can get” kind of man?’ asks Regnerus in ‘Premarital Sex in America.’ ‘Not a lot.’
“…Katie, one of the interviewees in Regnerus’s book, summarizes her experience in the new marketplace thus: ‘I felt like I was dating his dick.’”
The feminists keep spinning that men are scared of strong (confrontational) women, I don’t think that ‘we’ are, ‘we’ just don’t find them attractive on the whole.
I like feminine women, but not weak ones. Ball-busters are not attractive at all to me, who needs a competition at home? especially as I don’t think that they actually want to win. What a pain in the arse, pointless, waste of time and effort – do they seriously not understand that? or is it just more convenient to fluff the hamster of women, than face the truth; men are not all the same, but they won’t be told what they want by others…they want what they want; low-N, loving, honest women. So, not ball-busting, confrontational, masculine women (on the whole) YMMV – and I have zero problem with that, just don’t lie to women about tricking men into wanting hi-N butch women – because we don’t…
Remember bbsezmore’s femininity challenge?
The links can be found here:
https://theprivateman.wordpress.com/2012/06/25/woman-up-re-visited/
@ Just1X
Exactly. We aren’t scared of strong women. We just don’t like hyperaggressive women (who would be alpha males if they had a y chromosome).
Most beta males I know would be happy with someone of equal confidence and niceness to themselves…
@ Ian ironwood
I’ve been married for a while now. I don’t think that men can sustain the world without women either, but I was speaking about men and women on an individual level.
Men are great at protecting and providing, but now that the world is not such a dangerous place and women can support themselves a lot of women want men to meet more of their emotional needs. Men aren’t made for and generally aren’t great at that and then women get dissatisfied and wonder why they are bothering. Meanwhile the things that men need from women haven’t changed. Kind of unfair.
I had a women tell me this:
“Women want a man that is better than them. Stronger, honorable,with dominance and leadership. Some one we can look up too.
“But so do men, in a complimentary way. Someone who is better than them. More cheerful, kinder, patient,loyal,graceful,nurturing, spiritual/religious.”
Doesn’t sound like too bad of a definition.
@INTJ
amen brother, it’s all good as long as the two individuals want what they have. Do what you want, just don’t lie to people about what they should want, or what the other will put up with – that’s what annoys me, deceiving people into things that they don’t want, or won’t get.
“I dont think that we need to return to prefeminsm either, but as long as women are able to provide for themselves they won’t really need men on an individual level. Men have become more of a want for many women as we can nurture children.”
It is funny, I was having this exact conversation with friends about a week ago; I pointed out how ridiculous it is that we break-up political issues into segments when they are in fact deeply interconnected. The example I used was women’s “reproductive rights” and the welfare state. So much of the growth of the (direct) welfare state over the last forty years has been driven by single mothers and their progeny. I argued how can woman on one hand claim they have absolute control over their bodies and can have sex with whomever they chooses; whenever they choose; wherever they choose; and have unilateral right to decide whether or not to keep or abort the child; and still claim they have a right to a social safety net to ameliorate the consequences of their actions? This is not Saudi Arabia, in the West sex is controlled by woman and they can form a relationship with any willing man they chooses; that being the case should they not bear the consequence of their actions? It must be one or other, either woman have control of their body and bear all consequences of their decisions or we have an extreme patriarchy in which society cares for or forces the man in question to care for abandoned woman as the woman had no choice in the matter. There are so many people jumping on this “Man Up” movement, but no one gives women the simplest and most direct advice; chooses carefully and don’t have sex with douchebags. I’m not saying we need to start importing Saudi morality police, but we might want to at least look at their training manuals.
@Starviolet
maybe if taxes weren’t a net transfer of cash from men to women
maybe if artificial quotas weren’t enforced on sex / race / whatever
maybe if the state hired on merit not on P.R. but on ability to do the job
maybe if the state concentrated on productive jobs, not just ‘organisational’ ‘paper pushing’ non-jobs
maybe then independence from worthless men that is truly earned will not be quite so easily achieved as you seem to think
When the quantitative easing is halted, and budgets are balanced…what happens then?
@ Sai
So reading about your red-pill overdose and your question about being girly, I don’t think you have to worry much.
You’re one of those girls who truly is “just one of the guys”. But the important thing is that you empathize with guys and don’t have the entitled “me first” attitude that feminists with faux confidence do.
I suggest you hang out in academically nerdy circles with high male-female ratios. Try video-gaming, D&D, public science lectures, etc. Obviously, looks are a factor in ease of getting a relationship, but they aren’t nearly as big a deal for nerdy guys. Keep a healthy weight (you don’t have to starve yourself model-thin, but exercise and eat healthy foods to keep from being overweight), and maybe sometimes wear a very mild perfume so you seem more feminine. Oh and most nerds when they see a fellow nerd girl think “there’s a dozen other guys here and she’s the only girl, so what are the chances she’s going to like me in particular?” and not bother telling her they like her. So it’s important that you show a bit of interest in a particular guy whom you like (as simple as spending more time with him than others). Some guys are still numbskulls and won’t know you’re interested in them until you hit them on the head with a club and drag them back to your cave, but most will take the hint and try telling you if they’re also interested.
@Passer By
Found it in Google images.
If you want to swipe it, just right click and save it.
I will not accept the feminist explanation of feminity. It is half the equation and not the reality.
Females is both helplessness and strength. Men cannot be there all the time to help and protect them. When I’m at work, I cannot do anything to help her. Same with her, she cannot nurture me when she is at work or caring for the kids. You can’t be there all the time. You have to use all available resources.
The problem with feminism is the denial of helplessness. You have to want to divide and conquer. You have to put yourself out there 100%. The 50-50 division of labor isn’t true. The best thing is the realize that women and men are better at things based on who they are.
Women find men’s needs to be annoying. Men are to be tolerated. Women are not nurturing especially when they want the men to nurture them via pampering. Men are not spa masseurs. Since women will not fulfill their roles as men prefer, men are unable return the favor. Men are not selfless. They need validation to give validation.
Women are unhappy since their expectations are beyond anything that men can fulfill.
But if you do those things on this list too early, you’re perceived as a stage 5 clinger.
So what is it? That goes for the same post you wrote earlier: http://www.hookingupsmart.com/2012/08/09/relationshipstrategies/25-politically-incorrect-but-effective-ways-to-make-him-your-boyfriend/
I’m confused with these rules, roles and tips. I find men confusing, and the dating scene completely strange.
Quite frankly, I’m tired with it all and I’m not even 25 yet.
@Sai – INTJ is speaking sense imho…and keep it positive…and use Susan’s list form the older post…it’s all good
@CanadianF
actually most men who read the list thought that it was good (for women). Desperation is not good (as you say). There’s a balance to be struck, but trust the list…
best of luck
I still struggle with being “feminine”, but I have been making a genuine effort to grow in that area.
One of the scariest moments for me recently was being emotionally vulnerable with the man I’ve been dating. I literally felt nauseous and broke out in a cold sweat before doing so. Being vulnerable around a man felt so unnatural to me. I instinctively wanted to keep my guard up around him, but I decided to show him the softer side of myself. Afterwards, I could tell that he appreciated seeing that side of me, and I sincerely believe that it strengthened our bond.
It’s been much harder for me to embrace my feminine side than I thought it would be.
@BB
Those are great excerpts. I need to read that book asap.
@Just1X
True, it’s all shit testing. To win is to lose.
Contra to what many others profess, I do think there’s plenty of high-quality realist women out there, the problem is they’re all in long-term relationships and rarely leave them. I know, because they’re the women with confidence and I flirt with them all the time only to become crestfallen when they reveal their status or make an awkward exit when they realize what’s going on. Of course, sometimes women lie about their status to get rid of a suitor but experience says they’re usually honest (or more so when I’ve thought women have lied to be in the past, they generally haven’t).
@HerrKaiser
Would you be willing to amend that to “almost no one?”
I loathe this man up and end of men stuff. I’m interesting in discussing why males are not thriving – this is a catastrophic problem which will only get worse. Why do people assume that a whole generation of males just got too lazy to go to college? Why are intelligent people not connecting the dots, which show a clear path from feminism to male decline? They wanted equity, and they got it long ago. When are we going to admit they are dangerously close to achieving a malignant form of female supremacy?
Just X1,
You still seem to want a welfare state in which the government is the majority (or at least a significant) employer in the country. What is wrong with the private sector? It is true that a majority of the jobs woman have found to free themselves of the need for male support are often in the public sector (or linked to it like health care). If we look at first world countries with healthy economies (and at this point there are very few) where the bulk of employment is in the private sector and they have hung on to their manufacturing base, we see that family dynamics have largely remained traditional and female labor force participants is quite low.
Point taken Susan; but the decline in male achievement can all be explained by time preference. The middle class outlook has long been under attack in the West and Americans generally have low time preferences; couples those factors with the fact that men will do whatever it is that seem to attract woman and our current predicament becomes inevitable.
Men think back to your 14 year old self and answer the question; if you were given the choice between A or B which would have you chosen?
A. You become a douchebag; cover your body in tattoos, wear diamond studs or stretch your ear lobes out to size of a saucer plate; spend all of your time socializing, going to parties, and drinking and using recreational drugs. In exchange, for the next twenty years you will be able to unlimited access to cheap and easy sex with attractive woman. Some woman will do all the work of chasing you; they may even support you, give you money, and pay your bills. However, at the end of those twenty years, you will have a dead-end job living pay check to pay check and possibly some child support payment to make. By the time you are forty, woman will no longer be interested in you, you will have no career options, and you will be lucking to get a “high N woman” with multiple children (possibly by multiple fathers).
B. You become “clean cut”, you don’t get tattoos or piercing, you focus on academics and personal achievement. For the next twenty years you will be ignored by your peers; you will not attend the “cool” socials events, woman will look pass you, and when a woman notices you, she will be on the lower end of the attractiveness spectrum. However, at the end of twenty years with your career success and income generation, you will have unlimited access to woman. Woman, particular those who have been burned by bad boys, will chase you. You will be able to date any woman and as many woman you please, to select from a wide range of woman, and have the relationship all on your terms. Your status and ability will not start to fade until you hit your early 60s.
I don’t know how a fish needs a bicycle, but I really can’t imagine how a bicycle could need another bicycle.
By mimicking the objects of their attraction, the species flourising in modern western civilization, the assertive and aggressive girls and the sweet and sensitive boys have doomed themselves to frustration.
“It’s been much harder for me to embrace my feminine side than I thought it would be.”
It’s because you’ve been taught that femininity is weak and should be avoided.
There’s a Red Pill for men to unplug from the matrix. Perhaps women need their own type of pill. Pink pill? Oh, that’s too easy.
@ CanadianF
It’s a valid concern. The important thing is to ramp up the attention you show to the guy slowly, but to act inviting in the meantime. Show the guy that you like him and are open to a good relationship with him, but give him space so he doesn’t feel like things are moving too quickly.
But I’m 21, have barely started looking for a relationship, and am already tired with it all.
Mrs. Walsh,
Unfortunately I’ve become addicted to the darkness that permeates a peculiar ghetto of the internet with which I’m sure you’re familiar.
Too many horror stories fueling my daily two minutes hate have been poisoning my mind and heart. I’m well on my way to becoming one of those resigned fellas going his own way. Like so many spheres of the leading political oriented media that have become so divisive, these MRA and PUA folks thrive by feeding our appetite for indignation. Doubtlessly the more scandalous page-view fixated feminist opinion leaders are doing the same kind of work but just in their own segment of the outrage-provocation media complex. Probably I should just withdraw cold turkey.
But how can I replace my insatiable appetite for outrage and hate with something more constructive and humane; faith, hope and love perhaps?
Sure there are plenty of dangerous cold-hearted carousel-riding monsters out there, but how do I keep at the center of my mind that there are also some poor sweet things who might just be lonely and waiting by their telephones.
I really like the hopeful spirit of your message in general. Maybe you have a handy reading list to keep our sad little lonely hearts warm in this wicked cold modern world of ours?
(Sorry if this is not entirely germane to today’s post)
“Men are divided into what the college girls call the players (a smaller group) and the losers (a much larger group) ”
The harem theory is now fact
@Susan Walsh
The history person in me likes this post, because it’s true.
If women are earning 120% of what men earn, is this the new ’77 cents-for-each-dollar’ and if it is how can we help fix things for men?
@INTJ
Ironically, I used to dream about meeting guys at conventions… Now, men! The good news for you is that you can meet gorgeous girls at these events. Lots of middle- and high-schoolers are here, but so are some college students and older. Nobody’s been anything but kind as far as I’ve seen/experienced so I don’t think you’ll get the same nasty attitude you encounter in other places. (Probably a handful of witches in there someplace though.)
I know I keep saying thanks, but I mean it. I appreciate your input. I’ll just try to work on being more nurturing-
Cooking? Yeah, food rules!
Sex? Yes! With only him? I’ve been told doing otherwise messes up my brain.
The deeper, warmer, more serene/charming parts: …well, there are renovations, time-table changes, please stay on the line -*ahem* I am and will always be your wife. Have another cookie.
(that’s how I know it’s time to sleep)
@Thin-Skinned
I had my own manosphere panic attack yesterday. I was told to just step away for a little while and I’d feel OK again.
@HerrKaiser
death to big government, if that answers your question…
“Woman, particular those who have been burned by bad boys, will chase you”
Sounds fun but Mr B should not commit to any bad boy burned bed banger and when the time is right experiment with his passport
@Thin-skinned
“But how can I replace my insatiable appetite for outrage and hate with something more constructive and humane; faith, hope and love perhaps?”
stick around here and only look elsewhere when you’re in a good state of mind. it’s what I did and do (FWIW) – welcome, it is different here.
“Susan Brownmiller, in her 1984 book Femininity, described it as “whimsy, unpredicability, emotional patterns of thinking and behavior, including tearful expressions of sentiment and fear.” She noted that all of these behaviors lie “outside the established route to success.”
I disagree.
Some of you must’ve heard of the great ancient philosophical text The Bhagavad Gita. In it the god Krishna (representing the all expansive brahman or sum total and source of existence all existence, in other words, the Alpha and Omega) says;
“Of feminine attributes I am fame, beauty, fine speech, memory, intelligence, fortitude and forgiveness.”
BG 10.34
In that tradition this is considered “femininity”.
Here are the pics of Hope’s and hubby’s Aidan, so cute.
http://www.rosehope.com/welcome-baby-aidan/
@JustX1
From an employment stand point, the expansion of big government (and by extension government jobs) has been used as a stop gap measure to provide jobs to persons dislocated after the loss of America’s industrial base (circa 1979). The greatest increase on a state and local level has been in the number of teachers (jobs going to women) and police/ fire fighter (largely going to white men). In fact, in California the cost of teacher’s salaries alone accounts for roughly 31% of the state budget and the pension cost of retired police and firefighters has been the cause of a number of municipal bankruptcies. In San Bernardino, which just filed bankruptcy, 75% (of which 80% was compensation) of the general fund went to the police and fire departments. On the federal level, the majority of newly created government jobs have been in the health care sector via Medicaid and Medicare (going to women), which is the single largest item in the federal budget; but we must not discount all those men working for defense contractors.
http://www.city-journal.org/2012/cjc0718jr.html
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=1258
Yes, women and men need each other but I think men need women more.
I know I get my emotional needs met through a variety of ways when I’m not in a relationship with a man, but I’ve noticed men don’t get them met to the same extent women do through other avenues like family and friends.
I think men get lonelier.
“You become “clean cut”, you don’t get tattoos or piercing, you focus on academics and personal achievement. For the next twenty years you will be ignored by your peers; you will not attend the “cool” socials events, woman will look pass you, and when a woman notices you, she will be on the lower end of the attractiveness spectrum. However, at the end of twenty years with your career success and income generation, you will have unlimited access to woman. Woman, particular those who have been burned by bad boys, will chase you. You will be able to date any woman and as many woman you please, to select from a wide range of woman, and have the relationship all on your terms. Your status and ability will not start to fade until you hit your early 60s.”
Technically I have just reached the point where this stage starts to work in my favor. But my female contemporaries are still chasing the thugs in search of their secret ex-con tattooed millionaire provider males who can get any woman but only want her.
I observe and laugh.
“You become “clean cut”, you don’t get tattoos or piercing, you focus on academics and personal achievement. For the next twenty years you will be ignored by your peers; you will not attend the “cool” socials events, woman will look pass you, and when a woman notices you, she will be on the lower end of the attractiveness spectrum.”
Why either/or?
How about being tattoo free, academically focused AND hot?
Focus on your academics but put aside some time daily for exercise. Eat right. Cut your hair, or grow it, in a style that frames and compliments your facial features. Dress attractively. Hang out, but at places that are good for you AND where healthy women hang – hello yoga studios!
You can excel academically AND attract women this way. And you might just attract another academically excellent woman.
INTJ, “I think I’m going to shoot myself.”
Again, I ask what is your issue exactly. As a South Asian American you have the best of both worlds – you can dabble in dating and if you never meet “the one”, you can fall back on arranged marriage, like the rest of us SA-As are doing. Its a win/win. Take advantage!
According to marriage whisperer Hedy Schleifer, marriage isn’t about “needing” each other for material gain, but has a higher mission, hence if your wife doesn’t “need” your money or whatever, its ok;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDUgCC8F668&feature=plcp
@ Bob Wallace
“Women want a man that is better than them. Stronger, honorable,with dominance and leadership. Some one we can look up too.
“But so do men, in a complimentary way. Someone who is better than them. More cheerful, kinder, patient,loyal,graceful,nurturing, spiritual/religious.”
I love that Bob. It rings very true to me.
It’s always made me feel very sad when I hear people saying things about the ‘end of men’. I hate to think that men would hear those things and believe them. Please don’t. Women will always need men like a flower needs sunlight.. there is something deep and unwavering inside of us that yearns for the companionship of a man – their strength, their rationality, their protection, their invaluable way of seeing the world. Women who don’t appreciate men have a problem; life has made them fearful.
On women sleeping around: I think women who continually give their bodies to many men have lost touch with their worth. They are unhappy, emotionally insecure.. searching for validation through sex. Many will deny it because they haven’t done the work on themselves to know why they do what they do. But you cannot get angry with these women for that .. they are damaging themselves first and foremost, even if they don’t realise. A lack of self-love is rife among young, modern women – its a reflection of our culture. And those women who are “ball-busting” and competitive = pure fear. They put up a front because they are so frightened of being vulnerable.
This might not resonate with everyone, but I truly believe if we brought some spirit/sacredness back into sex.. if we saw it as a special exchange of energy, then no one would settle for the ‘junk food’ sex of the casual variety. It wouldn’t fulfil them. Its because culturally we have reduced sex to a mechanical thing, it’s been sucked dry of all its beauty and inspiration. The ancient cultures knew of the immense power of sex (it’s sacred, life-enhancing and also medicinal properties).
Back on topic and in conclusion, both men and women need each other equally.
@ Plain Jane
If women don’t need men as much then why bother with relationships in the first place?
@PJ
“I think men get lonelier.”
I would say the stats bear this out, but most of the young men I know have absolutely zero motivation to get into relationships. In contrast, the young women I know seem to talk extensively about guys they want to date, go on dates, etc.
Most of the guys I knew at university also did not have boyfriends, but the girls searched high and low to find guys.
For some reason, guys are not motivated at all to find girls.
I honestly can’t blame them, though, most of the girls I know…ugh…
Canadian F:
“I’m confused with these rules, roles and tips. I find men confusing, and the dating scene completely strange.
Quite frankly, I’m tired with it all and I’m not even 25 yet.”
Tell me about it! I teach yoga and meditation at a resort and once a month they have the local area singles meet there and its all I can do to keep from vomiting. I have to walk through the poolside bar area to get to my teaching space. Seriously, I don’t know how people do it, especially half-way intelligent people.
Susan, I posted here the televised debate on whether or not men are finished. Did you watch it? Here it is again;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNINB0tyGI0
My observation is that they are not finished, they are just not drinking the kool-aid to the extent their fathers or grandfathers did. As much as I criticize Americans I will say a very good trend I see is that they are becoming less materialistic. So what I think is happening is that men are defining themselves less by what they do and own, such as their jobs and what cars they drive. Hence you will see men less materially motivated and this may look like failing, but its not.
Plain Jane: “Focus on your academics but put aside some time daily for exercise. Eat right. Cut your hair, or grow it, in a style that frames and compliments your facial features. Dress attractively. Hang out, but at places that are good for you AND where healthy women hang – hello yoga studios!”
1. I practiced yoga and meditation for years. I’m clean-cut, polite, and respectful to women. I was generally regarded as an assumed pervert and avoided by women like the plague. Sorry, that’s just poor dating advice.
2. Many women STILL prefer the thugs even over good-looking good guys. Thugs are exciting. Good guys simply can’t compete with the thrill.
Lamia, “This might not resonate with everyone, but I truly believe if we brought some spirit/sacredness back into sex.. if we saw it as a special exchange of energy, then no one would settle for the ‘junk food’ sex of the casual variety.”
I suggested mandatory yoga, meditation and breathwork classes in schools and colleges. Add to that conscious loving classes. Imagine how our culture would excel if instead of “frat parties” co-eds held “meditation parties” or even “eye-gazing parties”.
Eating Cake, I have to ask, what do you look like? Are you handsome? Cute? At least easy on the eyes? Realistically. Because I see this complaint on manosphere blogs that “we are good guys and we did this or that and still women hate us” and then at some point they post their pix and truth be told, they are not good looking at all.
Being nice, conscious, smart, etc is good, but in order for us to be attracted to you there must be a minimum level threshold of looks. Even PUAs will tell you that game cannot trump looks if the looks are below a certain threshold. This is why so much emphasis is put on telling men to get fit and put some effort in the looks deptartment.
Also, if you have any sort of behavioral issues, even subtle, it will be a turn-off.
On the other hand ALL the cute nice yoga guys I know (and I know A LOT) have no problem meeting women. In fact they are in high demand considering the female-male ratio in the yoga scene. But these men are at least a 6 in looks. Again, there’s that minimum threshold.
@PJ
I suggested mandatory yoga, meditation and breathwork classes in schools and colleges. Add to that conscious loving classes. Imagine how our culture would excel if instead of “frat parties” co-eds held “meditation parties” or even “eye-gazing parties”.
Amen.. throw in Tantra classes too.
“my female contemporaries are still chasing the thugs in search of their secret ex-con tattooed millionaire provider males who can get any woman but only want her.”
“women who continually give their bodies to many men have lost touch with their worth. They are unhappy, emotionally insecure.. searching for validation through sex. Many will deny it because they haven’t done the work on themselves to know why they do what they do”
Whats up with the parenting of girls in the US? Are they being raised by women who slept with many men and chased thugs? There is no other plausible explanation.
“Whats up with the parenting of girls in the US? Are they being raised by women who slept with many men and chased thugs? There is no other plausible explanation.”
No, not all. Sometimes kids veer away from the values taught to them by their parents once the reach their teens or young adulthood. Parents can’t be blamed for everything.
Also, with all the complaints about gold diggers and women using men as walking ATMs, you should be glad that women don’t need you for that anymore. Now you can enter into a relationship based on other things than just what you can materially provide us. It enables more growth.
nice post, but i doubt it will sink in. they will collapse society before they realize. then these simple steps will have to become official rules, subject to some penalties. it is the only way they will learn. to bad it is this way.
” veer away”
To unprecedented levels of milking male ejaculate? Something clearly has snapped in the American female psyche. Its all good for men looking for fun with these women…but history has never seen the current intense lack of desire among men to commit to one. The flipped out have met the level headed.
Women are living in a bubble. Their jobs are hinged in government. You need men more than you think. Problem for many of them, you won’t find that out til it’s too late. The next round of QE is going to inflate the money even more. Welcome to Weimar where the Fed is buying the trillion dollar deficits because women are voting for the liberal agenda. Thus in effect, sealing their own destruction.
Your men are leaving the scene. Many bigger cities are operating with billion dollar plus deficits. The federal government is soon approaching a point where the interest on the debt will be a trillion dollars a year. That will never be resolved no matter how high taxes go up. The nation is bleeding off its wealth to sustain the mockery of Marxism where women not only play a huge part of it, but are also huge beneficiaries of it. And when that ship sinks, and it will, the women will go down with it.
“Your men are leaving the scene. Many bigger cities are operating with billion dollar plus deficits. The federal government is soon approaching a point where the interest on the debt will be a trillion dollars a year. That will never be resolved no matter how high taxes go up. The nation is bleeding off its wealth to sustain the mockery of Marxism where women not only play a huge part of it, but are also huge beneficiaries of it. And when that ship sinks, and it will, the women will go down with it.”
It won’t sink. We’ll just start growing our own food again. Its already happening with permaculture, aquaponics, people turning their back and front (illegal in some places!) into organic gardens. Yes, slowly the artificial corporate and government constructs will dismantle, but we will handle it by returning to a simpler way of life.
Afterwards, I could tell that he appreciated seeing that side of me, and I sincerely believe that it strengthened our bond.
It’s been much harder for me to embrace my feminine side than I thought it would be.
Sassy,
First off, congrats. Sounds like you two are off to a great start, and I hope it all goes well.
Secondly, the more you embrace that feminine side, the more it will feel natural to you over time. I guarantee it. You may have some fits and starts, and you’ll have to calibrate but it really is possible to shift in either a more masculine or more feminine direction simply by repeating the desired behaviors over time. I’m speaking from personal experience here. You become what you do.
Good luck.
In large cities, 20-something women make 120% of what their male peers earn. This trend will continue as women represent 60% of college graduates in this country, even though many of those women will not enter high-paying professions.
Susan, I’m glad you pointed this out.
Lies about women earning 77 cents on the dollar were debunked decades ago, but we still hear that carp.
Just 1x, I’ve heard this complete bullshit twice now in the last week or so while watching television. I literally wanted to punch my television screen. The first time was some speaker at the Democratic convention, and then yesterday….I like to watch Piers Morgan (I think he is a great interviewer) but he had Donny Deutsch”Douchebag” subbing for him and they had some interview with women deal with Serena Williams and Suze Orman and he trotted out this bogus statistic like feeding red meat for them all to jump over. I had to change the channel because I was going to puke.
Women want to nurture, and men want to be nurtured.
Regarding men wanting to be nurtured, this is a comment making the rounds in a variety of places. At least to me it is powerful and poignant.
“We want to relax. We want to be open and honest. We want to have a safe haven in which struggle has no place, where we gain strength and rest instead of having it pulled from us. We want to stop being on guard all the time, and have a chance to simply be with someone who can understand our basic humanity without begrudging it. To stop fighting, to stop playing the game, just for a while.
We want to, so badly.
Ooh I love posts on femininity! Thanks for writing this Susan
I must admit that when I first started reading about how guys want girls to be more feminine, I had no idea what they were talking about. So I started doing a little ‘research’ on the topic.
If you’re a girl and want to know how to be more feminine, I’d say have a look at these websites:
http://theprivateman.wordpress.com/2012/06/25/woman-up-re-visited/
About a woman taking up the challenge to be more feminine.
http://dannyfrom504.wordpress.com/detinennui32s-advice/
Read the “to his daughter”, the “Ten Things Women Can Do Right Now to Improve Their Attractiveness” part and the comments.
Bellita’s blog – especially the posts on the book Fascinating Womanhood.
http://bloggingbellita.wordpress.com/
Though I see her blog has now been marked private – I hope it will become public again!
You can read the book Fascinating Womanhood online (for free) at openlibrary.org. The book is old-fashioned and in certain aspects definitely outdated, but it gives you a very clear idea of what a feminine woman is, and, more importantly, HOW to be a more feminine woman. There’s also an interesting blog on the book: http://thefascinatingwoman.blogspot.com/
http://theprivateman.wordpress.com/2011/11/25/woman-up-make-the-man-feel-desired/
Especially the comments – especially those by tvmunson.
http://badgerhut.wordpress.com/2011/04/09/its-ok-to-please-your-man/
Find Deti’s (detinennui32) comment – 10 commandments for women.
And of course all the posts by Susan on femininity.
I also found it helpful to watch old movies with feminine actresses. The end of Susan’s post “the essence of femininity” has a list of such actresses and movies.
Susan, you neglected to mention that a man only wants to be needed by a woman who genuinely needs him. And a man only wants to be nurtured by a woman who genuinely wants to nurture him.
There might be something here to the concept of ‘fake it ’till you make it.’
Even so, there is little that is less rewarding to her man than a woman who feigns need or nurturing.
@ Eating Cake
I don’t know how old you are, but (assuming you are in your late 20s or early 30s) as time passes those woman will give up the chase and think to “settle”; that is where you move in, these are what we call practice girls, don’t ever marry them. Plus, younger women judge older men by completely different standards.
@ Plain Jane
The more money you have the less looks you need; obviously it is good to be the total package, but there is only so many hours in a day, if you’re exercising or hanging out, you are not working, you are trading money for looks and socializing . As for attracting another academic, there are some problems with that idea. If they are both still in college, it is unlikely she will find him all that attractive unless she is very farsighted. On the other hand, once he has entered the working world and becomes a success, the academic achievements of a potential mate is of secondary importance, most important is her beauty and personality.
I’m lucky to have a mom who’s VERY feminine. She ALWAYS wears heels (even if she’s staying at home all day), feminine clothes and make up. She’s very nurturing, sweet and supportive of and ‘submissive’ to my dad – in the best possible sense of the word.
Thanks to her, I’ve become someone who enjoys nurturing other people. When I lived in dorms during my freshers year at uni, I bought fresh fruit and vegetables for my housemates, cooked their dinners if they didn’t have the time to do so, made sure they’d make an appointment with a doctor when not feeling well, cut the hair guys’ hair, etc.
I struggle with other aspects of femininity though. I’ve read somewhere that ‘girl game’ is Vulnerability Game. If feminism taught me anything, it’s not to be vulnerable. Like Sassy stated, it’s surprisingly hard to show weaknesses when you’ve always been taught not to – don’t cry, don’t show anyone when you’re hurt (emotionally), don’t show a guy how much you care for him. At university I meet new guys every week, but I don’t get a lot of dates because I’ve been taught the more you like a guy, the less interest you show. “Play hard to get, if he’s interested and worth it he’ll chase you”. Worst dating advice for girls ever.
Next time I like a guy I’m going to have to be more vulnerable and actually show him that I’m interested. I have a feeling that that is going to be a challenge for me.
Arabs need donkeys. I very much doubt donkeys need to be needed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2KmhEDWDO0
Was this question intended to be serious? The one and only purpose of the Man Up Campaign is to stifle and prevent any debate about feminism, by blaming all societal problems on men, in a rather predictable way I might add. Because to question feminism is to question women’s choices and decisions, and that’s a taboo. Of course nobody is connecting the dots.
Feminist are already admitting that. Watch out for loud declarations of women’s “innate biological superiority to men” in the mainstream media, because they will become more frequent. That’s how radfems will psychologically prepare the populace for their ultimate goal, which is to turn all men into chattel and then exterminate them.
You know everything’s going to Hell when you’re surrounded by idiots like Brownmiller and Kipnis.
@Abbot
“Whats up with the parenting of girls in the US? Are they being raised by women who slept with many men and chased thugs? There is no other plausible explanation.”
Shhhhh! They’ll hear you!
@Jim
“Welcome to Weimar where the Fed is buying the trillion dollar deficits because women are voting for the liberal agenda. Thus in effect, sealing their own destruction.”
If this is Weimar-ripoff now, will we have a Fourth Reich in the near future? This isn’t a nasty/sarcastic question, I’ve heard somebody else predict this for the U.S.
“I think that’s where we’re headed, and we will be happier for it.”
Not I! I like being able to use the bathroom indoors and listen to music and read without groping for a candle. Long live dudes who invent things! (I don’t care if that makes me materialistic or cold. We’ve all got flaws and things to work on, and that’s one of mine.)
It’s hilarious how Plain Jane jumps up and down all the time about the so-called “Rape Culture” victimizing a bunch of college women and then promotes a complete agricultural transformation that would condemn the majority of the current human population to death by starvation.
Michael Savage was right. It’s a mental disorder, not a political ideology.
Herr Krishna,
“The more money you have the less looks you need; obviously it is good to be the total package, but there is only so many hours in a day, if you’re exercising or hanging out, you are not working, you are trading money for looks and socializing .”
We were talking about college students first, not professionals. Nonetheless, veryone, from children to college students to middle aged professionals SHOULD be getting regular exercise for their own health and longevity’s sake.
And everyone should be socializing/hanging out for one’s mental health. I’m not talking about partying, but making some regular connection with other beings of their species.
As far as “The more money you have the less looks you need”… that’s for extremely money driven people, of which the majority of Americans probably don’t fit into that category. Most people value other aspects of life than just money making. I-bankers make a ton of money but they work 18 hours a day and don’t otherwise have a life. Sure, they may be able to attract attractive partners/spouses, but where’s the time to spend with them? Plus, when the cat’s away the mice will play.
Better to lead a more well rounded life and achieve some sort of work/life balance. You and the people around you will be happier in the long run, and the more time you spend with your partner, the less chance she has of cheating on you.
@ms plain jane:
I think this is a good spot to log a few thoughts about the lady.
Ive asked the question before but it bears repeating: why is she here? I ask because to let her tell it, her life isnt necessarily burdened by the predations, real or imagined of the manosphere. Indeed, as ms walsh pointed out, much of the manosphere isnt even here in this forum-so whats her deal?
While quite a few hus regulars have considered her to be little more than a garden variety troll, i take a more nuanced view of ms plain jane; i say shes here because shes a heck of a lot more concerned than she thinks she lets on.
For example, lets take her obsession with the manosphere-and as one who has the bonafides to prove it, i can definitely say that many of her observations about said sphere is accurate: they have within their ranks, racists, weirdos, and out and out losers. But they also have many insightful, deep thinkers on the questions of gender roles, relationships, the idea of mens rights and so on. Often, the loonies and the brilliant overlap. But when has this ever been different?
Although i do see ms walshs point in saying that this forum isnt the manosphere in an attempt to shut ms plain jane down, lets face it: hardly a discussion goes by here without somebody-almost always a female reader-mentioning said sphere. And the reason for why that is has everything to do with what ive noted previously:
Because the chief major aim of the manosphere is for men to be heard in their own voices.
And this is whats really at the heart of ms plain janes interest in the matter. Why?
Because much of what the manosphere says, isnt just “interesting” or “curious” but just downright TRUE-and not the “family court” stuff either. Im talking about the “rpretty lies” stuff that keeps the plain janes and the susan walshes alike, coming back for more. Now to be sure, these two ladies deal with said insights of the manosphere in differing ways. But the fact that both are indeed quite interested in what said sphere says, really says it all to me.
Sure, much of what ms plain jane says is squid ink, more befuddling to herself than anyone else and this again makes sense; women have a tougher time just blantantly dealing with the harsher realities of life than do men although we all know very notable exceptions to this rule on both sides of the gender aisle. Nevertheless the point is made: the manosphere, all its many flaws notwithstanding, has literally rocked ms plain janes world-and she is by no means alone. And that, is most definitely a good thing.
For decades, women have had a virtual monopoly on how, when and even what is discussed, in the ongoing “conversation” regarding the sexes; as bill maher has so eloquently observed, as far as women were concerned, the perscribed male role was to “make women nod”. The manosphere, writ large, is a noted departure from such a “role”; men are, more and more, in just about every quarter, having their voices heard. Sure, some of it-much of it-can and will sound or come off as utterly ridiculous. And just as much can and will make a heck of a lot of sense-even to many women themselves.
I posit that ms plain jane is experiencing a goodly degree of cognitive dissonance; if the manosphere is just whacked, why the need to even mention them at all? I say she does, because as much as she may despise them, she also knows that just a weebit too much of it, strikes very close to home too.
In many ways, ms plain jane and indeed hus itself, is a triumph of the manosphere; both stand as living proof, that men are indeed, being heard.
O.
@Höllenhund
I’ve always thought of her affectionately as a schizoid, eating disordered puppy with diahorrea locked in an apartment with unlimited food (spiked with LSD)…YMMV
“It’s hilarious how Plain Jane jumps up and down all the time about the so-called “Rape Culture” victimizing a bunch of college women ”
In your imagination. I never used the term “rape culture” and I never jumped up and down about it “victimizing a bunch of college women”.
Like Susan I merely pointed out the difference between consensual and non-consensual sex since a few male commenters here were confused over the Trivino case. And I also made it clear I was also against these college committees and in favor of a court of law handling all alleged sexual assault cases.
Reading comprehension much?
This men are needed/men are not needed debate just strikes me as a feminist-conservative pincer movement designed to subjugate men. Whenever a politician starts to babble about how fathers are necessary and important, you can be sure that the screws are about to be tightened on divorced fathers with a new round of anti-male legislation. When some feminist hack boasts on national TV that women no longer need men, you can be sure women are to receive more government subsidies and men’s opportunities in education and employment are to be eroded even further. It’ nothing but a trap.
I wouldn’t worry too much about it. The human race has never had a problem figuring out how to make and replicate itself. Men and women will go on mating for millenia to come.
Sai #81….Weimar….one of the best descriptions of the Weimar era, and how it led to Naziism, was written by Sebastian Haffner, who lived through it all as a young man. I reviewed his memoir at length here:
http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/11181.html
It is more social history than political history, and very personal. I like his thoughts about his first love, a girl who was (oddly enough) nicknamed “Teddy:
“…at a certain stage of life, about the age of twenty, a love affair and the choice of partner affect one’s destiny and character more than at others. For the woman one loves stands for more than just herself; a whole view of the world, a notion of life, and ideal, if you will, but one come alive, made flesh and blood…We all loved her, the bearer of this name, an Austrian girl, slight, honey-blonde, freckled, lithe as a flame…Our circle had a goddess in its midst. The woman who was once Teddy may now be older and more earthbound, and none of us may still live life at the same emotional pitch as then, but that there was once a Teddy and that we established those raptures cannot be taken from us.”
Susan,
“Why do people assume that a whole generation of males just got too lazy to go to college? Why are intelligent people not connecting the dots, which show a clear path from feminism to male decline? They wanted equity, and they got it long ago. When are we going to admit they are dangerously close to achieving a malignant form of female supremacy?”
You once thought my comparison of this stage of the Sexual Revolution to the Napoleonic Age of the French Revolution was an apt one. The Russians defeated Napoleon by destroying their own capitol (Moscow) so that when Napoleon (inevitably) captured it, he couldn’t use it to feed and supply his army.
The second half of War and Peace tells that story (and the stories of people living through it).
No. Look at fertility rates by country. They’re collapsing everywhere. The majority of the human race is already practising voluntary extinction. And demographic implosion is irreversible. We’ve turned into a race of mutants when we invented the means of our own destruction.
“When some feminist hack boasts…you can be sure women are to receive more government subsidies…”
Like this:?
http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2012/08/23/hook_up_culture_women_actually_want_it_and_less_needy_men_too_.html
Lets see, where to start…oh yeah
Subsidized abortions
Subsidized progesterone recreation pills
Subsidized motel rooms
Subsidized psychiatric sessions
Subsidized mandatory temporary boyfriend experience training for men
Subsidized thug makeovers for men
Subsidized pre-rape prep courses
,
Sometimes it’s the most amazing thing to talk to a woman. I’ve had a few good conversations with women. And some of them even managed to break my heart.
Yes, it can be rather amazing in my experience as well. Amazing, that is, in the sense that it’s amazing to behold a two-headed calf.
Sorry Hollenhund but the internet has warped me….
http://cache.ohinternet.com/images/b/be/Ackbar.jpg
PJ..”a definite move in the right direction of smaller, local, more long term sustainable, anti-gmo.”
Dr Patrick Moore on the crime against humanity being perpetrated by those who opposed (genetically-modified) “Golden Rice,” which solves for Vitamin A deficiency…something that leads to 250,000 to 500,000 cases of childhood blindness every year:
http://www.climatedepot.com/a/17410/Former-Greenpeace-cofounder-Dr-Patrick-Moore-rips-Greenpeaces-Crime-Against-Humanity-for-opposing-Golden-Rice-which-can-eliminate-vitamin-A-deficiency
And if you ask PJ why she wnts to impose mandatory yoga on school and college boys and men, she will not own up to her hate of things masculine, but will start talking about some greater good…
“she will not own up to her hate of things masculine”
Next she will berate the universal masculine trait of avoiding promiscuous women as marriage prospects…
.
“impose mandatory yoga on school and college boys and men”
The requirements for mandatory this and mandatory that are crippling America’s institutions, from hospitals to schools. NYC nanny-in-chief Bloomberg, for example, wants to require women who choose not to breastfeed after childbirth to be lectured by nurses on the benefits of breast feeding **every time formula is delivered to them**, and that formula be treated as if it were a controlled substance—must be signed out by a registered nurse rather than an assistant. RNs are a critical resource who often have actual life-and-death tasks to perform.
People who are trying to deliver useful services are finding their jobs made increasingly difficult by the infantilizing mandates endlessly sought by people like PJ and Bloomberg.
@ Abbot
Lol from one of the comments in that Marcotte article. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=H-gfxjAaZg0
@Susas
I’m just catching up here, this morning.
I’m not sure that’s exactly right. Ever see the great movie The Misfits with Marilyn Monroe and Clarke Gable? – His last film. In it, Gable’s character bemoans the death of his way of life, which is best described as self-sufficiency. Everyone’s a “salary-man” now, he complains. Working for somebody else instead of for himself.
The movie is 1961 and is really represents a post-WWII outlook. Feminism has very little (if anything) to do with it. But the message is the same. Masculinity is dead or doomed.
Having worked 30 years as an engineer and contractor, I get it. I’m less self-sufficient than the Marilyn Monroe character. It’s not a pleasant realization, but I was trained to be that way by an extensive public school education.
After yesterday’s happenings in Cairo and Libya, I’m not sure it’s not all falling apart. We’re headed into difficult times. It’s going to be interesting to see who survives and who doesn’t.
I was chatting with a young lady not that long ago, and she said the thing she likes about being with me is I make all of the decisions. She knows that I won’t *ask* her to do anything, but know what I want and demand it from her.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to see that all women are just confused by all of the options they have, and do not want. They don’t want to have to work, they don’t want to have to do the things they are forced to by society. One said she was a doctor because her parents told her that is what she needed to be and do, and doesn’t want to make the life and death decisions she is faced with. And what she likes is I don’t ask her opinions, I just want her to be there and she can just relax and enjoy.
That is what all women want – some fight against it since they are told they should, but it’s all smoke and mirrors. Women are as they have always been – the acted upon… They like it that way. It is as simple as that…
@Plain Jane:
“Just reporting what I see; people returning to organic gardening in their back and front yards (which is illegal in some places!), permaculture, hydroponics, supporting local farms, etc. There’s a definite move in the right direction of smaller, local, more long term sustainable, anti-gmo. Heck if we all had a few acres per family we would need to rely on anyone else for food. Substinence farming used to be a way of life in many regions of the world.
Our population is large now but it will decline soon due to various factors, so its doable. Whatever the case, people are waking up to the horrors of factory pharms and Monsanto’s agenda.
This is pure Blue Pill thinking: it substitutes wishes and ideology for verifiable reality.
Firstly, the idea that you can sustain a human civilization past a certain basic level without large-scale agriculture is inane. Nor is it something that can be done part-time. No matter how good a gardener you are, your two-acre plot is just not going to produce enough food and textiles to sustain your family. And the amount of time you must devote to such a task precludes having any other sort of employment. The “Back to the Land” movement has been going on in America since the 1800s, and even with the bump it got in the 1970s and 1990s it still only appeals to a very small percentage of people who feel peasantry is a better lifestyle than urban post-industrialization. And since the vast majority of Americans currently reside in urban areas, that’s just an untenable situation. There is no large-scale movement of folks from the city to the countryside, and there won’t be.
Subsistence farming is a lousy way to make a living. Consider that a subsistence farmer works from 50-80 hours a week, is heavily dependent upon the cooperation of the weather gods, and he still usually has to trade for things like clothes and shoes. Subsistence farming leads to the Agricultural Age practice of ensuring inheritance (acreage) through lineal descent, which turns daughters into pawns and chattel. Subsistence farming requires animal husbandry, which puts you at the mercy of the animal gods. If the goat gets sick, you’re screwed. If your plough horse dies, you’re screwed. If you can’t manage to bring in a harvest large enough to ensure your offspring will survive the winter, have sufficient seed to plant in the spring, and then have a back-up surplus in case there’s a problem, you have no food security and you’re (you guessed it) screwed.
Oh, you’ll just use a tractor and cultivator to do the hard stuff? Sorry, Cupcake, that’s industrial civilization, which you have eschewed.
So how is this population going to decline peacefully and gradually? It won’t be by going back to the land. Subsistence farming encourages the growth of large families due to high infant mortality and the need for brute-force labor (no industrial equipment, remember?). So the population will expand just past the land’s ability to provide food, keeping the subsistence farming population at the brink of poverty and starvation indefinitely. If you want to shrink the population, then the model that does that is (surprise) industrial and post-industrial civilization. Subsistence farmers have an average of 8 kids or so. Industrial folks have an average of 3.5, and post-industrial folks have an average of 1.7 or thereabouts.
But you can’t have industrial civilization without industrial agriculture and industrial medicine. That’s like depending on the “endless bounty of the ocean” to feed the masses, like they told everyone it was going to be in the 1960s. Now we’ve fished the oceans near dry. Small-scale agriculture is horrible on topsoil conservation and depletes the soil rapidly without an intense amount of chemical intervention — and yes, that includes organic fertilizers. Organic and local produce is a nice affectation, but you can’t run a civilization on it. To believe otherwise is intellectually dishonest.
And people aren’t going to quit having a lot of kids if kids are their only social security. Because social security and other welfare nets are only possible for a culture when they reap the benefits and economic surpluses implicit in industrial civilization. Those models just don’t work for agricultural societies. Socially oppressive theocracy works, but …
This is the same sort of argument that my progressive friends try to make about mass-transit in America: “Europe does it, we should be able to do it”, without recognizing as an important detail that our population density and patterns are far, far different from Europe’s, and cannot be dealt with the same way. You can’t “bike to work” when your job is air conditioning repair, for instance, and you’re in a truck all day. You can’t relocate your house every time you change a job because it’s within walking distance, or use your job to determine where you live with any sense of security. America is set up with the infrastructure it has, and only a massive change in technology and economy (and we’re already recovering from one) is going to affect that. And the only kind of change that would lead us to subsistence farming would be the kind of brutal catastrophic change that would see us returning to the worst of the Dark Ages.
@ Sai
Yesterday our computational physics teacher said that Germany has two options to deal with the European crisis – spend a lot of money bailing out the Euro, or start World War III. The former option is obviously a lot less costly. They tried the economic path at the end of the 19th century. They woke up and noticed that while the Bavarians, Prussians, etc. were busy killing each other, the English, French, etc. had been busy killing Americans, Africans, and Asians to build colonies. Instead of competing for colonies, the Germans tried scientific research, which allowed them to catch up to the colonial powers. Then they tried to build a navy to counter the British naval dominance, which resulted in a World War, which Germany lost. They tried a colonial grab of their own again and it turned into World War II, which they lost again. However, my professer said hope springs eternal, and you never know what they might try again.
In all seriousness, as I mentioned in the other thread while I think fascism could be a serious threat down the road, I don’t think we’ll end up with it. Granted, my perspective is somewhat skewed by the fact that I’ve lived in highly multiracial environments for quite some time now.
Lovely post, Susan, thank you for writing it.
Just1X,
“I’ve always thought of her affectionately as a schizoid, eating disordered puppy with diahorrea locked in an apartment with unlimited food (spiked with LSD)”
That’s how I’ve always thought of her too! Perhaps we’re onto something.
As I age, I plan on building a houseboat/viking burial ship. Slowly I’ll convert assets to cash and my will will instruct my attorney to hire a tug captain to tow the boat with my body into international waters and burn it. They can split the remaining cash in my bank accounts.
I figure if my genes, values, beliefs, and interests weren’t worth passing onto the next generation their by-products (ie my wealth) isn’t either.
After all, I don’t want to be a negative on society after my death. I did enough of that selfishness in life.
@david foster – Thank you for posting that review. I am going to be looking for that book. This portion really accused me:
My spiritual preparation for what was ahead was almost equally inadequate. Is it not said that in peacetime the chiefs of staff always prepare their armies as well as possible–for the previous war? I cannot judge the truth of that, but it is certainly true that conscientious parents always educate their sons for the era that is just over. I had all the intellectual endowments to play a decent part in the bourgeois world of the period before 1914. I had an uneasy feeling, based on what I had experienced, that it would not be of much help to me.
mea culpa,
mea culpa
mea maxima culpa.
Ideo precor beatam Mariam
semper Virginem,
orare pro filios meos ad Dominum Deum nostrum.
@Höllenhund
A witty reply from a woman would be this :
Offended ?
You shouldn’t be.
See that for what it really is :
A shit test.
And how to pass such a shit test then ? Well, you can say this :
There will be others methinks.
So it’s back to the noble cause of getting the win, or the noble art of getting into her panties … so that you may get into her heart.
That devolves down to two slogans then :
Women Need Men, and Men Need Game
OR
Women Need Men, and Men Need Prostitutes
Which is it now .? .. and which will it be in the future ?
Amen! I wrote about this for Good Men Project months ago:
http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/men-and-women-need-each-other-yes-we-do/
Great post, Susan.
Neely
Well said, I suppose. But, where’s the catch?
You’re moving in the right direction. But it could be a case of too little, too late.
Either women accept the patriarchy on their own, or they will be forced to accept it.
That’s the choice.
HerrKaiser
Except your option B often fails.
I got option C:
C. You become “clean cut”, you don’t get tattoos or piercing, you focus on
academics and personal achievement. For the next twenty years you will be
ignored by your peers; you will not attend the “cool” socials events, woman
will look pass you, and when a woman notices you, she will be on the lower end
of the attractiveness spectrum. However, at the end of twenty years with your
career success and income generation, but you still have very limited access
to woman. If you get one you’ll have to share her with the six-pack wielding but unemployed for two years (who knows how he makes money) other boyfriend. He’s the one she takes to weddings, too.
Sure, it beats being broke with nothing at 40 but being the clean cut guy, at least for my generation, was always the ticket to no women, or sharing either in real time or over time.
Option B is patriarchy, just ask your local feminist. And we can’t be having that.
Carmen:
I think perhaps you are confusing ‘mothering’ with ‘femininity’. They are related, but not the same thing. Being mothering to your residence mates is not going to get you a laid.
You are, however, on the money on the vulnerability aspect. If you can, please find the time to watch this talk by Brene Brown:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CL2jcwBc0HY
The gist is that our culture expects women to be perfect, which makes women neurotic perfectionists (my words, not hers). The solution is for women to show more vulnerability. She has a number of talks, but I chose this less popular one because it’s the only one in which she also talks about men. The line is, women would rather see a man die that fall off his white horse, and it’s basically saying that men aren’t permitted to show weakness.
Women need men, or so it is claimed. Maybe not.
http://alphagameplan.blogspot.com/2012/09/communication-and-la-difference.html#comment-form
This goes to the old standard. Look at a woman’s actions, not by what she says.
@INTJ and CanadianF
Imagine doing it at 46.
Decide now if you want an relationship and if you do find a good one now. It doesn’t get any easier with time. In fact, quite the opposite.
Regarding the path A: player versus path B: nice guy dichotomy, it’s a false choice. Nice guys and players are two sides of the same coin. A nice guy puts a women’s virtue up on a pedestal, a player puts a women’s pussy up on a pedestal. Both are supplicating themselves before women, and women hate that. If you want to be the stereotypical ‘gamma male’ or ‘great man’ depicted in romance novels then you need to be both lover and provider and yet not subordinate yourself to women in the process. I’m still at a loss as to whether it’s intelligent to try and be Ryan Gosling though, i.e. it feels like a fool’s game.
Today’s society has created grossly inflated expectations for women, both for themselves and for their mates. I’ve date a couple of women who are my equal in terms of accomplishments, and they were both neurotic perfectionists who didn’t love themselves. Absent testosterone, I don’t see how women can complete without messing themselves up psychologically. The women with managed expectations are around, but as I mentioned previously, all in relationships.
@Plain Jane
Fuck yoga studios. I was one of the most loyal (in time and money) of a yoga studio that opened by my work in 2002. I loved it. Until the feminists kept complaining to the owner about me for:
1. A response I made to a question of hers in a private conversation that didn’t offend her but did offend two feminists who overheard it (and then in front of her made disparaging remarks to me).
2. Complaining about me wearing a hash shirt (we were the “Hardfarts”) that they considered inappropriate. I had, in fact, avoided wearing it for that reason but on that day it was the only tee-shirt not already sweat soaked (and thus smelling) I had and figured it was better to be in a slightly inappropriate tee-shirt than reek.
In the end I was continually encouraged to “be more respectful” which really translated to “don’t renew your membership”.
I haven’t been back in a yoga studio since. I bought some videos and do yoga at home. I might pay for private instruction now, but fuck doing it in a group. I’m not welcome and learned that my unwelcomeness will be made clear in no uncertain terms.
@Thin-Skinned
Best line in the thread! Onto more serious matters:
You nailed it here, I’m afraid. I’ve never seen a better example of “misery loves company.” In fact, people who seem happy or contented in their lives are often treated very harshly. I think your idea to quit cold turkey is excellent. Personally, I don’t like spending time anywhere that brings me down. I confess that is even true for me at my own blog sometimes!
I’ve had readers write to me in the past and say that HUS was really bumming them out. The last thing I was to do is make people feel more hopeless and depressed. On the other hand, there is pain in growth, and I do see a lot of positive change occur for people who are willing to put in the work.
@Plain Jane
Just because they don’t need it doesn’t mean plenty don’t want it and, to be honest, feel entitled to it.
I complain about my lack of interest by women, However, one group has consistently provided one or two interested in me: single mothers one or two steps down the socio-economic ladder from me. They were very interested in a man with a steady job and a nice apartment. They weren’t interested in having kids with him (they already had kids, you see); they weren’t overly interested in sex. They were however interested in that you held a steady job and had a nice apartment.
See my note above about my genes et al not being good enough for the next generation in terms of my reactions to them.
@ Herb
Honestly, I can’t wait to have a relationship. The sooner the better.
Coming out of high school, I figured I’d find a nice relationship in college. Then I got here and took a look around me. I saw two cultures. One was the overall party culture pervasive in UT Austin, filled with drinking, partying, and to some extent hooking up. Then there was the other culture of nerdy guys stuck in various friend-zones (and nerdy girls using the favorable male-female ratios to seek as much casual sex as possible). I decided to bury myself in studies to avoid getting hurt.
Seriously, if the overall sexual marketplace is adversarial, the college SMP is like the cornucopia at the start of the Hunger Games – it’s a bloodbath, and if you don’t want to get hurt, you’d best get as far away from it as you can.
It’s always made me feel very sad when I hear people saying things about the ‘end of men’.
Really? It amuses me. It’s stupid, sensationalistic and short-sighted. Any heterosexual who is remotely in touch with their emotionality and sexuality has to realize that the “end of men” is an impossibility as is the end of women. While I’m sure sex roles will continue to evolve in response to conditions on the ground and that there will obviously be rough spots as things change, the “end of men” is the stuff of science fiction, dystopian science fiction at that. Hanna Rosin and the rest of the staff at The Atlantic are just trying to sell papers.
It’s the flipside of men saying that those Japanese sex robots will replace human women. Perhaps a few men will devote their lives to “relationships” with their sexbots, but how different will that be from past years in which a certain percentage of men never married? The future belongs to those who breed.
Mule….re the Haffner book, one passage I thought was very interesting is the one in which he summarizes some of the things he saw as positives in the Weimar era:
“Despite everything, one could find a fresh atmosphere in Germany at this time…The barriers between the classes had become thin and permeable…There were many students who were labourers, and many young labourers who were students Class prejudice and the starched-collar mentality were simply out of fashion. The relations between the sexes were freer and franker than ever–perhaps a fortunate by-product of the lack of discipline of the past years…we felt a bewildered sympathy for previous generations who had, in their youth, had the choice between unapproachable virgins for adoration and harlots for relaxation. Finally, a new hope even began to dawn in international relations; there was less prejudice and more understanding of the other side, and an unmistakable pleasure in the vivid variety that the world derives from its many peoples.”
Isn’t this pretty similar to things that could be said about the U.S. social revolution of the last few decades?
However, one group has consistently provided one or two interested in me: single mothers one or two steps down the socio-economic ladder from me. They were very interested in a man with a steady job and a nice apartment. They weren’t interested in having kids with him (they already had kids, you see); they weren’t overly interested in sex. They were however interested in that you held a steady job and had a nice apartment.
Herb,
You are clearly delusional and imagining these situations. Maybe you were asleep and dreaming. I’ve read a great number of times and been told repeatedly that the meme of women seeking beta providers for mostly economic reasons is absolutely false and that it has never been witnessed…..Yes, I am being a smart ass
@ Mike C
You might be just being a smart ass, but it’s a very important comment to make.
I’ve said numerous times that the theoretically optimal strategy for women is to seek alpha genes and then seek a beta provider to take care of them.
It’s hilarious how Plain Jane jumps up and down all the time about the so-called “Rape Culture” victimizing a bunch of college women and then promotes a complete agricultural transformation that would condemn the majority of the current human population to death by starvation.
IKR? If she were a guy, she’d be like one of Price’s minions, praying for the collapse of civilization and “Big daddy” government that’ll make the HB10s need them.
@ J
Lol yeah.
@Ian Ironwood
That is something that has always amazed me, the hippie “no consumer culture” types who think that their tractor or steel hoe doesn’t count (and when you get to the OWS crowd, their iPad either).
I think these people really are at a cargo cult level of understanding of the source of things. They need to have “I Pencil” beaten into their brains repeatedly.
@Canadian F
This is a risk, and it is important to escalate in step with the man. You can’t go hog wild with devotion after two dates. However, I would also like to point out that a man who is wary of signs of attachment – the very men who are quick to use the term Stage 5 Clinger – is a man you don’t want to waste time on. If a guy recoils when you demonstrate affection, that feels terrible but it’s a feature rather than a bug.
Women may need men, but more and more of them, if my son and his friends are any indication, will have to do without. Then we will see if the title of this post is true or not.
My older daughter has recently taken up with two girls she met at her school who are casualties of the Sexual Trench Warfare. Both were highly promiscuous in high school and male interest in them has almost entirely ceased. Both are medicated, both have gained 40 pounds in less than a year, and both are not yet 21. My wife and I are concerned. The envy these two girls have towards my daughter is palpable, but my daughter seems unaware of this and unwilling to recognize that these two girls do not have her best interests at heart.
The beast is also showing signs of rearing its ugly head in the life of my younger daughter as well: “There are only three cute boys in my class, Daddy. One of them likes me, but all the other girls like him too, and they keep saying mean things about me.”
In a couple of years I’ll have to send her over here as well. Despite what the usual suspects say, I think you perform a valuable service. Just your acknowledging that men have challenges in the SMP, and exposing young women to this novel and unsettling idea, is so rare as to be statistically vanishing.
@Obs, J1X and Byron
I have a solution to your problem. Read the first 2-3 sentences of a PJ post and then stop. Do not read further, and, for God’s sake, do not respond.
The first few lines are often quite cogent; then she tends to go off the rails.
@PJ
Sorry, but it’s true. I often find myself agreeing with your first couple of lines, and then you stick your foot in it. Please take this as helpful feedback. I think if you’d keep it short and sweet, you’d do better here.
Susan,
This post is so true…
I’ve said numerous times that the theoretically optimal strategy for women is to seek alpha genes and then seek a beta provider to take care of them.
Right….but Susan has mentioned repeatedly she believes the “fuck alpha cad and have his kids, seek out beta dad” meme is false, that she hasn’t witnessed it, and furthermore women have no reason to pursue this strategy. And then we’ve got Herb saying he runs into exactly this. So again, we are back to the divide of saying X but men running into something different in the real world that seems 180 degrees opposite.
Actually, there is a way to reconcile this I think and that is socioeconomic status and educational achievement. Susan is UMC if not upper class and has a high level of educational achievement, and I’m sure her entire cohort is UMC, highly educated women. She doesn’t associate with the sort of women that live in Ted D’s neighborhood. They are off her “radar screen”. If all you associate with are high SES women you’ll probably get an entirely different view and witness different behavioral patterns from low SES women.
My player/cad co-worker actually goes after a lot of low SES women (Hooters’ waitresses are a staple for him) and I’m always surprised at just how many 19. 20, 21, 22 year olds there are with out of wedlock kids. It really is rampant. These are the types of women who will spend their twenties fucking alpha cads like my co-worker and then one day at 30 when they’ve “matured” decide they want a nice guy provider when they don’t have the looks anymore to make good money waitressing at Hooters.
Key point there is one red flag is a woman who radically changes her mating/behavioral patterns. More often then not, it probably isn’t due to some come to Jesus moment, but more pragmatic self-interest.
I just clicked on Mule’s link. The amusing thing is that so many of the people who are angry at Susan still come here to post.
@MikeC
I think you may be onto something here. I saw this much more as a Domino’s manager, a LMC job, than I do today as a quant at a too big to fail bank, a decidedly UMC job. Then again, UMC women have much fewer out of wedlock children and divorce less.
I think another reason Susan pushes back is “fuck alpha cad and have his kids, seek out beta dad” is often presented as a thought out before hand strategy. It occurs, but not as a life plan. I think it is much more a “follow the thrill then make the best of stupid choices” post-facto strategy. If it was presented as that more often I think we’d get less push back.
I also think we’d have a better chance of changing things.
That does not, however, affect my desire to be the chump paying for someone else’s kids. I have, in the past five years or so, considered children a deal breaker unless you’re a widow.
@J
there’s been a slight misunderstanding – I don’t read beyond her name. she has no values, no honesty, no reasoning, no grip on reality, no value…
(keep telling everybody else though – cheers)
No, women don’t need men, nor men women. Not in the literal sense, though we may want each other quite a bit. As a high achiever in an okay marriage, I’d avoid marriage like the plague if I had it to do all over again. My wife is good and I am unstintingly loyal and faithful, but she could wipe me out in an instant after making a 60 minute visit to a guy who practices the euphemistically named “family law.” My feelings about marriage are not about her; it’s about what I’ve seen in the 20 years since we got married. I’d have never settled down with her or anybody knowing what I know now about how the system is biased against me (against men generally). Marriage has become a very bad investment for men.
As an attorney, I’d advise any business client looking at a long term contract this imbalanced to run like hell, and consider leaving that line of business entirely if that contract was representative of dealings in that field. There are better ways to sink capital than into a deal where the person bringing the long term investment bears all the risk.
It used to be that the immediate benefits of marriage included a woman offering her youth, beauty, vivaciousness and reproductive potential amd respect to a man, in exchange for his love and perpetual support. What she offered is the stuff that binds a man tightly to her at a mental and biological level, and what he offered was love and the means to take care of her as her beauty faded. But if she’s wasted herself on the cock carousel and is now ready to marry, odds are she’s a slightly fading 30-something woman, probably emotionally wounded in a number of respects, with looks about to drop off the cliff, she’s cynical, has high expectations, low tolerance for anything that doesn’t meet them, and will have trouble bonding as she’s an oxytocin junkie. She’s also probably pretty angry because she believes she is “settling,” because day-to-day life with her beta provider just doesn’t measure up to that hot weekend she spent with an Alpha in Bermuda, whose life surely is just a succession of weekends in Bermuda… So the man gets that, and takes on the responsibility of loving her without question, and supporting her… forever… even if she sticks it to him pretty badly down the road.
In any marketplace, when a commodity (in this case the benefits attached to marrying a woman) is volatile, long term contracts are disfavored and a “spot market” arises. With the destruction of Marriage 1.0, and conventional morality, women are a volatile commodity, it’s hard to say what one is worth and whether the long term investment – which makes a 30 year mortgage look small – is worth what you get. At the same time, society is incentivizing breech of contract, encouraging her to ditch that loser, take his money, and go have fun. So marriage winds up being a combination of uncertain benefits coupled to a steep price and a contract that the “sellers” friends keep urging her to tear up… tough to talk a buyer, a guy, into that sort of contract. So a SMP spot market has arisen.
The spot market in the SMP is hookup culture – a spot market for sex and fun, and it exists because the long term contracts the SMP used to push just aren’t attractive for the buyer. Spot markets don’t end at short term sales though. Clever buyers and sellers in spot markets engage in risk arbitrage, secondary contracts (options, and derivatives insuring those options) to limit the damage if the underlying commodities purchase goes pear-shaped. Ahem. In the SMP, these are Friends-with-Benefits, soft harems, booty calls, mistresses, Option B girls, recycling your 40 year old girlfriend for two 20 year olds, or in the seller’s case, the Bad Boy that the girl keeps on the side to get the fun that the Beta provider just doesn’t bring. That way there’s plenty of sex and fun to go around, without anybody having to deal with the complications and risk of the long term contract.
Biologically humans don’t change but we broke the culture, so in the long run, we will get more of this, a harsh spot market for an SMP, a bit of risk arbitrage, and no sane “buyer” on the market will enter into a long term contract, though a good looking, profitable “buyer” will remain attractive to the sellers, who will still keep hoping for the big score. Face it, a million dollar long term contract is a lot nicer than a thousand one-day thousand dollar contracts. The sellers will also be reluctant knowing that in long term contracts, it’s a buyer’s market, and the buyers have gotten squirelly and are increasingly willing to break off a contract for a variety of reasons, including seller’s inability to deliver sufficient value.
The anti-male animus of feminism, blaming men for this – as feminists blame men for all things – is well and good, but this situation isn’t men’s fault. We haven’t changed, and as any woman with a brain knows, men aren’t really capable of much in the way of change. Women’s political actions and sexual actions in the SMP are what have changed this market balance, and one consequence is that women have gotten what they wanted, while destroying Marriage 1.0 in the process, ironically enough preventing women from getting what they say they want. Increasingly, we will probably see something that looks like European trends – nobody gets married, anybody can walk out on anybody at any time, and the population is crashing because reproduction is utterly disincentivized. On the other hand, the majority of women who have kids are essentially married to the state, which becomes the primary provider in those (don’t stigmatize them, sexist!) single mom households.
Hookup culture, loneliness, single moms, disease – this is the future. Quit trying to revive Marriage 1.0 and weeping about its death because your mom and your sisters destroyed it. Making slutting around more acceptable, sacramentalizing sex outside wedlock, abortion and birth control, more laws benefitting women and destroying men in divorce, and churches that insist it’s always the man’s fault – this is veering things in the wrong direction, even if it makes women feel lovely and accepted in the short term. And meanwhile, the schools are pretty unfriendly to boys, so you can expect more dumbass slacker boys to drop out and go their own way – your question isn’t going to be where the good ones went, but why there aren’t any men at all in your social circles. Fish don’t usually need bicycles but you’re going to have a tough time getting across town to the hen party on foot, dears…
If I was a young guy, this would be a pretty good deal in a way – a lot of sex. no responsibilities. With an upward career arc, I’d do a lot of bed hopping, and trekking and sailing and going to NFL road games with buddies. I’d probably be an even higher high achiever if I didn’t have to cut my workdayoff at 11-12 hours and hustle home for dinner with the fam. So this would be a pleasant trip until middle-middle age, and then I’d have a reasonable slide into senescence, padded with all the money I avoided investing into a marriage, kids, kid’s college, and care of the wife. There’s none of the deep satisfaction of raising kids and having a good marriage, but it wouldn’t be bad and I’d avoid the ridiculous downside risk.
The tough question for me right now is what to tell my son in a few years about how to navigate this brave new world of dating. He’s kicking butt in school (unlike 60% of his peers) and is a nice guy and jock, he’s going to be able to have his way in life… and I’m leaning toward teaching him game at an early age to give him a leg up in the SMP and keep him out of trouble with the bad actors on the market, even though I know it’s going to result in a 10 year romp through local women’s bedrooms, or longer if he chooses not to settle down. I’d rather have him wind up a PUA than an abused Herb.
As a young woman… well, you’re lving your mom’s dream. Try to enjoy it. The career is pretty rewarding as long as you can validate yourself through pay raises and overtime bonuses, but the endless supply of guys willing to sleep with you ends when you hit about 32, and the limited supply of guys willing to kiss your ass just to be with you dries up just about entirely at age 40. Better get in the Woooooo! fun now because it’s cats and your circle of angry, bitter 45 year old single and recently divorced friends later on. Your mom & sisters may have killed Marriage 1.0, but they didn’t kill the SMP. It still operates under the same rules.
@Joe Blow
…demonstrating why nobody really need attorneys.
@ Mike C
I think for UMC women it’s more “fuck alpha cad while using insurance-covered birth control, then seek out beta dad when you’re 40 and hope you can still have kids.”
Men need to be needed, but do they needed to be needed for conforming to a stereotype?
I just about lost it when Susan implied “manning the grill” was naturally male task. Who do you think manned the grill back when the grill was a open fire in Mesopotamia?
@Starviolet
I want to address this directly.
First, in discussing women’s need for men I am referring to a hardwired biological instinct. Feminism did not, and could not, alter that. I do acknowledge in the post that women increasingly do not rely on men for financial support, but of course we have many other needs.
I have no problem with your saying women want men rather than need them, but just as the fish in the cartoon is dying to ride that bike, so too women want men very much. The number of young heterosexual women who dispense with men altogether is miniscule and will always be so.
Regarding men’s ability to meet women’s emotional needs, I would observe two things:
1. Women expect way too much of men. They are responsible for their own happiness and personal growth.
2. Men fall in love sooner and more deeply than women do. They rely on women for emotional intimacy more than women rely on them.
As a woman, have many outlets for emotional intimacy, including friends, family, my children and my husband. But my husband is by far the most important source, and has been a sensitive and empathic partner for 30 years.
I will say that if a woman wants a man to be in tune emotionally, she should avoid very dominant males, who generally have lower EQ than other males.
@ GudEnuf
Nobody. They “womaned the grill”.
(Yes, I know about the word roots and how man was a gender neutral term back in the days of wyf and weir, but it’s still funny to make a joke.)
@GudEnuf
Look up “grilling competitions” and see who participates. I’ve been known to grill zucchini over gas, but I do not know a single woman who enjoys cooking with charcoal or tending the fire. Come to think of it, my husband does fireplace duty as well.
Perhaps this communion with the element of fire is one of the few connections modern man has to his distant past. Perhaps he did no cooking in Mesopotamia, but grilling with a Big Green Egg is as close as he can get today. This would also explain men’s love of hunting – a return to the now unnecessary but still primal mission.
OH MY GOD!!
You just became my new personal spirit guide.
@ Susan
FML. I don’t like either.
“insurance-covered birth control”
aka
public provided prolific penis pouncing party pills…
I’m going to pimp myself here and try to go over why I think so many of the conversations on here degenerate to men and women talking past each other. The key is to avoid triggering an emotional response, because then the rational brain goes bye-bye and no further debate is possible. This means men shouldn’t trigger anxiety and fear in women, and the collolory is that women should’t trigger anger and bitterness in men.
http://7thseriesgongshow.blogspot.ca/2012/09/how-not-to-argue-with-woman.html
I’m posting this here because I basically triggered the fight in the last post, but I walked away from it. I haven’t read the last 100+ post in the BU Terriers post, and I’m not going to because I know it’s a waste of time (which is why I’m posting this here, not to derail the thread, but to talk about it in a less charged atmosphere).
@Susan
On Chopped last night the theme was grilling, and the only contestant with a history in BBQ competitions was a woman who makes her living via such competitions.
@CanadianF
You’re not alone. I would say most young people I talk to, both men and women are fatigued and discouraged by the whole scene. Ultimately, that leads to inertia – which is why we’ve got way too few good relationships (with good sex) happening.
My wife bought me a BBQ grill because she knows I want it. I also want a wood fire pizza oven and a smoker.
Men seem to enjoy cooking outdoors. I know I do. Women are better at baking, which I love eating, but they are too time consuming.
Cooking can be consider gender based on the foods we enjoy.
@Samael
We do need men as much. A nurturing female provides her man with emotional intimacy, but she gets it from other females as well as him. He provides for her in other ways – for example, he offers her protection and strength, but doesn’t really seek that from a female partner. If he needed to call in reinforcements, he would get it from other males.
Grilling….one could do a whole book or PhD thesis (someone probably already has) on practices, folklore, and tradition in male and female uses of fire. Consider: cooking, pottery, heating, small-scale metalworking (for use), small-scale metalworking (for adornment), large-scale metalworking (blast furnaces, etc), power (steam engines),…
Speaking of fire for heating, in the Tom Watson Jr book I mentioned some time back, he had a family story about how his parents (his father was the founder of IBM) first got married, his mother told Tom Sr to go check the furnace before bed. He asked why it needed to be checked, and Mrs Watson said she didn’t know, but that her father had always done it. So he did. The story ended with the house filled with some and, IIRC, narrowly escaping burning down.
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